City of Columbia, Missouri

Meeting Minutes

City Council

Council Chamber

Columbia City Hall

701 E. Broadway

Monday, November 1, 2021

7:00 PM

Regular

I. INTRODUCTORY ITEMS

The City Council of the City of Columbia, Missouri met for a regular

meeting at approximately 7:00 p.m. on Monday, November 1, 2021, in the

Council Chamber of the City of Columbia, Missouri.

The Pledge of

Allegiance was recited, and the roll was taken with the following results:

Council Member KARL SKALA, Council Member IAN THOMAS, Council

Member MATT PITZER, Council Member BETSY PETERS, Mayor BRIAN

TREECE, Council Member PAT FOWLER, and Council Member

ANDREA WANER were present. City Manager John Glascock, City

Counselor Nancy Thompson, City Clerk Sheela Amin, and various

Department Heads and Staff Members were also present.

Mayor Treece explained the minutes were not yet complete for the July 19,

2021, August 16, September 7, September 20, October 4, and October 18

regular meetings.

Council Member Fowler asked that R170-21, R171-21, and R172-21 be

moved from the consent agenda to new business.

The agenda, including the consent agenda with R170-21, R171-21, and

R172-21 being moved to new business, was approved unanimously by

voice vote on a motion by Mayor Treece and a second by Council Member

Skala.

II. SPECIAL ITEMS

None.

III. APPOINTMENTS TO BOARDS AND COMMISSIONS

None.

IV. SCHEDULED PUBLIC COMMENT

SPC60-21

Aida Guhlincozzi - The importance of data transparency and accessibility.

Aída Guhlincozzi spoke.

GUHLINCOZZI:

name is, as

My name is Dr. Aída Guhlincozzi. Okay, so, hello, City Council. My

mentioned, Dr. Aída Guhlincozzi. I’m geographer here in Columbia

from Ward 6, and I've been paying close attention to the ward redistricting

discussions. It’s very important and

to the materials coming out of City Council, given the maps -- and so this is actually

not about redistricting. understand that that's on the agenda. But given -- this is an

example -- given the maps that we've seen from the City GIS office, wanted to

provide an example for what anyone should look for when given map, and this is

for the general public as well as yourselves. I've created -- and these are some of

the questions that know some of the public have had about in regards to these

maps -- and so this is just meant to serve as contrast. I've created several maps

using 2020 census racial and ethnicity data that shade each ward by the number of

white, black, or Latinx people in them. So, this one is the Latinx population, and

the important thing to know about any map is that there are several key items that

anyone looking at map should look for to know more about the map, that are very

I care about a greatly. And I’ve paid attentively

informative and very important for data transparency and accessibility. And so, one

is the projected coordinate system -- wonderful, okay -- is the projected coordinate

system. This is the chosen grid that the cartographer has chosen to use for adjusting

the geographic information from

spherical 3D representation to

flat 2D one.

They're very important. The next is the title. This is an important detail because it

tells you about the map and what the map is. Next is the origin or the north arrow

telling us what direction the map is facing, and it helps the viewer orient

themselves in relation to the map and where they are. Next is the data source. The

data source is very crucial because it tells us where the data came from, and we

need to know that information whenever we are looking at any kind of data

because there's all kinds of details that go into the data and where it comes from

and how it's created. And next is the scale bar. This tells us the ratio of the map

distance to the ground distance, again very important, because that's how we can

relate the map to real world. And then there's the legend, and the legend is crucial

to knowing what different elements on the map mean. The author, and this is very

important -- to know who made the map because they may have reasons for the

cartographic choices they made. It’s me in this case, and I'd always be able to

answer those questions about why

to ensure relevancy to the map itself and our current lives. So you can see all of

these elements throughout the maps that I’ve provided. As mentioned, I've done

other maps on the white population and also the black population by Columbia

ward. encourage you to compare these maps I’ve provided with the wards

redistricting maps and any other future maps that you may see going forward in this

process. hope this is helpful to both the public and City Council as we move

I made the choices I made. And lastly, the date

forward in the redistricting process and any process that may involve spatial data in

the future. Maps are powerful and they can be powerful tools that need to be

crafted carefully and with rigor to ensure transparency and accessibility. No map is

perfect.

can tell you that

have critiques of these own maps of mine that

I made

already, and how --

have ways

would have improved them, and have been given

feedback as well from the public on how to improve them. However, there are

important standards in the public for all public distribution of data in any form,

including maps. And these standards are key to guaranteeing transparency and

access when it comes to the display and distribution of data. So, thank you so much

for your time, and that's it.

SPC61-21

Alexis Stockwell and Malori Chrisman - Sidewalks in Mizzou's Greek Town

in terms of accessibility barriers and a request for a plan of action for their

repair.

Alexis Stockwell spoke.

STOCKWELL:

Hi everyone.

My name is Alexa Stockwell and that is Mallory

Chrisman. We're both students at the University of Missouri and we are here

representing the Panhellenic Association Accessibility Committee. This Committee

increases

accessibility

PHA

and

Greek

Life

through

ensuring

proactive

accommodations are put in place for future member or current members, and we

increase representation of the disabled population in Greek Life. We are here to

discuss accessibility issues evident in Greek Town sidewalks, and to create an

action plan for repairs. Mallory just passed out photos to the council members so

you guys can visualize the issues that we are discussing today, and she'll take

minute to describe them now.

CHRISMAN:

drops off without being marked, areas without curb cuts, where the sidewalk

abruptly ends and there isn't sidewalk or crosswalk at all, and the large cracks and

As you look at these pictures, notice the areas where the sidewalk

holes in the concrete. As college students we rely on sidewalks to get us

everywhere on campus, and we don't think much about it when we are walking

over these flaws in the concrete. However, as

crutches or with physical or visual disability, having curb cuts, and clearly marked

dips in the sidewalk are crucial to get where they need to be safely. When the

sidewalk ends abruptly or does not even have crosswalk, it poses major

accessibility issue. For few years now, this committee has been advocating for

a college student in a wheelchair, on

the City of Columbia to repair these sidewalks. Last year we decided to start this

conversation up again to try to fix this problem, and it fired up the Mizzou Greek

and Columbia community.

Leadership at Mizzou tried to help us as much as they

could, but Greek Town is not their property. It's the City of Columbia’s. We are here

today to personally ask that the City of Columbia assist us with the repair of these

sidewalks.

STOCKWELL:

We recognize that this is a large undertaking and one that might not

seem necessary given the location and the resident status of many of the people

who live there. However, this is an issue that needs to be addressed now. Disability

is an important aspect of diversity. Twenty percent of Americans have some form of

disability. How are we to be inclusive as

community if we are neglecting such

large group within our population?

By repairing the sidewalks, you are showing

that you value the disabled community and that you value the students who have

come to the City and makes the City what it is. Our first request to you is that we

are put in contact with the proper individuals to discuss the sidewalks, and to

create an action plan for their repair. Our second request is that we have an action

plan prepared by the end of the calendar year, so December 31 2021. We want this

plan to include

a timeline for a repair construction that is attainable and able to be

implemented quickly and effectively. This plan could even take advantage of

academic breaks when Greek housing will be empty and streets clear of vehicles.

Our last request is that these repairs happen in

a timely fashion. Ideally, we'd like

all repairs to be complete by the end of 2022, but the sooner the better. You all

have the power to ensure that students with disabilities can access their homes and

that our community becomes

more inclusive place for years to come. So, kind of,

little bit of time for questions,

as we're wrapping up here -- and then if there's

you could ask, but

wheelchair. Her name’s Olivia Holler and she told me “I don't like going through

Greek Town even though live here because the sidewalks are horrible. try to

avoid the area. go up to the hospital and then back around to campus when

leaving or returning to my house.” Help us create living environment that allows

spoke with

member of PHA earlier today. She uses

students, like Olivia, to access and enjoy their homes. Help us repair the sidewalks

now.

TREECE:

Thank you so much for bringing that to our attention. There is

a process for

that, and

wouldn't be surprised someone comes to talk to you after your

presentation tonight.

SPC62-21

Bruce Alspaugh - Broadband Business Planning Task Force.

Bruce Alspaugh spoke.

ALSPAUGH:

on the Magellan Advisors recommendations and appointed the Broadband Business

Planning Task Force to establish collaborative process to bring together important

stakeholders, including the City, the University, the providers, and the general

public, to develop broadband business plan with an eye towards making

affordable and reliable broadband access available throughout the City. It was also

envisioned that the Task Force would rely on consultant to pick up where

Magellan left off, and assist in the development of the business plan. Due to

COVID-19, quorum failures, and other issues, progress has not been as fast as

would like, but we are finally starting to make progress on an RFP for consultant.

You can see draft of that RFP in the meeting materials from our October meeting

Good evening, Mr. Mayor.

In 2019, the City Council followed through

as we continue to solicit input into the development of that RFP. And that goes for

City Council as well, so if you have things you’d like for us to look at least, please let

me know. After our October meeting,

Members about -- asking about another RFP for private providers to deploy,

operate, and maintain broadband internet network that had unexpectedly

appeared on the City website. After reading that RFP, he felt that the rug had been

completely pulled out from under the Task Force by jumping ahead to

implementation before the Task Force had chance to make any recommendations

at all. And frankly, since was not aware that there was another RFP being

developed, didn't know what to tell him. It makes me wonder what meeting

might have missed. It makes me wonder what the public input process was into the

development of RFP. So, the reason appear before you today is to make simple

appeal for better communication between Task Force, staff, City Council, and the

public so that we're all on the same page together. When had chance to read that

RFP, there were three things that stood out. One, first, why the rush to have it in

place by the end of the year? It was such short timeline for applicants to submit

I got a call from one of my fellow Task Force

their bids. You may not receive the quality or quantity of bids that you desire. Also,

due to the fact that the responses will be made public, you might not receive bids

at all from outstanding companies that have business reasons not to have their

name out there. We aren't talking about

about expensive infrastructure that will be in place for decades. So I’m not sure

what difference little additional time would make. It's worth it to take the time to

a bid for paper towels here. We're talking

get it right. I’d be more than happy to serve on an evaluation committee for the

responses to this RFP with an eye towards not just the responses you received, but

the ones you didn’t. By reference, the bids are due on November 9 and our next

task force meeting is November 10. Second,

I didn't know that strategic plan areas

were

strategic plan areas had more to do with community policing, which is completely

outside of our scope. would be happy to have Task Force look into these areas,

priority for broadband infrastructure.

was under the impression that the

but it needs to be explained to us what the connection is with broadband. It would

also be helpful if we had broadband maps that would show us which regions within

those areas are served by which providers. The Task Force has spent

a lot of time

trying to obtain coverage maps, but it's proved difficult because some of the

providers consider their maps to be proprietary information they don't want to

share with their competitors.

My third concern has to do with the ownership of the

fiber. There is sentence in that RFP that reads “all aspects of the service facilities

and appurtenances shall be the responsibility of the contractor and shall be owned

by the contractor.” At least with the IBM deal the City owns the building. If all the

facilities and appurtenances are owned by the contractor, the City could wind up

owning nothing after the contract is complete. This is not consistent with the

Magellan recommendations, which envisioned that the fiber would be owned by

the City and leased to providers to cover the costs of construction and

maintenance, and also provide customers

leasing. The City would be in position of having to pay high prices for -- to use

broadband infrastructure that they helped to finance to put in in the first place if

that happens. So there you have it. few concerns as to how an RFP of this

choice of providers from among those

magnitude could show up on the City website without any opportunity for public

input in the development of the RFP and whether that RFP is even in the best

interest of the City and ordinary citizens.

The Task Force was established by the

City Council, appointed by the City Council to advise the City Council. In other

words, we work for you. I'm asking you to help us to help you by keeping us better

informed. This could be done in

open door or closed door, however you want to do. But perhaps the simplest

solution would be to consider taking it down until you have chance to get public

Task Force that can help

a variety of ways. We could have a joint meeting,

input into the development of that RFP, and you have

you with that. Thank you.

