LUCA Forms, Letters, User Guides, and other Items

D-1686(LTW)
(Date)
(Entity Name)
(Entity Code)
(Contact ID)
(Recipient Name) (Position - allow for 45 character spaces)
(Department Name)
(Mailing Address)
(City) (State) (ZIP+4)
Dear (Name of Contact)
Recently, the U.S. Census Bureau invited the chief executive/highest elected official of
your government to participate in the 2010 Decennial Census Local Update of Census
Addresses (LUCA) Program. The LUCA Program, authorized by the Census Address
List Improvement Act of 1994 (Public Law 103-430), provides tribal, state, and local
governments the opportunity to review and update the Census Bureau’s address list.
The accuracy and completeness of the Census Bureau’s address list is critical to the enumeration
process and the quality of the resulting census data. Through your government’s participation in
the LUCA Program, your local knowledge can help ensure that we achieve complete coverage in
our enumeration of your jurisdiction.
Our records indicate that the area covered by your jurisdiction is entirely within the boundary of
a federally-recognized American Indian reservation and/or off-reservation trust land. For the
LUCA Program, the Census Bureau will not provide any addresses contained within the
boundary of any federally-recognized American Indian reservation and/or off-reservation trust
land on the Census Bureau’s address list to any government other than the relevant tribal
government. This policy is in keeping with the Census Bureau’s recognition of the unique
government-to-government relationship between the federal government and federallyrecognized tribes. The Census Bureau nonetheless encourages tribal governments to coordinate
their address list review with, or to delegate (if they do not plan to participate) review authority
to, neighboring local governments or the state government. In the event that the tribal
government chooses not to coordinate its review, your government can still participate in the
LUCA Program if your government has a list of city-style (e.g. 101 Main St.) addresses for your
jurisdiction that you would like to submit.
Although your government cannot review the individual addresses for your jurisdiction, your
government can still participate in the LUCA Program through Option 3. Option 3 offers you an
opportunity to submit your local computer-readable address file (city-style addresses only) to the
Census Bureau. For reference, Option 3 participants receive the Census Bureau’s computerreadable address count list, which contains address counts for each of the census blocks within
your jurisdiction. If your government chooses to participate in the LUCA Program, you will be
able to:

•

Submit your local address list containing only city-style addresses to the Census Bureau in
the Census Bureau specified computer-readable format; and

•

Review and update your legal boundaries and features on the Census Bureau maps.

The enclosed flyer, Will Your Community Be Ready for the 2010 Decennial Census Local
Update of Census Addresses (LUCA) Program?, provides an overview of the LUCA Program.
The flyer answers questions that may assist your government in deciding whether to participate
in this program. We have also enclosed two computer-based training (CBT) CD-ROMs. One
CBT CD-ROM provides background and instructions in participating in the LUCA Program.
The second CBT CD-ROM contains instructional information on the Census Bureau’s
MAF/TIGER Partnership Software (available free of charge to LUCA Program participants), a
geographic information system software application that allows your government to update map
information.
We will supply your LUCA materials as soon as possible after we receive your government’s
completed registration forms. You have 120 days from the date you receive your LUCA
materials to submit your address list. We will accept registrations up until December 31, 2007,
but can guarantee the full 120-day review period only for governments registering by
November 19, 2007. If you register before October 31, 2007, you have the opportunity to
provide legal boundary updates along with your address list, and the Census Bureau will not send
you the 2008 Boundary and Annexation survey package in January 2008.
Please review the enclosed information and contact your chief executive/highest elected official about
your government’s participation. Your chief executive/highest elected official received the forms
required to register to participate in the LUCA Program. If you have any questions regarding the LUCA
Program, please contact your Census Bureau Regional Office by telephone at 1-866-511-LUCA (5822)
or via e-mail at [RO e-mail address].
Sincerely,

Charles Louis Kincannon
Director
Enclosures