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player ready...Hunting for lost souls and vanishing dollars, officials of the six Du Page towns that supposedly lost population over the last decade will be crunching numbers and searching block by block in the next few weeks to try to prove that a preliminary U.S. Census Bureau count is wrong.
If the bureau`s preliminary figures released Wednesday are accurate, those six towns-Clarendon Hills, Elmhurst, Hinsdale, Itasca, Oakbrook Terrace and Villa Park-stand to lose thousands of state and federal dollars annually that are doled out according to a town`s population.
The population decline flies in the face of dramatic growth across the rest of Du Page County. As a whole, the county`s population grew to 781,239 in 1990 from 658,835 in 1980, a 19 percent jump, according to the preliminary figures.
Even communities that showed a hefty gain in the preliminary count, such as Naperville and Carol Stream, may challenge the figures in hopes of getting more money.
Bureau officials said that they know the preliminary figures are incomplete and that they released them in part to let municipal officials tell them where they might have missed people. The bureau plans to double-check its figures and could adjust them before the final count is released in January.
”I`m disppointed but not totally surprised,” said Village Manager Paul Wenbert of Villa Park, which showed an 8 percent drop to 21,408 from 23,163.
If the preliminary figures are correct, Villa Park stands to lose about $91,000 a year-or $52 a person-in returns from the state income tax and motor- fuel tax, Wenbert said. He said the village has had only a minor increase in housing stock through the decade. He added that because the village`s housing prices have stayed relatively affordable, some young families have been moving into homes that had been ”empty nests.”
The preliminary figures said Oakbrook Terrace dropped by 31 percent, to 1,583 this year from 2,285 in 1980; Elmhurst dropped by 5 percent, to 41,867 from 44,276; Hinsdale dropped by 4 percent, to 16,009 from 16,726; Clarendon Hills dropped by 3 percent, to 6,691 from 6,870; and Itasca dropped by 2 percent, to 6,952 from 7,129.
Elmhurst City Manager Thomas P. Borchert said, ”Our population projection, which parallels the Northeastern Illinois Planning Commission`s, is that it should be somewhere around 45,000-plus.”
Max Dieber, research director at NIPC, said he was not surprised by the negative figures in Du Page.
He pointed to the region`s declining household size and the six communities` location along the eastern edge of the county as factors that might explain their possible drop in population.
The average county household size dropped to 2.92 from 3.56 people during the 1970s, and a 1985 NIPC study found that downward trend continuing, Dieber said. So, areas that did not increase their housing stock substantially could have lost population.
Dieber also said that like the towns just over the border in western Cook County, some eastern Du Page towns have been showing more people moving out than moving in.
Neighboring Kane County`s population apparently grew by 13 percent over the last decade, to 314,934 from 278,405. But seven of Kane`s 19 towns-Batavia, Burlington, Carpentersville, East Dundee, Montgomery, North Aurora and Pingree Grove-showed drops in population.