SPC63-21

Brian Page - One man's view on healing from societal hate.

Brian Page spoke and provided a handout.

PAGE:

Good evening, Mayor Treece and Council.

I'm requesting five minutes for

this evening.

Tonight, I’ll be talking again about human behavior. Our behavior

hinges on how our parents and other family members treated us. If we were

nurtured, we use the better, smarter brain, the neocortex, God given brain. But if

we were abused by parents and others, we surrender to the medulla oblongata in

limbic brains. they are the hyper vigilant, obsessive, and fearful aspects about us.

They keep us reactionary instead of our rightful place to be reasoned and

responsive. It’s childhood wounding that has reactionaries convinced that they

can't and won't learn anything from me.

they will not let that happen. strange aspect about human behavior is that if you

learned betrayal as child from your parents and feel superior to any person, place,

To admit that is to admit utter failure, and

or thing you will betray them, because they are fair game. Kind of sobering, isn't it?

When anyone harshly judges another, they skip out on themselves and the other

person. Men are and feel responsible for their actions. Mama's boys don't take

responsibility seriously. They are dangerous and often drunks. If you don't always

like your appearance, then you will really hate the way

exaggerating point sometimes then you'll believe that

look. If you find yourself

I will never stop talking.

Those are examples of projection of

character flaw onto the person you were

judging harshly. Life said to me if you want something good, work for it. Everybody

has to work for what you want even though you may want to steal it. Oppressives

lack maturity, and the males are mama's boys. Men work for what they want, and

what they have and mama's boys believe it should be given to them. I'm thinking of

Josh Hawley out on

meltdown because

limb claiming the absurd. I'm thinking of Fred Parry having

woman, our county health director, enforced facemasks to

sustain our health. There are young kids in Columbia in their 20s, who got COVID,

got over it, and are now showing up with pulmonary embolisms, unable to breathe.

Many of these kids will have to go on social security disability because of

falsehoods and poor judgment impulse control. They were the hope of the future.

Now they’ve become our national regret. Childhood wounding has such

profound

impact on society worldwide. It explains how Jews hate and suppress the

Palestinians, their tribal cousins. It explains white self-justification to suppress the

world while screaming, it's the other guys who are guilty. It’s the Republican

National Committee whose current platform is to cause chaos and destroy

everything that's good in the name of God, the dollar bill. God put me in

situation. seem to be the local human Geiger counter. When walk into

there are many eyes that suddenly glower.

will walk across room and shove, kick, or attempt to make me fall. These are all

Class 4 assaults. God tells me to kick butt defending myself if they break skin.

Otherwise, God and create humor making these oppressives the butt of our jokes.

So far, my favorite prank is to ask jerky boy who's sharing his feminized humor,

strange

a room,

Supposed men in 25 year old bodies

what gonzo Girl Scout troop taught you that joke. My encouragement to anyone

who will listen is to use the Serenity Prayer to pull yourself out of anxiety and into

serenity. When you take self out of self-absorption, there is no need for the old,

habituated intensity.

had to surrender to God in order to find sanity, reclaiming

what parents attempted and failed to emotionally castrate for me. God is my

constant companion, best friend ever, and personal prosecutor, judge, jury, and

jailer. It's

a quirky, great life that I have, and I'm looking forward to reunite with my

honey, Gale Jean Plemmons. Thank you.

SPC64-21

Lillian G. Davis - Traffic, speeding, and child safety.

Lilian Davis spoke.

DAVIS: Good evening, Mr. Mayor.

TREECE: Hi, good evening. Good to see you.

DAVIS: Sorry about my speech.

moments. The first thing want to do is speaking about the speed on the street

where live. see children playing in the street and see people's pets getting --

they run out of the house every now. They break loose and they got run, but hate

like the dickens to see child get ran over. Not too long ago, seen young man

who hit jeep and turned over right across the street from me. And, we need

speed bumps on the street, and that street’s name is Sanford. This is just small

portion of the speed problem. The Worley Street -- I've seen people passing other

vehicles, and person on bicycle, in wheelchair, or on scooter, and I'm not

talking about Bird scooters. I'm talking about three-wheeled one. Will be upon

that person -- their going to die because they hit -- that person's going to be

severely hurt, and if they have health problem, they're going to die. So, I'm asking

Just bear with me. I will probably have a few senior

for speed bumps, and you can check the speed on Worley. It's great. And there's

another place that we have problems with, and that is over on Broadway, East

Broadway at Williams. There's no crosswalk there, and people pull up and they

block the ramp, and they make person in wheelchair that’s handicapped -- they

can't reach the access to the ramp -- to that ramp. They've got it blocked off. And,

think just about covered everything there is to say. Well, except, thank you very

much for your time, and thank you for your patience with me, gentlemen and

ladies. I think I covered it, Pat, pretty well.

TREECE: Thank you very much.

DAVIS: Mr. Mayor, thank you very much for your time you spent here at City Hall.

TREECE: Thank you very much.

V. PUBLIC HEARINGS

PH43-21

Proposed construction of the south parking lot expansion project at the

Columbia Regional Airport.

PH43-21 was read by City Clerk Sheela Amin.

Airport Manager Mike Parks provided a staff report.

PARKS:

Good evening, Mayor and Council, I’m Mike Parks, the Airport Manager.

accordance with

2019 Supplemental Terminal Area Master Plan recommendation

for additional parking at Columbia Regional Airport, staff proposes to expand the

south parking lot, located directly west of the new terminal. The project will

include

new pavement section for an additional 93 standard parking spaces, six

handicap parking spaces, lighting, storm sewers, curb and gutters, and pavement

markings at an estimated cost of $550,715. The project will be funded by

transportation sales tax and enterprise revenue appropriated in FY21. The parking

lot expansion is expected to be completed during the spring of 22, prior to the

opening of the new terminal. An IP meeting was held on October 8, and there were

no comments. If Council concurs with staff’s recommendation -- staff requests

direction to move forward with final plans and specifications for the expansion of

the south parking lot at the airport. Questions?

Mayor Treece opened the public hearing.

Traci Wilson-Kleekamp spoke.

WILSON-KLEEKAMP: Good evening, Tracy Wilson-Kleekamp. Just

just don't know -- are we going to charge for parking in this new parking lot?

TREECE: My thinking is no. There’s no change.

question and

GLASCOCK: We don't plan to this time.

WILSON-KLEEKAMP:

do so little with our public transportation. Last year, we didn’t spend

on public transportation. But, don't understand why we have bad sidewalks, but

I'm hoping we're going to charge for parking because we just

lot of money

we don't charge for parking at the airport. This doesn't make sense to me. So, if

we're charging for money, charging people to park at the airport, then we can spend

things, spend on our public transportation and our sidewalks and have things like

bus shelters. So,

that we have

not tying these pieces together. So that's my concern.

should be paid for, even if it's $5 a day. This is

don't understand why it has to be free, and it just seems to me

strategic plan and we talk about growth and infrastructure, but we're

think, we should -- parking

huge privilege problem to let

people park for free at the airport, but we're making them pay in all kinds of ways

by our bad sidewalks and our poor public transportation system. Thank you.

There being no further comment, Mayor Treece closed the public hearing.

Mayor Treece made a motion to direct staff to proceed with the proposed

construction of the south parking lot expansion project for the Columbia Regional

Airport. The motion was seconded by Council Member Waner and approved

unanimously by voice vote.

VI. OLD BUSINESS

B259-21

Amending Chapter 21 of the City Code relating to the Citizens Police

Review Board.

The bill was given fourth reading by City Clerk Sheela Amin.

City Counselor Nancy Thompson provided a staff report, and the Council

asked questions.

THOMPSON:

We do have an amendment sheet before you with

substitute bill

that was in your packet. There were

significant number of changes that we made

and edits throughout. We just felt like it would be more understandable if we did

an entire substitute bill so that you could read it from top to bottom. One of the

things you asked for was

a bit of an overview of SB26 and what that has done, or

provided for the changes that are being necessitated by SB26. So, I'm going to start

by walking through that briefly, just to hit some of the highlights that affect the

operations of the Citizen Police Review Board and the changes that we're trying to

make to ensure that you continue to have the model of civilian oversight that this

Council put into place

a decade ago. So, in Senate Bill 26, which is now codified

actually -- is Section 590.502 RSMo -- in case you're trying to find it in the statutes.

The law actually applies to any officer who is the subject of an administrative

investigation or questioning, and this is actually the key part, which says that the

officer reasonably believes could lead to disciplinary action or placement on

status that could lead to economic loss. That economic loss applies to any loss,

which includes but is not limited to the loss of overtime accruals, overtime income,

sick leave, accrual sick time, secondary employment, holiday pay, vacation pay. And

why that's important is because that actually makes it apply to circumstances where

an officer might be placed on administrative leave. It's fairly standard for our

department, if there's

critical incident to put an officer on administrative leave,

and we don't consider -- within the City, we don't consider administrative leave to

be disciplinary in nature, but there's certainly the potential when someone's been

placed on administrative leave that they could lose, have an economic loss applied

to overtime. So anyways,

I think just starting off from a definition standpoint, it's a

very inclusive bill as it relates to things that happen with and actions taken with

regard to police officer conduct. And I'm not going to go through every piece of this

that I've put in the memo. I've highlighted all of them with bullet points and

you're able to read those. I'm just trying to get the ones that really impact the

operations of the Citizen Police Review Board. One of the other provisions is that

complaint has to be supported by written statement, which includes the personal

I know

identifying information of the person who files the complaint. That means no

longer can there be action taken on anonymous complaints. In the past, if an

anonymous complaint was received, it was investigated, and, you know, frankly,

the police department is still probably going to do some level of due diligence on

anonymous complaint, but as far as that being

something that can go forward with formal investigation, that's not allowed under

the Police Officer Bill of Rights. The officer may not be questioned by more than

a complaint that is actionable, and

two investigators. That's important because, previously, the Citizen Police Review

Board could question an officer without an officer's consent of the Citizen Police

Review Board as long -- if there have already been two investigators who have

questioned the officer, the officer can't be required to come before the Citizen

Police Review Board and provide

longer something that they can do.

statement. So going forward, that is, that's no

That doesn't mean that they can't some sort of

civilian oversight. It just changes the way civilian oversight is done. Now, it doesn't

apply -- that doesn't apply to any officer who would appear before the Citizen

Police Review Board. Only an officer who, under that first definition that

I read to

you, has reasonable belief that there could be -- the testimony or the

investigation could lead to disciplinary action of that particular officer. The -- then

probably one of the more difficult things and one of the reasons why we really

have to take

the timeframes, but under SB26, the department has 90 days from receipt of

citizen complaint to complete an investigation. There are opportunities for

extensions, and if there is criminal investigation which is occurring at time, the

there is delay during the pendency of the criminal investigation, but complaints

need to be -- once received, they need to be investigated. They need to be

investigated promptly. And then after the determination, the disciplinary

determination, there is 90-day window, second 90-day window when -- during

a look at it, and you've already taken a look at Chapter 19 as relates to

which there is -- the final determination of disciplinary action must be made. That's

the second 90-day window, or what we call the appeal time frame -- is what now is

in Chapter 19. So, what you have before you has that first 90-day window for

investigation of

citizen complaint. So, you -- and then -- plus the two 60-day

extensions. So, what we have tried to do in order to continue to make the Citizen

Police Review Board complaint process meaningful is to put their review in that

first 90-day window plus the two 60-day extensions, so what you're looking at is

the changes that are made have been made so that the police chief makes

preliminary determination on discipline, that's communicated to the citizen and it’s

communicated, well not the disciplinary action -- it’s not communicated to the

citizen, but the preliminary determination on the complaint is as far as whether it's

exonerated, sustained, not sustained, or unfounded -- is communicated to the

citizen, and then the citizen would have

investigatory stage. And honestly, the advantage to that is that the chief would get

the benefit of that review process and citizen review process before making final

right to appeal that during the

decision. Once the chief’s final decision is made, that's when you kick into that

second 90-day period that then becomes the officer’s right of appeal through the

Personnel Advisory Board on the disciplinary action. Then the last item, or major

item, that SB26 did was that SB26 closed all records and proceedings of the CPRB as

it relates to the complaints, or the officer or the officer in the investigation and

discipline. Previously this Council had decided that all -- there would be as much

transparency as possible. All records of the Citizen Police Review Board were open.

