The U.S. Census Bureau will post somebody in the Park City area five days per week to answer questions and assist people who need help understanding how to fill out the forms in the once-a-decade tallying of people living in the United States.

The Questionnaire Assistance Centers will be located at:

the Park City Library and Education Center on Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays. Hours on Mondays are 10 a.m. until 1 p.m. and hours on Tuesdays and Thursdays are from 10 a.m. until 12:30 p.m.

St. Mary’s Catholic Church on S.R. 224 on Wednesdays and Sundays. Hours are from 4 p.m. until 8 p.m. at St. Mary’s.

The centers will be operating until April 19.

A Census Bureau official based in Salt Lake City said people who receive mail at their homes should have received questionnaires in the middle of March. People who do not have mail delivered to their homes and rely on post-office boxes could have received their forms as early as the first part of March.

Everyone should receive a census form by the end of March, either through the mail or delivered to their home, said Daniel Pacheco, a Salt Lake City-based Census Bureau official.

the middle of the week, the Census Bureau counted a 10 percent participation rate by people living in Summit County who returned the forms through the mail, lower than the 19 percent statewide rate and the 16 percent nationwide rate. In the 2000 census, the Summit County rate was 42 percent.

The midweek figure of people returning forms through the mail, though, was even lower in Park City, where the Census Bureau said there had been a 3 percent participation rate. In 2000 the rate was 28 percent.

If someone does not return the forms through the mail, the Census Bureau tries to count them on a door-to-door basis. That phase starts at the end of April, Pacheco said.

Meanwhile, a group of Park City-area volunteers, known as the Complete Count Committee, is considering methods to promote the census. Bret Howser, City Hall’s budget officer and the staffer working with the group, said the committee is especially interested in assisting census takers count groups that are traditionally underrepresented in the tally, such as minorities and people who move often.

Census numbers play an important role in numerous decisions made by Washington, the Statehouse and local governments. Many government-funding formulas are based on census results, as an example. Meanwhile, congressional and Statehouse boundaries will be redrawn after the census is taken.

The Census Bureau in 2008 estimated there were 36,100 people living in Summit County, up 21.4 percent from the 29,736 counted in the 2000 census. The growth rate in the county slowed considerably in the last decade, though, when compared to the 90-plus percent rate recorded in the 1990s.

More information is available on the Census Bureau’s Web site, www.census.gov. A toll-free help line is available at 1-866-872-6868.