All officer investigations as it related to

a complaint were open. And so, once SB26

goes into effect, which was August 28, that rule has changed, and from August 28

forward, those proceedings become closed and the complaint becomes closed.

Now, it is our opinion, and

I think we are in a disagreement, and you're going to this

from, believe, the CPOA -- is that it's our opinion that any complaint that was

pending on August 28 is subject to the rules that the Council had in place prior to

August 28. Any complaint that was pending August 28 and after are subject to SB26

and the closure requirements. So that's written into the substitute bill that you

have in front of you so you see those two different dates.

I think it's in Section 54-1,

21-54.1. That’s my really high overview.

answer them.

If you have any questions, I'd be happy to

FOWLER:

Yes,

recall reading one of the staff reports and it referenced the fact that

complainant,

a citizen complainant, who had previously 30 days to file an appeal,

now is reduced to 10 days. So, how does that fit in with that initial 90 days because,

as understood you and I'm -- this isn't clear to me. So, the citizen files complaint,

the police chief makes preliminary determination, and then notifies the citizen

what that preliminary determination is -- not

citizen has to move quickly, 10 days, correct?

THOMPSON: Very quickly, yes.

final determination. Then the

FOWLER:

Very quickly to then think about all the consequences of their filing an

system that will not allow them to find out or -- mean everything

closed record. And you know, perhaps that helps,

appeal into

that happens then becomes

except that somewhere else in the bill, it says that the identifying information of

the complaining witness is available to the officer that the complaint was leveled

against. I'm having trouble understanding how that's preserving our intent to

provide to the public

path forward when they feel they had been mistreated by

an individual officer.

THOMPSON: Well,

I think, what we're trying to do is make lemonade out of lemons

-- help you preserve that. We can't preserve the model as it exists today with the

current statute in place, given the time frames and the requirements that are out

there. So, just to be totally frank, there is no way to preserve exactly what we have.

We're trying to keep it as meaningful as possible so that the CPRB can provide that

feedback and that citizen oversight.

that point will be will be litigation if they aren’t afforded this kind of process or

procedure at the administrative level if they have cause of action. Certainly that

cause of action, then they would

Unfortunately, the citizen’s only recourse at

would be their only recourse. If they don't have

not have any recourse whatsoever for review.

FOWLER: Over the time that I've been on Council, the conversations that I've had

with members of the community and members of the CPRB are about whether or

not there would be additional resources available to the CPRB where they would

have their own budget. The way this is cutting back on the time options for

complaining citizen feels like the next solution is to have staff and support within

the CPRB to assist members of the community in meeting those deadlines so that

they are not inadvertently left behind when they bring forward a complaint.

THOMPSON: And

would tell you that what you're probably looking at is

determining whether or not you want to totally change the way that your Citizen

Police Review Board operates. That's probably the more long term solution. There

are models out there where civilian oversight is part of the investigation from day

one, and then there are models out there where civilian oversight provides more of

perfunctory review after everything is over and all you're going to do at that point

is hold management accountable. They're really -- we're in this kind of middle

hybrid-type program where we want to provide this civilian oversight and review as

kind of part of the recommendation for the findings of the action after the -- kind of

after the investigation. So long term,

I think based upon what you're talking about,

you would want to review what type of civilian oversight is being provided. Right

now, we're just trying to fit what we're doing as best as possible into the new

structure guided by SB26.

FOWLER: Thank you. I may have another question after we have a public hearing.

David Tyson Smith and Traci Wilson-Kleekamp spoke.

SMITH:

Council for the opportunity to comment about this. You know, there is

there's obviously been lot of talk about Senate Bill 26, and people have been

working on it and it's kind of been headache, but you have to understand there is

citizens police review board statute as well that's in place, and sent letter to

the Council and to the Review Board in this regard. There is review board and

statute that’s already there and it’s existing, and it allows for Citizens Police

Good evening. My name is David Tyson Smith and

just want to thank the

-- know

Review Board. And not only does it allow for it, but it gives it the power to

investigate and to make recommendations regarding discipline. So, Senate Bill 26 --

understand there’s kind of a conflict in a few regards and in manner, but I can tell

you that when Senate Bill 26 was debated and discussed, the review boards were

never talked about. There was no documentation regarding the review boards

when it was dealt with.

when it was debated, discussed, and voted on, and

and don't think the intention was ever to deal with citizens police review boards.

was on the House floor when Senate Bill 26 came up,

didn't -- voted against it, but

That wasn't the intention of Senate Bill 26. The intention of Senate Bill 26 was to

deal with the initial complaints regarding law enforcement. That’s why it came up.

No one talked about the review boards and how it was going to affect them, and

think what happened is that went through, and there was this thought, well wait

minute.

I think the CPOA rushed and said, let's see how we can curtail or weaken or

continue to try to dismantle the review board. But anything that Senate Bill 26 does

that does not give the review board the power to investigate, make findings,

recommend discipline -- if that's allowed, then you're running afoul of the review

board statute. So it's not that we're, you know -- this idea that we have to bow

down to Senate Bill 26 and new statute -- there’s

a review board statute that has to

be obeyed. And this argument from CPOA and read, one of the initial letters and it

said, well you have to do this, this, and this otherwise you're running afoul of the

law. Well, if you do anything that runs afoul of the review board statute then you're

running afoul of the law. So SB26 is not the giant gorilla that's going to dictate

what's going to happen with the review board.

statute. And honestly, realize there are some conflicts between the two, but that

doesn't mean we bend towards Senate Bill 26. lot of this is for the courts they’re

going to have to decide and work out the kinks. But it's not that the CPOA gets to

come in and say, okay, now we're just going to follow Senate Bill 26. You know, one

of the initial letters saw from the CPOA when this thing started talked about the

There is an existing review board

purpose of the review board is for collaboration and communication. That's not the

purpose of the review board, okay. The purpose of the review board is for

accountability and transparency. So, we need to keep that in mind. Those other

things are byproducts. So, and I’ll close, I'm out of time, but

I think there's some

irony here because everyone talks about the CPOA and they talked about trust,

trust, trust, we want trust. Well there’s not going to be trust if you whittle away at

this police review board, so, keep that in mind. There’s

a review board statute that

needs to be honored, and if you deviate from that, and you don't give the review

board the power to investigate -- because you can't investigate if you can't call

officers in front of them, right? If officers can't answer to the review board then

they're not investigating. Then you're running afoul of review board statute.

you.

Thank

THOMAS: So in your opinion, does the bill we have before us run afoul of the

review board statute.

SMITH: think parts of it do.

I mean, I think to say that the review board can’t

question officer -- that’s afoul of the review board statute. They, you know, the

statute says they have the power, the power, to investigate. Well anything you do

that takes away their power is

may be an issue for the courts to hash out, but

come in and dictate what the Council’s going to do in this regard. And

violation of the review board statute. And again, it

don't know that the CPOA gets to

find it very

interesting, just as, just food for thought, that the review board is designed to hold

the police department accountable. Yet, the police department, the CPOA, is

coming in and dictating the terms for that accountability. It's bizarre.

THOMAS: So you feel that municipalities like ours with

review board are in

situation where either we leave things as they are and we run afoul of SB26 or we

make these kinds of changes and we run afoul of the other statute.

SMITH:

think it depends on the changes. You know,

know that there's talk about

deal, although if the time

the time frames. The time frames aren’t that big of

frames are such that you can't do -- the review board can't do their job, then it is

problem that it does run afoul of the statute. Certain minor changes

would have a huge impact on Senate Bill 26.

I don't think

So,

I don't think it's one or the other, but I would say be very careful about taking

away the power of the review board to do its job because that is

is in place.

a statute, and that

WILSON-KLEEKAMP: [Traci Wilson-Kleekamp]

that is very pro police and pro police unions, but we live in

lot trust in policing. And, we have CPOA that doesn't have

record. We don't have trust. There's no trust building going on. This idea that if

someone files complaint because they're treated badly and they have to -- their

understand that we live in

City where there's not

really terrific track

State

name gets to be known, and the officer gets to know -- who's protecting the

citizen? No one. Not the police. So this is - you’re in a hard place. You have to ask

yourself what kind of culture do we have in our police department, and are we

going to bend to the state or are we going to do the things we really say we believe

in our strategic plan and all these different reports that say we believe in equity

and all that other kind of stuff. But when the State does something demonic, we

just can't wait to change everything to step to that. That's fine. At the end of the

day, what I'm hearing is the police department’s not really interested in trust. At

least the police union isn't. They're interested in power and being in control no

matter what, even when there’s no threat. There's no threat to them. They carry

guns and they can take lives all the time, anytime. The citizens are the ones who

are in danger. It's on you. I've already decided. We've been working on this, Race

Matters Friends, since 2015, trying to get the Council to understand that we need

different kind of policing, and don't think it's worked. And I've kind of moved to

the other side. I've decided that the policing as we know it just needs to go away.

And we may need to have different kind of Citizens Police Review Board. I’m cool

with that, but if this is what the Council bends to because you're going to bend to

this demonic stuff that's going on at the State. That’s twisted.

The Council asked further questions and made comments.

TREECE: Counselor, who initiated Bill 259. Did CPOA or did the legal department do

that?

THOMPSON: What do you mean? Bill 259 --

TREECE: Who felt we had to harmonize our local ordinance to comply with Senate

Bill 26?

THOMPSON: Oh, I'm sorry, Bill 259 is the title of this bill. The law department did.

We did.

TREECE:

So, and

looked at Chapter 590.653 RSMo. That’s the enabling legislation

for civilian review boards. We had one before this bill took effect in 2000, and it

does say the board shall have the power to receive, investigate, make findings,

recommend disciplinary action. What Senate Bill 26 did though was -- provide clear

days, calendar days, that those efforts had to occur. Is that correct?

THOMPSON:

That's correct. I would say that I think the enabling statutes for civilian

oversight are permissive. They're not necessarily mandatory. It gives powers, but it

doesn't -- then we have Senate Bill 26 come in and --

TREECE: -- take away those powers.

THOMPSON:

civilian oversight. Now, does it mean that next legislative session they can't go in

and remedy that, but right now we're sitting here with bill that did not exclude

-- Take away those powers. It chips away and it did not exclude

that, and the penalties for the City if we were to run afoul of SB 26 as it’s currently

enacted are pretty significant.

TREECE: And what would those penalties be?

THOMPSON:

statute is how SB 26 is written.

the court may award the officer the costs of bringing the suit plus attorney fees,

and anytime you're in this kind of litigation, it's all about the attorney fees. It's

The officer is -- it voids any action taken if we’re in violation of the

keep calling it SB 26. It’s actually 590.502. And then

pretty significant risk for the City to take without

statute.

specific exclusion into the

TREECE:

2021 when the bill took effect, and if we don't pass, -- so help me understand why

we would bifurcate that process. understand the complaint was filed prior to the

So, most of my concern is on how we treat complaints prior to August 28,

bill becoming effective, but we haven't released those internal affairs records. The

statute then changes and says we can't release them. So, why would we carve those

out, if you will, and treat one group of complaint differently than a different group?

THOMPSON. So, what the statute actually says is that all records compiled as

result of any investigation -- and this is the important language -- subject to the

provisions of this section shall be held confidential and shall not be subject to

disclosure. So all records compiled as the result of any investigation subject to the

provisions of this section shall be held confidential. I don't believe that you can --

TREECE: -- shall become confidential.

THOMPSON: Pardon me.

TREECE: Shall become confidential.

THOMPSON: Shall be held confidential. And so,

were compiled as result of an investigation prior to the effective date of this

statute are covered under the statute. So, we will have an answer that believe.,

don't believe that records that

but for right now, we believe that we should separate out and make it abundantly

clear that things that were prior to August 28 would be open, anything past August

28, would be held confidential. Otherwise,

I think what you do is you use run the

risk of turning back the dial on the transparency that the Council had prior to August

28 for the Citizen Police Review Board.

TREECE:

So, the City as a defendant in that officer's lawsuit in the in the request for

declaratory judgment.

THOMPSON: Correct.

TREECE:

I'm a little hesitant to change ordinance while there’s an issue at hand at

the circuit court.

THOMPSON: Currently our ordinance calls for open -- the records all to be open.

We're required to open any records related to an investigation.

TREECE: But, we haven't opened them yet.

THOMPSON: Yes, you have. The current Chapter 21 has affirmatively opened those

records as it sits in existence today. As

a matter of fact, there was litigation on that

particular issue when the Citizen Police Review Board was formed, and at that point

in time, the court ruled that it didn't just open the records at the time that the

Council made an affirmative statement and didn't just open the records at that

time. It retroactively applied that particular provision.

TREECE:

hate to ask this question when we're not in closed session for legal

purposes, but if we do not -- if this Council does not pass these changes tonight,

what prevents that litigating officer from amending the complaint to sue the City

for not being in compliance with Senate Bill 26 and pursuing attorney’s fees?

THOMPSON: We’re in compliance.

TREECE:

For him, but maybe not for another? So, okay, so maybe there's another --

at some point, we're not in compliance for the next officer that comes along. That's

a problem, right?

THOMPSON:

knowing what we're trying to deal with.

FOWLER: So, since there's already

wouldn't want to answer

hypothetical question like that without

discussion going on in circuit court, Boone

County Circuit Court -- there's been an action filed?

THOMPSON: Yes.

FOWLER: There’s reference to that in the staff report. I’m not sure the order in

which I'm going to suggest this, but given what Representative Smith said about the

viability of the Citizens Police Review Board statute,

think

would feel better

about this conversation if we similarly had tried to -- out were all of us can watch

and look at -- if we had tried to harmonize that statute with what changes we're

making right now to Chapter 21. And

things read and all the confusion

tonight's hearing, did not pull that statute.

and would suspect other members of Council similarly and the public haven't

know you know what that says, but in all the

I tried to sort out in my head in preparing for

I did not look at it and harmonize that,

done that, but I'm also wondering if there's some way that, given that there is

pending litigation, whether it's declaratory judgment or otherwise, if there isn't

some way for us to determine whether or not --

don't know in

counterclaim or an

conflict

ask or whatever -- what proper venue is -- about the -- when you have

between Senate Bill 26 and the statute that establishes citizen review board, how

will the courts come down on that because at some point yes, it's going to have to

be -- I mean you have a conflict of laws passed by the same body at different times.

THOMPSON:

don't think that that's something that

can answer definitively for

you. will tell you that we don't believe that the request for declaratory judgment

is bad for anybody. We really think it brings clarity to how the law is applied to the

records that we have. Currently, the records that -- kind of when we're in no man's

land and then going forward -- but we really believe that it's -- it will -- it gives an

opportunity to have the court take

look at it, listen to the concerns on both sides,

and reach definitive answer. We feel like if we can’t -- otherwise we're in

win situation -- because we really feel like we need to support the citizen request,

but at the same time, we understand that this law that went into effect that does

have an impact on our existing city code. So we don't look at -- we don't actually

look at that as

bad thing. If that can -- and so we just really want to have enough

good good decision one

clarity so that going forward that the court can make

way or the other.

FOWLER: And

who brought that suit is litigating is the applicability of Senate Bill 26 restrictions on

matter that was filed prior to the effectiveness of that statute. Is it possible that --

I'm going to ask very specifically -- for us to -- in counterclaim or an answer -- to

understand that from the point of view that we're -- what the officer

bring up the fact that we also feel that this action is going to run us afoul of the

statute that establishes the Citizens Police Review Board and see if they want to

include any of that in the discussion?

THOMPSON:

Review Board authority is just that. It establishes enabling authority, but each

jurisdiction that has review board sets their own set of rules within the

I think that's a different set of facts at this point. And the Citizen Police

parameters of that statute. So it's really not

statute.

mandatory statute. It's permissive

FOWLER: Except that now our statute that we worked so hard to establish, not me

personally, but Representative Smith and other members of the community that

I'm familiar with -- work so hard to establish, is now being undermined and swept

aside by that, and so

I just am wondering what's the proper venue for looking at

that before we then adopt changes that further erode what our predecessor council

and our earlier citizens worked so hard to establish.

THOMPSON: That’s something we're going to have to take a look at.

SKALA:

correct me if I’m wrong -- it's

the ordinance that we have, right? And

significantly increase the risk if we delayed this to the extent that we found out

just had

question.

think that what we're doing now appears to me, and

way of minimizing the risk by harmonizing SB 26 and

guess the question that have is -- would it

what some of the legal determinations are as

determination?

result of the ongoing legal

THOMPSON: If we were to delay this, we would basically need to stop utilizing the

Citizen Police Review Board for any type of review activity because their processes

are not in conformance with state law so we would have to hit

what they're doing going forward. You know, think -- it's just kind of my off the

cuff answer. can take deeper look at it if you choose not to do anything but

would -- think that we’re to that point of -- we have an effective date of August 28

a pause button on

and we have to figure out how to operate in those parameters. And they -- because

you have very specific city code sections set forth on how they operate, we'd have

to see if there are parts of that we continue to utilize but --

SKALA:

So your advice would be to proceed to harmonize those two documents

and then look back and modify the Citizen Police Review Board ordinance at that

time.

THOMPSON: Yes, yes. If we have things that are not working or that need to be

improved to do that, maybe as Step B.

FOWLER: So, if we do that -- if we accept the changes that you and your staff have

brought to us tonight, we have taken away the power of the Citizens Police Review

Board to investigate if the police department in responding to

citizen complaint

mean, you

begins an investigation process and then that uses up the ability of --

can't subject the officer to questioning. We've taken away the power of the Citizens

Police Review Board to investigate.

THOMPSON: Not completely. What you have taken -- what you are not allowing

them to do is investigate the subject officer.

They can continue to do an

investigation. They can continue to do review. What they can't do is subject the

subject officer to any questioning because Senate Bill 26 limits that to two

investigators, and your -- you have the potential for your Citizen Police Review

Board to be considered to be

officers can’t be questioned or --

third investigator. But that doesn't mean other

FOWLER: Because they're not subject to the complaint and they're not at risk or

perceived to be at risk. But they can't -- but our Citizens Police Review Board can’t

have access to the information that is determined from the two investigating

officers.

THOMPSON: No they can.

FOWLER: So that information -- the police report of whomever the police puts in as

an investigator role with that officer -- that transcript of that will to come to the

Citizens Police Review Board -- they will be able to access that?

THOMPSON: Yes, they have access to that. And they’re required to hold it

confidential. They're required to meet in closed session, but they definitely have

access to that because they're part of that investigation. They just don't have to

right to question the officer. They cannot question the officer, the subject officer.

FOWLER: And do they have the right to call in other officers who may have been

bystanders and present at the time in question them, or does the officer or the

police department had an ability to withhold their appearance.

THOMPSON: Provided that the officer, any officer they're trying to question does

not this reasonable belief that they would be subject to some sort of loss, then

they can call those officers in.

FOWLER: The reasonable being of being subjected to some loss -- very interesting

language. Yes, thank you, Nancy.

PITZER: So your opinion is that our bill 259 is in compliance with the civilian review

board statute, correct?

THOMPSON: Yes

PITZER:

Is it --

are our police board regulations as expansive as they can be in

compliance with Senate Bill 26 and with the civilian review board statute?

THOMPSON: Yes, at this point in time, without any kind of determination that

would exclude out civilian oversight from SB 26, they are. We've gone as far as we

can go using our model. Now, we could change the model at some time in the

future but, given our existing model of civilian oversight, yes.

PITZER: And what’s your -- your position on complaints before August 28 is what?

THOMPSON: Open

PITZER: Are they open or closed?

THOMPSON: Open.

PITZER: They’re open. And any complaints between August 28 and today would

have been in violation of Senate Bill 26?

THOMPSON: No, they'd be closed.

PITZER: What about any investigations that are conducted in that period?

THOMPSON: We would have to take

look at when the complaint came in, what

part of the investigation occurred.

we would take a look at that.

can't draw bright line rule for you tonight, but

PITZER: And the civilian review board has not instigated any or had any complaints

brought to them since August 28?

THOMPSON: I don't know the answer to that.

AMIN: We've received complaints through our office that we’ve forwarded on.

THOMPSON: Okay.

PITZER: So, what regulatory regimen would those be handled under?

THOMPSON: I’d have to look at

- I would have to actually look at each one of those

individually. I can't answer that for you this evening.

PITZER: Okay.

THOMPSON: Mayor,

correct if you choose to adopt amendment sheet. There is

page 11 -- at the very top of page 11 where a -- the words prior to need to be struck.

It has to do with the August 28 date. We say that -- provision subsection says, “for

any complaint filed against police officer on or after prior to August 28” -- so that

do have one small typographical error that we would need to

typographical error on

prior to just didn't get struck when we did it.

TREECE: What does everyone think about the August 28 open and closed dilemma?

FOWLER: As far as honoring that is a prior practice that is still valid?

TREECE: What’s your interpretation of that?

FOWLER: Well,

jurisdictions and

lawyer.

hold an inactive license to practice law in three

would be in agreement

do take continuing legal education. So,

that complaints filed before August 28 are subject to the earlier rules and practices.

TREECE: We haven’t released them.

FOWLER:

processes of how we move things along. It's about when the complaint is filed.

TREECE: You have concerns -- since this is matter under advisement at the court --

do you have any concern about changing the ordinance in the middle of that?

FOWLER: have different -- have concerns about changing the ordinance until we

have clear guidance from the courts, not only about that. understand that could go

different way, although think that the counsel’s interpretation is accurate of

that. But have hesitation about the fact that don't think we’ve done as careful

look at the statute that enables the Citizens Police Review Board process to go

forward, and I’d be interested on when and if court of competent jurisdiction in

don't --

think it's about the filing date. It's not about our internal

Missouri is going to undertake to look at Senate Bill 26 as it’s now been codified

against the Citizens Police Review Board statute as it's been codified, and look at

the conflicts inherent there and determine whether or not -- which ones will be

valid and which ones will be struck down.

TREECE: Yeah, but that could take years if you’re looking at --

FOWLER:

would very much like to have

actions of our police department so we can build trust among ourselves. There is

understand, but

look at it from the perspective of -- our community

process in place that brings accountability to the

great willingness to heal that divide, and one of the tools we have is the Citizens

Police Review Board process.

PITZER: So, Ms. Thompson’s,

passing this ordinance, right? And you're -- are you concerned about that risk?

FOWLER: I’m concerned about lot of risks, but I'm also concerned about the bigger

picture as well. And so if the city is comfortable that they -- in taking that position

and it is now gone to circuit -- Boone County Circuit Court -- and don't know what

the timetable is for that decision, but think that how well that goes may or may

not put some wind under people's wings at looking at the bigger picture, whether

it's our jurisdiction or another jurisdiction. So, am struggling with that. I'm not sure

I think, point is that we're at risk, if we -- without

how I'm going to vote on this, but I'm comfortable with the fact that we are

pursuing that matter. We've been brought into Boone County Circuit Court on that

matter, and that we’re pursuing it.

PITZER: That’s just on this specific point about the August 28 date.

FOWLER: Yes, it is, yeah. Well you know, when you think you have

a statute that

runs afoul of what's important to what you believe in, part of the legal process is

chipping away at that one bite at

operates.

a time. That's just the way our judicial system

TREECE:

think failing to pass this tonight puts the City at risk of fines and attorneys’

think it prohibits the CPRB from anything until we

fees for future complainants.

get to the solution. But more importantly, it puts staff in the position of having to

determine -- do they violate the state law or do they violate the city ordinance?

And that's not fair.

FOWLER: I think there’s two state laws Mayor.

TREECE: Yeah, and enabling legislation is not -- doesn’t provide any time limits or

anything like that that our local ordinance did.

SKALA:

Just a comment. I just see this as another one of those issues, a very

difficult issue, because it involves the courts as well -- as it involves the

relationship between the state and our municipalities. This is another one of those

dilemmas on the horns of pre-emption. It’s kind of what it amounts to, and that

that theme keeps popping up, and we have to react to it. But

mean, at this point,

don't think --

think I'm inclined to agree that --as much as don't like the idea,

think we need to mitigate some of this risk and then go back and adjust so that the

original protections of the Police Review Board -- was around when it was first

proposed -- are significant for the population, for our residents and our

constituents.

PETERS:

what we do.

city attorney and maybe CPOA have worked to try and address this issue in

relationship to the state statute. think it would be reasonable to go forward and

pass this. Having said that, and listening to Representative Smith’s comment that,

you know, there is citizens police review board acknowledgment in this bill, then

Having watched this and not being

lawyer,

mean, we're at risk no matter

mean you can get sued no matter what, so

think, in good faith, our

we probably need to -- after this is passed -- look at that and see how we can make

sure that our review board is as robust as it can be and make sure that it does

protect the citizens’ rights. This is all just very murky.

Mayor Treece made a motion to amend B259-21 per the amendment sheet

including removing “prior to” on page 11, which would correct the typographical

error pointed out by City Counselor Nancy Thompson. The motion was seconded

by Council Member Skala and approved unanimously by voice vote.

B259-21, as amended, was given fifth reading by the City Clerk with the vote

recorded as follows: VOTING YES: SKALA, THOMAS, PITZER, PETERS, TREECE,

FOWLER, WANER. VOTING NO: NO ONE. Bill declared enacted, reading as

follows:

B284-21

Approving the Final Plat of “Forest Hills, Plat No. 2” located on the south

side of Geyser Boulevard and west of Lake of the Woods Road;

authorizing a performance contract (Case No. 125-2021).

The bill was given third reading by City Clerk Sheela Amin.

Community Development Director Tim Teddy provided a staff report, and

the Council asked questions.

TEDDY:

returns to Council's agenda. October 4, it was removed from consent, and Council

will recall that there was group of concerned residents of the Edgewater

community to the south of this location. Especially concerned about the joining of

new public street that would be built as part of Forest Hills that would join North

Waterfront, which is street in in that community, which is part of the

Good evening, Tim Teddy, Community Development Director, and this item

unincorporated Boone County. This is -- this tract, just to recap, is 11.4 acres. There's

37 lots contained within the plat. It's the second phase of Forest Hills. And once

again, it was tabled. Highlighted there at the lower right -- this would be the

southeast region on the plat -- is where the concern is. The staff of both the City

and County have required this developer to actually physically join what's called

Sugar Maple Street with North Waterfront, an existing public street, but of course,

that that North Waterfront/Edgewater community has not had any connections to

its street system, probably since its inception, about 40 years ago. And just getting

right to the matter -- what the developer has proposed to do is place these blocks.

And you can see they've already been placed. These are normally part of retaining

wall systems, but they would be used as

a physical barrier, a temporary barrier until

such time as the infrastructure of this Forest Hills Plat 2 is completed. Our view of

temporary barriers was that there was in the original preliminary plat of subdivision

requirement that a temporary barrier be placed to traffic to and from these two

subdivisions until such time as Geyser Boulevard then known as Rice Road was

completed to Lake of the Woods, and that's been done so we think the developer’s

obligation has been met.

involvement back when the preliminary plat was being considered -- there's some

involvement of the Boone County Commission that made statement that they

would support having temporary gate till 75 percent of this subdivision was built

out or Rice Road, as it was called then, was completed to the Lake of the Woods,

whichever is the last to occur. So, recognizing that, think this developer is willing

to leave those blocks in place. However, there will come time when, at least

However,

recognizing

that

there

was

also

some

according to the plans that we've approved, where that would be opened -- that

connection there. And this has been noted on -- these are construction drawings so

these are not part of the council materials typically -- but this is showing the

physical joining of Sugar Maple to East Waterfront, at that curve there. It's the first

bend of that road as it sweeps along the north property line that’s shared between

these two tracts. And they've added

until the infrastructure is complete. And that's all

understand there are some residents that want to present material to you as well.

SKALA: Just question, Mr. Teddy. Has there been any -- are you aware of any

note that that barrier would remain in place

have on this matter.

discussions or has there been any further discussion about the potential in the

future for some sort of keyed gate entry?

TEDDY:

now, and

-- what we call emergency access only, so

would be locking system that would be accessible just to those emergency

know that's what residents of the Edgewater community have requested

understand that would be as permanent measure to just simply have it

knox-box would be in place and that

services if and when needed.

SKALA: Right, that's their position?

TEDDY: That's the discussion, yeah. Now the County order that

referred to -- of

course, that's an old county commission -- that's back in 2006.

considered by either County staff or the County Commission -- that I'm aware.

SKALA: Thank you.

I don't think it's been

PETERS: Can I just ask why they need to be connected.

TEDDY: Well, it's the principle that, you know, they are public streets. We do intend

public streets to be used, and one of the advantages of joining public streets is you

get circulation between places. To the argument that there'd be an excess of traffic,

would not see an advantage to everyone that lives off of Geyser or lives off of this

subdivision’s streets to really make regular use of that connection because it is

longer in terms of distance with the turns, even if they're going southeast. think

those lots and there's about half dozen -- eight lots if you count the corners on

Sugar Maple. There might be some advantage for residents of those lots to travel

south on North Waterford Drive to exit onto Lake of the Woods if they're headed in

south direction on Lake of the Woods, but otherwise Geyser go straight east. You

know, it's meant to collect the traffic from both north and south in that subdivision.

So that's why. Deliveries, emergency services -- they can avail themselves to the

connections.

PETERS: So is it emergency services? See, I'm still at

be connected. Is it for emergency services or as is it --

a loss as to why those need to

TEDDY: Well, it’s planning principle. We do it. It's not often that you have phases

that are 40 years apart, but that's what we have here. We have an old settled

community that has had open space around it, hasn't had development off this

north side. It's had developments of the northwest, but not connecting to it. So

normally, it's

more timely process, but you know that -- this was first discussed in

variety of reasons -- it was different developer originally. They got

2006, and for

their preliminary plan approved, they got the Phase 1 approved almost seven years

later, and then that didn't move forward immediately. The present developer came

in, and now they're actively pursuing development of the whole tract.

PETERS: And Waterford -- is that

couldn't find it when I was there.

narrow street or areasonably wide street?

TEDDY: Twenty-six feet was the figure that has been stated in the comments that

we've received. Ours is 28 feet for a residential street.

PETERS: Okay, and they’re the county?

TEDDY: Yes.

PETERS: All right, thanks.

PITZER:

couple of questions, Mr. Teddy.

So those temporary barriers that you

showed, are they on the City side or the County side of that line?

TEDDY: I believe that's on the County side, sir.

PITZER: The proposed, you know, temporary gate that was on the plans from 2006 or

whenever -- that was on the City side or the County side?

TEDDY: That would have been on the County side, although it was noted as

requirement on the City's approval. So it was on the City's approved plan. There's

note indicating

the Woods. Yeah, if

was an earlier attempt to build it out partway to the east, and we had folks from

City neighborhood to the north Kelsey, believe, Redwing -- those streets. They

gate to be installed, again, if Rice Road is not extended to Lake of

may, we had similar situation with that same tract. There

were concerned that traffic heading east on Rice was going to use their streets as an

outlet to Lake of the Woods. So, the Council expressed that, kind of that same

concern, about the neighborhoods that Forest Hills is interconnected with to the

north, and building the street all the way to Lake of the Woods resolved that

because, again, it's

a straight shot to that road and then Lake of the Woods itself is

straight too, so it's fairly direct travel.

PITZER: And what is the final plat say about this temporary gate?

TEDDY: The final plat does not say anything about it. They’re proposing to amend

the construction drawings. Again, the way the staff reviewed the record of

subdivision approvals, they didn't feel that there was any more obligation to put

gate in so there was no date on final plans.

PITZER: Right, I'm just trying to figure out what our role is versus what

would be in deciding whether that gate stays or goes.

a County role

SKALA: Just one other question, and that is -- this kind of reminds me -- maybe you

can refresh my memory or perhaps you may not remember this either -- but know

when the Links development was established, if you will, there was initially

supposed to have been connection between Lillian and Clark Lane, actually, and

there was some discussion, neighborhood discussion and so on -- so, it's my

neighborhood actually -- about

happened there -- was to close off some of that supposed traffic, but is that in any

way -- mean, is that the kind of thing that we're talking about here with this

gate or

temporary gate. In fact, that's what

discussion with --

TEDDY: Yeah, and I think that’s on the north side of Clark Lane, is that correct?

SKALA: Yes, that’s correct.

TEDDY: It was done, kind of on the west side of the development?

SKALA: Yeah.

TEDDY: Yeah, and there's that, and, of course, there's

difference in land use

intensity there between the multi-family and the single family that's on that street

leading into it. So that's an example within our jurisdiction, and then maybe

on point example is -- it's called -- Raccoon Ridge is the street, but there's

long

street coming off of New Haven, and near the new Cedar Ridge school, there's

actually gate, and that was actually requested by the County that that remain

emergency access only, so folks couldn't use the Woodlands, think, might be the

name of the subdivision, unincorporated Boone County. They couldn't use their

street as main route to school, which, admittedly, is big traffic generator so that

lot of trips, probably both from within and outside the

would have drawn

neighborhood.

SKALA: In your opinion, that one between Lillian and Clark was really driven by

discussion about multi-family versus single family?

TEDDY: Yeah,

I think so. That's where we’ve had them. The Timberhill gate would be

another example, where it's multi-family and low density residential. You know,

again, we've -- we're always in the position of recommending that the streets

extend, but residents, sometimes, have other ideas, and if there are concerns

managing traffic, you know --

SKALA: Yeah, there was an extension, for example, of Cass when Indian Hills was

connected to the Meadowlands, and that is Rice Road, well now it’s Geyser

Boulevard, but there was that connector as well, and quite

about it.

bit of controversy

Karen Turner, David Strumpf, Susie Barr, Penny Thiel, and Don Cameron

spoke.

TREECE:

tonight as well.

TURNER: [Karen Turner] Thank you for hearing us tonight. Edgewater has four

associations that are around the lake. It's county road that's beautiful. It has many

curves and goes around two private lakes, and it's not meant to have arterial traffic

on there. Due to the affordability in this area, there are lot of 55-plus residents

that live out there, and most of these people think this is their forever home. So,

we're looking at new approach on this. As you can tell on this road, there -- it's

curved and there's bus coming. You see the sun shining in the driver's eyes, and

you see walker standing next to the bus and you see one that is way up ahead

where the proposed connection is. And in the second picture, you see walker

standing right where the proposed connection is, and car that is banked into the

other lane where the bus would be coming. This is huge safety concern. It

I did have an email [inaudible] from Karen Turner, and I think Karen's here

happens all the time due to people trying to go around walkers, other cars that are

parked on the road, etc. And there's five of these curves that people have to

negotiate. And this is what happens -- this is right where the proposed road

connection is supposed to be going in, and by doing that, it also blocks people from

being able to get in and out, by doing that. And where Sugar Maple is, if somebody

was to be flying through there, they would be in and up in that person's front yard

there. Here's another curve where people have taken out an electrical box, and it's

right next to somebody's house. Again, it's dangerous for people that aren't used to

this road. And people that park on this

are. Geyser has bike lanes, it has sidewalks, it’s wider. Waterfront is not. Besides

road safety concerns, there's personal concerns of criminal activity. Rice Road was

- this -- it just shows how narrow these roads

changed because of the perception of the road, and just in the last two months,

there's been 37 police calls to Geyser Boulevard, two of which were shootings in

that area. The Edegewater pays monthly dues -- it's unlike other neighborhoods --

they pay monthly dues for these amenities, the pool, the lakes, everything. And

when you have traffic coming in from Geyser Boulevard, these people think that

they can use the lake, the pools, and when they're confronted --

I mean - these --

this lake is around people's backyard, so people are actually fishing in people's

backyards. And, you know, how would you feel if somebody was in your backyard,

you know, just standing there? It's not safe. They become more confrontational

when you tell them to leave. This person was actually fishing in my backyard, and

they ended up cutting through the proposed area for the -- to Geyser Boulevard.

This road construction is also doing

a number on both of our lakes. It's hard for us to

treat our lakes because of the algae, and, you know, the water runoff. And, this

picture shows that four years ago, this is what our lake looked like, and this is what

it looks like today. It's more than just combining two neighborhoods like he had

mentioned. Like with Kelsey, Kelsey is also part of going straight on to Sugar Maple.

So that street connects to Sugar Maple, which then connects here. So, it's not like

another neighborhood. We pay our association dues, and quite

a lot. I mean, some

of these are -- these people are on retirement and things like that, and there's -- at

least for the condos and townhouses, that’s $240 a month that you're paying for

these amenities that other people can just then come and use, and be in your

backyard, and you have to confront them every time. It's not easy. So there have

been many factors that have changed over the years from when this agreement was

first made that just do not work today. They need to be reconsidered for the good

and safety of the residents, not just the developers. We've come together as

multiple homeowners associations to ask that you take

a step back, reevaluate that

we have the right -- that we hope that you do the right thing and not complete this

road, and put in the knox-box and gate permanently instead of temporarily -- of

which was already supposed to be there at this stage of development. I'm speaking

for

lot of members in our association that are here and also listening on our live

can save time for you. There

feed. So, I'm -- appreciate the little extra time so that

may be one or two people that may want to say something, but we appreciate your

time and your consideration in this. It’s very important to our residents that are

55-plus.

TREECE: Ms. Turner, how would you -- so what do you want us to do tonight?

mean, tend to agree with you. Do you want us to defeat the plat, mean, table it

again? I don't know what our options are.

TURNER: We just definitely do not want the road to come through there. It’s

dangerous curve. It's very dangerous curve. And, you know, even at night, there's

no lights on that street. So it ends up where people can't see what's coming in

inclement weather -- all the curves, there are six curves on that road. So, basically,

what we're trying to do is just to keep that from coming through to the

neighborhood to keep for road safety, for personal safety for people that live

there. There's

and this has just been one nice area that has been able to -- it has one way in and

one way out, and, therefore, it deters lot of criminal activity because it's not an

a lot of criminal activity that goes on in that northeast side of town,

easy out. Having this extra street that people can get onto really quick increases

that activity.

STRUMPF: I’m David Strumpf.

I was here at the last meeting, and I want to make it

pretty quick. The safety issue is the ultimate concern. It’s not about people’s

amenities, it’s not about lifestyle, and living. The points that have been made that

I’ve heard twice now about it’s not going to be

totally disagree with that. think people will line up on Geyser, not see

onto Lake of the Woods. They will take this little shortcut and they’ll bottleneck

through this tiny street. also, personally believe, having listened to this twice,

problem, it won’t increase traffic,

way to get

that there is an intentional misrepresentation of the differences of these streets

and the safety, and Karen’s picture showed that very clearly. You take into account

the 26 verses 28 foot reference, the point that these streets don’t have bike lanes,

they don’t have sidewalks, there is no safety, there is no lighting. It’s not being

represented clearly what the difference in the impact of having that street cut

through. So, I just think you guys may want to think about why that might be.

BARR: My name is Susie Barr and

road almost every day, and with the road being so narrow, whenever

meeting me, will step completely off the road for my safety. And when we first

moved out there 28 years ago, we were also told that nobody can build road

across the dam that was down in the end of Waterfront Drive and nobody could

have lived out there for 28 years.

do walk that

car is

come in from the south or the west, and

guess now that has changed. But anyway,

from my safety and

road.

a lot of other people's, I do not want to see more traffic on that

TREECE:

DNR?

Karen, is Waterfront the dam? Do you know if that dam is permitted by

TURNER:

am not positive since they're both private lakes. That’d probably be a

question for Dan Hagen. But there are two dams, one for the small lake and one for

the larger lake.

TREECE: And Waterfront is on top of that dam, is that correct?

TURNER:

It comes up to that dam. So, where the last cul-de-sac is on the road is

where the dam starts. Which then, that dam connects the north and south

Waterfront or Waters Edge and Waterfront.

TREECE: Alright, thank you.

SKALA: You know, it is in the Third Ward. I’ve lived in the Meadowlands for 25 years.

My son used to fish in that lake actually, and the lake is dammed because of

Hominy Branch.

lakes possible.

mean that’s -- it was the damming of that river that made those

guess, you known, this is -- I’ve always been an advocate for

connectivity to the extent that we can. That kind of coincides with some of the

philosophy that the Planning and Zoning had and the department has. On the other

hand,

think this is

perfect opportunity or

a perfect case for an argument -- that

you could make the argument that --

would prefer to see some sort of lock and key

temporary system that would allow emergency vehicles, if they needed to do that,

but at the same time would mitigate the problems that may be associated with the

potential for cut-through traffic.

this in this area. It's always been --

the name of Clark Lane -- was so that the developer could sell some of the homes,

and think they’ve been pretty successful at that despite the fact that there's still

good deal of traffic from outside the City at Demerit Drive area, through, now

mean, obviously, crime is an issue on this -- in

mean that was one of the reasons for changing

Geyser Boulevard, and then all the way to Rice Road, all the way into town. So, I'm

torn between that philosophy that makes lot of sense, but there have been some

exceptions, and think those exceptions also make some sense. So that is -- it is

been very persuasive to me to try and want to see something that would allow the

kind of emergency exits that’s necessary and yet protect some

neighborhoods so that's just my two cents for right now.

the

TURNER: Having the 55 --

I mean it's really been a growing community, and it's

close knit community in the fact that, you know, people use this as their main

source of exercise out there. You know, it -- additional traffic would be very hard.

Like Susie was saying,

times a day so.

I mean, she does this -- she walks this every day multiple

THIEL: My name is Penny Thiel and

I live at 5920 Waterfront Drive North. And, I

really thank you very much in listening. It is the most important thing to me. I've

been there for 16 years, and now

road. Thank you for your consideration.

I will not go out and walk by myself. Traffic on that

CAMERON: Good evening folks. My name is Don Cameron.

Drive area. I’ve lived there since June. Now if you all recall, we had

June, and my house flooded. do believe contributory to that flooding process was

live at the Waterfront

big flood in

the additional four drains from up of the north area that drain into our lake, plus

the one on the east side of us across Lake of the Woods Road that drain into our

lake. We all -- well not all of us, but --

I live in the lower land, lower levels there,

and it just inundated us. Homeowner Association is kind of lukewarm about

remedies as it pertains to pursuing any type of construction or reconstruction of

that area.

understand that the cost factor is negating that, but when

I -- I moved

here in 2001 to Columbia, and

settled out there at Zinnia Drive on the northwest

side of town when it was

Westwind Drive. He put up

new addition, and there was an old fellow over on

berm as soon as that addition started going in, and it

effectively shut off the traffic to his Westwind side of the road.

that the berm is still in place as his legal tenure ran out there, but it was effective at

doing that for while. And so don't see that the emergency vehicle issue is an

issue at all, be as how we all have the same road service. mean, is it shortcut to

come from Boone Hospital down Rice Road and then turn south of the lake, you

know, before you get to the Lake of the Woods? don't know. don’t think it cuts

any time off, or any more convenience for any of the emergency vehicles, police

vehicles, fire vehicles, ambulances that we see, and we see constant flow of

I do not believe

traffic down Waterfront Drive anyway. It doesn't matter if it's day, night. We have

that that huge apartment complex that sits at west end of the lake, and those kids

are in and out of there all day and all night. It's just --

I don't see what the benefit

would be to put in that road from Geyser down to Waterfront. Thank you’ll folks

very much for your time.

The Council asked further questions and made comments.

TREECE:

don’t know how we can amend their plat, but I'd like to see Sugar Maple

hammerhead or cul-de-sac, maybe even get another lot out

truncated either as

of there, and just leave the two separate neighborhoods. They've all got unique

characteristics. It doesn't look like Waterfront would comply with city street

standards anyway -- would be my thought.

THOMAS: Yeah, well, it's

a sad irony that everybody hates traffic, and yet it seems

to be really hard to build an entire community consensus that we should be

redesigning our community to be really accessible by walking and biking and public

transit, which would just resolve most of the issues people have with traffic. But

we have set

meeting of

well-intentioned

a few precedents recently. I think one was just at the last council

acknowledging,

recognizing

desire

that

for

planning

professions,

you

know,

and valuable

connectivity,

but without

inducing

additional traffic because there's no question -- as you build more road capacity,

more road connections, people are going to drive more. VMT per capita is going to

go up. So, what

I would probably like to see here would be a bicycle/pedestrian

connection between the two neighborhoods as well as the emergency vehicle

access connection. And there are now --

probably approved half a dozen of those at least.

think just in the last several years, we’ve

would put in one of the,

PETERS:

would somewhat agree with Mr. Thomas.

whatever they call these, the knox-box gates that would allow emergency access if

need be, have wings probably from the -- which you already see out there now --

those blocks. What we've found at other places -- if you’ve got

got gate, unless you've got lot of big trees on either side of that, people are

going to go around that gate. So you need to have some kind of -- something that

only allows pedestrians or bicycles, something that's only few feet wide versus

big enough for small car. But would think that we should just do that to separate

a road and you've

these two. I'm not sure how to do that, as you point out Mayor, but that's what

would do.

SKALA: Yeah, that too is kind of the dilemma.

mean,

concur with my two

colleagues here that some sort of separation to allow emergency vehicles and yet

cut down on some of the cut-through traffic and all the rest, and even allow bicycle

connectivity -- that kind of thing.

think in this particular --

live about two blocks

away from here, two or three blocks, and like

occasionally go out there and go fishing but --

mentioned, my son used to

TREECE: You owe them some monthly fees.

SKALA: Maybe

do. We pay monthly fees, by the way too, in the homeowners

association -- in our Meadowland Homeowners Association. But nonetheless -- and

I'm not sure -- it's -- you can't really tell people exactly what to do with their

development, but

some of the folks have offered. So,

something akin to a solution to that problem gets accomplished.

PITZER: So I'll go back to what said last time, when we talked about this, and that's

the fact that 15 years ago there were -- three homeowners associations

unanimously supported the gate and knox-box temporarily restricting access until

the development was built out, until Rice Road was extended. And, don't like the

idea of going back on 15 year old precedent, 15 year old agreement that was

think they probably get

sense of the Council in terms of what

hope that message gets out there and

unanimously agreed to, and then undoing that because when the reality hits,

there's disagreement about it. So, it's easier -- because -- for me to say. It's not in

my ward or near my ward. But also the idea that we're going to restrict and divide

neighborhoods because we don't like, you know, what's on one side of the

neighborhood or on one side of development from the other side, is also,

I think,

not good precedent in terms of building connection, building neighborhoods,

building community.

TREECE: So, what would you like to do? Defeat it? Table it?

PETERS: What are our options, Ms. Thompson?

SKALA:

I guess, it might make some sense to table this to a date certain to give an

opportunity for some feedback to see if we can come to some potential solution

that might accommodate folks. I think there might be a reasonable thing to do.

TREECE: Is someone from the applicant here?

GLASCOCK: Don’t see anyone.

TREECE: Open to a motion.

PETERS: Do we want to make a motion to postpone this for a month?

Council Member Skala made a motion to table B284-21 to the December

6, 2021 Council Meeting.

GLASCOCK: Question, what am

tabling this?

supposed to accomplish in the month that we're

TREECE: You’re not supposed to do anything. I’m hoping -- this plat is going to be

defeated in its current form.

GLASCOCK: Yes.

do?

I understand that, but I want -- is there something that we need to

TREECE:

I hoping someone is listening to divine the will of Council to come back

with a plat that can be passed.

GLASCOCK: Okay.

The motion made by Council Member Skala to table B284-21 to the December 6,

2021 Council Meeting was seconded by Council Member Peters, and approved by

voice vote with only Council Member Pitzer voting no.

B333-21

Rezoning property located on the south side of Southampton Drive and

west of Executive Drive from District M-OF (Mixed-use Office) to District

M-N (Mixed-use Neighborhood) (Case No. 256-2021).

The bill was given second reading by City Clerk Sheela Amin.

Community Development Director Tim Teddy provided a staff report, and

the Council asked questions.

TEDDY: This is

rezoning on one of several tracts that the Planning and Zoning

Commission considered and made recommendations on to you, and there were 11

locations in the Corporate Lake altogether. Ten of the 11 were approved -- were

recommended for approval unanimously by our Planning and Zoning Commission,

however, this one was known as tract 11 did not get the Commission’s majority

recommendation. In fact, it was -- in its original form defeated unanimously by the

Commission, or recommend for defeat unanimously, and we now had an amended

application on this piece. And, located at the southwest corner of Southampton

Drive and Executive Drive. About two-thirds of the property is zoned M-N,

mixed-use neighborhood. That's considered

allows retail and personal services as well as office, housing. And then just slightly

less than half-acre is zoned M-OF, mixed-use office. It’s really just kind of

transitional commercial district. It

remnant piece there on the west side of it. So, the request has been amended

down by the applicant. Originally, they wanted what’s called mixed-use corridor for

this parcel with the announced intention of doing

gas station/convenience store

on that. And you can see the location is directly south of the high school ballfield

and track, Rock Bridge High School, there. This is the overall zoning map showing

what was presented by this applicant. They’re mainly resolving split zonings. That

was the main objective. They have individual development sites that have two

zoning classifications, so they made each of those one or the other, and so you can

see on the color-coded map what those categories were. There were

examples, within Corporate Lake, that were recommended for approval of the M-C

designation, where the split zoning was already showing fairly substantial amount

couple of

of those lots M-C. And this is an overview from the air, and again, the big blog just

kind of shows you that sort of master zoning, rezoning application. So, I’m going to

go back to this tract 11. So it’s the shaded one that you see there, and it's adjacent

zoning categories, M-N and M-OF. Originally, the application was to convert all that

to more intense use, M-C zoning. M-C would have allowed the gas

station/convenience store use as of right. So it’d just be building process if that

zoning -- building permit process -- if that zoning was granted. In M-N, that same

use can only be considered as conditional use, which means it really repeats the

process. It repeats those steps that the rezoning goes through. And the specific use

has to be examined for it’s appropriate for the specific site. There would be

a large pond that’s an amenity for this development. And it does have those two

Planning and Zoning hearing on it if it came back, and then an opportunity for

persons to be notified and speak their mind about that planned use. So, the M-C

recommended with no votes for denial. The Commission also made

a motion on an

alternative recommendation to make to Council, and that would this idea of taking

that 0.47 acres that’s zoned office and just unify with the rest of this tract 11, which

by the way is known as lot 10, but I’m going to go with tract 11. We just use the tract

numbers for purposes of organizing the zoning, but all of that lot would then be

unified as an M-N, so you’d have about an acre and

a half in that M-N category. That

motion, however, was inconclusive 4 in favor, 4 against. I’m happy to answer any

questions the Council might have.

PITZER:

Yeah, Mr. Teddy, so there was some reference in the comments in the

traffic study that would need to be performed when and if that lot is

minutes to

developed. So, what’s the trigger for a traffic study in this case?

TEDDY: Well, I’ve said it before. In our code, we actually have

a threshold spelled

out, and so the city traffic engineer would look at the proposed use and may

determine that because of the trip generation -- if it’s 100 trips at peak hour, which

could mean

that automatically triggers the need for

traffic engineer will ask for one shy of that threshold if there are known issues with

traffic circulation in an area. So, don’t if that would apply here. It is very busy

intersection. There’s lot going on with the high school, with the frontage roads.

morning hour or it could be an afternoon hour depending on the use

traffic analysis. Now, in some cases, the

Corporate Lake is still building out so there’d probably be some requests for some

background data projection of what some of these other uses would contribute,

planned uses would contribute, as they come online. And, I'm speaking of zonings

where the zoning’s already in place for office development or multi-family

development, what have you. So, they’d go through that exercise, and then they’d

look at the traffic study and that would determine access locations, whether or not

some kind of mitigating measures like turn lanes in the street are needed, that kind

of thing.

PITZER: So there's, you know, often some backups and congestion there because

you’ve got -- because that has been one of the main entrances into Rock Bridge

High School there on the other side of Southampton, almost directly across from

Executive. So in mornings and afternoons, you’ve got backups and you’ve got

people trying to turn left, you’ve got teenagers trying to make awkward turning

movements, and it’s generally inefficient. So, would that be included in the scope

of any traffic study for this area?

TEDDY: Yeah,

think existing conditions --

mean, they usually baseline what the

existing traffic movements are. They diagram it. They look at where the vehicles

are coming from and when, you know. So, and then they overlay on the existing

conditions what the generated traffic would be, and then they look at it -- you

know, kind of a post build scenario. What are you going to get?

PITZER: Right, and in the minutes, Mr. Zenner had

reference to this traffic study,

and he said that it likely would result in some type of traffic management

improvements needing to be made at Executive and Southampton. So, that would

involve the turn lanes, some sort of -- what else might it include?

TEDDY: Well, and I'm just speaking hypothetically, because

traffic engineer about what's going on here and what the thoughts are about would

roundabout or something like be needed -- would channelization of turn lanes be

needed, you know, so someone could make an easier right turn out of there. Is

there -- are there safety measures, crossings -- think that might have been

Southampton -- so maybe something in there

haven’t conferred the

mentioned. Folks crossing on foot

too.

PITZER: Alright, and I'm not sure if there’s anybody from Public Works here, but

couple years ago, asked them to kind of mock up what it would look like if the high

school, you know, squared that exit off to align with Executive Drive. Right, so you

have essentially 4-way intersection there, and you would have some sort of traffic

management stop sign, improved pedestrian crossings, etc. And, you know, the City

would participate in the City’s part, but the rest of it’s on the CPS property. So, at

the time, was told that CPS wasn’t interested in funding that. Do you know if there

have been any other discussions about, you know, squaring that off, Tim?

TEDDY: No, but know what you’re talking about. The concept would be

points intersection instead of jog there. mean it’s not street, but it is

access island of their front parking lot there. So, yeah,

four

busy

think the idea is that drivers

making turns can see one another across the road and that makes it

orderly.

a little more

PITZER: Again, is that something that could be looked at in this traffic study for that?

TEDDY: Well again, yeah, I’d think as

a possible conflict point, and then if folks are

being creative, they could approach the school again.

PITZER: And that traffic study would have to be done before

issued? Is that right -- if the zoning is approved?

a building permit was

TEDDY: If the zoning is approved and they come in with something that requires

conditional use, yeah, they may do it as part of that. Or they may if they do

something that doesn’t require conditional use. The statement was that they

wanted to do convenience store/gas station so I’m just repeating what’s been

said in the record, but things can happen. mean, time can go by and plans can

think we’d look at what the traffic generation

change so, either of those scenarios,

behavior of the use is.

PITZER: So something could happen without

clear on your answer.

traffic study being done? I’m not

TEDDY: Oh, okay. Well, yeah, if you did something that’s very low trip generation, it

may not require that.

PITZER: Okay, that’s what I’ve got.

PETERS: So, they’re asking to go -- to have this whole tract be M-N for mixed-use

neighborhood. Is that correct?

TEDDY: Yeah.

PETERS: And that would require --

I think you’ve already said this, but I’m a little

confused -- and that would require them to come back if they actually wanted to

put a gas station and convenience store in there?

TEDDY: That’s right, anything automotive,

These are things that are listed under the district that are noted as not permitted as

of right. They’re category called conditional use, and that means it’s going to

car wash is in the same category, so.

really be at the discretion of the Council. And, you would get

a report on whether

or not it’s considered appropriate for that site. Traffic would be part of the analysis

I’m sure with something of high turnover, like a gas station.

PETERS: Thank you.

Jay Gebhardt spoke.

GEBHARDT: Good evening. My name is Jay Gebhardt, offices at 3401 Broadway

Business Park Court. I'm really here to answer questions.

Lewis has abandon his idea of c-store here, and yes, that’s way we’ve changed our

request to M-N. And, he is fully aware of -- we would have to hire traffic engineer

to -- just about for any development he would want to propose on this. like your

idea about aligning the driveways with Executive Drive, and the way understand it

I do want to state that Mr.

works is -- if the traffic study comes back and suggests that as an improvement,

then the developer would have to pay for it with permission from CPS to be on

their property and change their property. So, we’re fully prepared to address those

issues.

I got Julie Nolfo with Lockmueller Group out of St. Louis engaged in this so

that we can move forward with it. But if any other questions -- the request has

been changed to M-N to match the rest of the -- or the bulk of the lot there -- and

the lots to the west are proposed to M-N and on the consent agenda further on.

TREECE: Why did Planning and Zoning tie vote on the motion for M-N?

GEBHARDT: They were concerned about the ability of having like

c-store there,

just the store without the gas sales. think their concerns were cigarettes and

liquor and things like that across from the school. So, some of the commissioners

really wanted to downzone the whole thing to M-LF so that that can’t occur, but it

can occur next door to us. It can occur south of this. So, it’s -- we feel like that

wasn't a valid concern, and so we've asked for the M-N.

The Council made comments.

PTIZER: Yeah,

think I'm generally okay with the M-N designation here.

mean, it's

do think

kind of consistent with what else is going on all around it, you know, but

that it's important to look at this idea of what to do with the traffic there because it

is just bad turn access in and out of the high school there. So, think that there is

possibility for some improvement. You know, collaboration between us and the

schools and the developer. If they -- if the zoning were approved and if they move

forward with it, there's an opportunity, you know, really iron out, you know, traffic

flow in that particular section.

B333-21 was given third reading by the City Clerk with the vote recorded as

follows: VOTING YES: SKALA, THOMAS, PITZER, PETERS, TREECE, FOWLER,

WANER. VOTING NO: NO ONE. Bill declared enacted, reading as follows:

VII. CONSENT AGENDA

The following bills were given second reading and the resolutions were

read by City Clerk Sheela Amin.

B329-21

B330-21

Voluntary annexation of property located on the south side of I-70 Drive

Southeast and west of St. Charles Road; establishing permanent District

M-C (Mixed-use Corridor) zoning (Case No. 271-2021).

Rezoning property located on the west side of John Garry Drive and north

of Cedar Lake Drive from District M-OF (Mixed-use Office) to District

R-MF (Multi-family Residential) (Case No. 256-2021).

B331-21

B332-21

B334-21

Rezoning property located on the west side of Commercial Drive and

property located on the south side of Cedar Lake Drive from District M-N

(Mixed-use Neighborhood) to District M-C (Mixed-use Corridor) (Case No.

256-2021).

Rezoning property located on the east and west sides of Executive Drive,

the east side of John Garry Drive, and the south side of Southampton Drive

from District M-OF (Mixed-use Office) and District PD (Planned District) to

District M-N (Mixed-use Neighborhood) (Case No. 256-2021).

Granting design adjustments relating to the proposed Arbor Falls PD Plan

No. 4 located on the south side of Pergola Drive and west of Talco Drive to

allow a longer cul-de-sac length, a longer block distance, and private

residential streets to deviate from required design specifications,

right-of-way dedication and street widths (Case No. 140-2021).

B335-21

B336-21

B337-21

B338-21

Approving “Arbor Falls PD Plan No. 4” located on the south side of Pergola

Drive and west of Talco Drive; approving a revised statement of intent

(Case No. 140-2021).

Granting the issuance of a conditional use permit to White Oak Investment

Properties, LLC to allow a “bar” use on property located at 504 Fay Street

in an IG (Industrial) zoning district (Case No. 274-2021).

Authorizing construction of Fire Station #11 to be located north of the

intersection of Scott Boulevard and State Route K; calling for bids through

the Purchasing Division.

Authorizing Amendment No. 1 to the agreement for professional

engineering services with Allstate Consultants, LLC for additional materials

testing services during construction of the Discovery Parkway extension

project.

B339-21

Authorizing construction of the Landfill Fuel Station improvement project

located at 5700 Peabody Road to include the installation of two (2) diesel

fuel dispensers and metal canopy with lights, concrete pavement, storm

water inlet and piping, and upgrades to the mechanical and electrical

systems and existing control and fuel monitoring equipment; calling for bids

through the Purchasing Division.

B340-21

B341-21

Authorizing the acquisition of an easement for construction of the

Lakeshore Drive and Edgewood Avenue PCCE #23 sanitary sewer

improvement project.

Authorizing an agreement with SuperSonic Transportation, LLC for the

reimbursement of eligible project costs under the Missouri Department of

Natural Resources Air Pollution Control Program Volkswagen Trust

Electric Vehicle Charging Infrastructure Program for the construction of a

Direct Current Fast Charging (DCFC) station on Creekwood Parkway.

B342-21

B343-21

Accepting conveyances for temporary construction and sewer purposes;

accepting Stormwater Management/BMP Facilities Covenants.

Accepting conveyances for electric utility and underground electric utility

purposes.

B344-21

Authorizing a first amendment to tower co-location agreement and

memorandum of first amendment to tower co-location agreement with

Cellco Partnership, d/b/a Verizon Wireless, for the lease of City-owned

property located at 1808 Parkside Drive (Solid Waste Utility - Storage and

Mulch Site).

B345-21

B346-21

Authorizing a program services contract with the Missouri Department of

Health and Senior Services for WIC local agency nutrition services.

Authorizing Amendment No. 1 to the program services contract with the

Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services for the COVID-19 and

Adult Vaccination Supplemental project.

B347-21

B348-21

Authorizing Amendment No. 2 to the program services contract with the

Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services for public health

emergency preparedness services.

Authorizing Amendment No. 2 to the program services contract with the

Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services for HIV prevention

services.

B349-21

B350-21

R168-21

R169-21

Authorizing an agreement with Columbia School District No. 93 for teen

outreach program services.

Amending Chapter 27 of the City Code to establish an electric standby and

supplemental service rate for industrial customers.

Setting a public hearing: proposed replacement of a sanitary sewer under

U.S. Highway 63 and south of I-70.

Setting a public hearing: voluntary annexation of property located on the

east side of Bearfield Road and north of Woodhaven Road (4000 S.

Bearfield Road) (Case No. 7-2022).

R173-21

Authorizing an agreement with Green Valley Rifle & Pistol Club, Inc. to

provide the Columbia Police Department access and use of a range facility

for training purposes.

The bills were given third reading and the resolutions read by City Clerk Sheela

Amin with the vote recorded as follows: VOTING YES: SKALA, THOMAS, PITZER,

PETERS, TREECE, FOWLER, WANER. VOTING NO: NO ONE. Bills declared

enacted and resolutions declared adopted, reading as follows:

VIII. NEW BUSINESS

R174-21

Accepting the performance of VidWest under contract dated October 11,

2019 and relieving VidWest of any further contract obligations.

The resolution was read by City Clerk Sheela Amin.

Cultural Affairs Manager Sarah Dresser provided a staff report, and the

Council asked questions.

THOMAS: This is really my resolution, but I’d welcome for Sarah to say a few words.

DRESSER:

Hello, Sarah Dresser, Manager for the Office of Cultural Affairs. There are

-- this is the first resolution under new business for the contract with VidWest,

nonprofit. Basically, from the agreement that was entered into in October of 2019,

and after everything that has occurred over the last two years, this would accept

the performance that they were able to complete under that contract for services

fulfilled, and we would not require them to fulfill any other additional items under

that original contract that was entered into. I’m happy to answer questions about

this particular item.

THOMAS: Yeah, so, there's

which had been read in R174-21 would relieve -- would accept the performance and

relieve VidWest of any further expectations. number -- fair amount of language

that put in this was omitted so I’d like to read that aloud. At the top of this

resolution, R174-21, “Whereas, in response to an RFP for community media services

issued by the City, the City and VidWest executed contract for the provision of

services, which included operating public access channel and community media

center on October 11, 2019; and whereas VidWest asked Mediacom to install fiber

connection to 1600 Business Loop 70 East immediately after taking occupancy in

January 2020 and paid fee of $7,670 to Mediacom immediately after receiving

quote in June 2021, and yet fiber has still not been installed, thereby making it

impossible for VidWest to have public access cable channel; and whereas, the City

of Columbia declared state of emergency on March 16, 2020, finding that proactive

and extraordinary measures were necessary to prevent community spread of the

COVID 19 virus and issued stay at home order on March 25 2020, requiring all

residents to stay at home, except for special allowances; and whereas VidWest

a pair of resolutions here. As Sarah said, the first one,

continued to fulfill many aspects of scope of services, including operating

Community Media Center, providing video equipment rental and training

and

relevant skills, and pioneering new technology by developing livestream rigs with

which VidWest has provided public access programming via the internet; and

whereas VidWest has been unable to fulfill all of the terms of the contract for

services, specifically operating

public access cable channel, because of

Mediacom’s failure to install the fiber connection; now therefore, be it resolved by

the City Council that we will accept their performance and relieve them of further

obligations.” So,

I would also like to just thank John for quite recently reaching out

to Mediacom and asking them why they have not yet installed the fiber connection

to 1600 Business Loop East and applying

us an update on that situation?

a little pressure to them. John, can you give

GLASCOCK: Well,

haven't heard back. We got something back from Mediacom

got

saying that, you know, the City submitted their plans or whatever, and

responded back from our staff saying we’re waiting on them to pay for their permit.

So that's where we're at. I haven't heard back from them since then.

PITZER:

have

question for Mr. Glascock. Do you often reach out to private

companies and ask them if they've installed service to individual properties?

GLASCOCK: No, I have not.

TREECE: Mr. Glascock, have we ever voided an agreement and continued to pay

contractor for the City for services they did not provide, in your 17 years with the

City?

GLASCOCK: Not to my knowledge.

PETERS: Can

I just ask -- so VidWest gave or had a contract with Mediacom for $7,00

to put this in and Mediacom has not fulfilled their requirement, their obligation? Is

that correct?

THOMAS: That’s my understanding. Matt’s here. Matt can talk to that.

Matt Schacht, Jordan Lundy, Aaron Phillips, Jonathan Asher, Chris

Mooney, Richard Harris, Chelsea Myers, Megan Casady, and Tyree

Byndom spoke.

SCHACHT: Hi there. My name is Matt Schacht, 1617 Windsor Street, the VidWest

President of the Board. I’ve spoken to you

there's actually two bills here, or two resolutions that are connected. One is to

dissolve the 2019 contract because of impossibility of performance. That's legal

contract and there's an element of the contract that

legal defense to say that you do not require that person

few times. Like Ian Thomas said,

doctrine that says there's

cannot be performed. It is

to fulfill the contract. It's just good business because you can't hold somebody to do

something they can't do. The second resolution is to then enter into new contract

with VidWest. respect and recognize that this is really unusual situation. It's not

one that we thought we would be in either when we signed the contract and 2019.

We had plan for opening community media center in the summer of 2020, and

think we all had lot of plans for 2020 that didn't work out. think to VidWest’s

credit, we have stayed in communication with the City every step of the way. One

point, just counted my inbox emails to and from the City, and was sending an

average of two and half emails per week for 109 weeks to City staff. And it was

everything from how we're managing the contract, how we're redistributing funds,

the things we're trying to do to be COVID safe, attempted -- attempts at reopening

media center, and then being shut down, and then trying to reopen again, how

we were going to do classes with school children, what would livestreams rigs

mean, new technology that people weren't super familiar with, and this was the

early days of Zoom for lot of folks. At this point, think you're all pretty familiar

with it. So we have tried to be on the forefront. We've taken our responsibilities as

community media center very seriously, and we’ve done everything within our

power to be responsible stewards of that power. As far as know, there are no

other organizations at this time that can fill the gap that VidWest does, so if you

choose not to renew contract with us, there's very good chance that what you're

deciding is to not have community media, at least in terms of

center, anymore in Columbia. Thank you.

a community media

LUNDY: Hello councilmembers. Thank you for your time. My name is Jordan Lundy.

live at 5651 Tyler Drive, 65202. moved to Columbia in 2005, and started my career

as freelance video guy. do cameras, do tech work, do all that stuff. plug all

the wires in so that things can work and things can be seen. I’ve recently -- I've had

opportunities to move somewhere else. love Columbia. love Columbia and what

it does and what it is. Recently started working with VidWest, and was brought

on to fulfill that community space, to build out the studio so we could get back to

what CAT-TV was doing. worked with Matt on this. He pulled me in because he

knows my brain works different than lot of people and can get that stuff

working, but COVID hit and as with everywhere else, things got weird, things got

different, and we've all been shoved into that Zoom world. So what we built out

was

a livestream rack, a bunch of gear that we can plug in in different places, and

we can show what's going on. We've already helped Access Arts. We've already

helped the Columbia Center for Urban Agriculture. We've helped the State

Historical Society livestream the bicentennial. We are filling

and of supporting Missouri in telling the stories that are Missouri stories.

here in Columbia. My kids are in school here. Everything's great. With my line of

work, this is what do. help share stories, and so your support for helping VidWest

keep the doors open and the lights on means a lot. Thank you.

PHILLIPS: Hello, My name is Aaron Phillips. spoke, believe, in August at the

space of education

love it

August city council meeting about the things that I've been involved in with

VidWest and CAT and building out the new space. I've worked with Jordan Lundy

and Matt on numerous things.

don't think Jordan said, but he’s been like

projectionist with True False. He was very humble in his, like, skill level and, like,

what he's involved in in the community. He's pretty on up there. Anyways,

there's many things I've been involved in with VidWest and many reasons why

feel like the doors should be open and kept open with this, and also just the idea of

what community center -- media center is. Like, how that can affect the

community in terms of stories from the community being told. friend of mine,

Jordan Smith -- he sent me this. He's been suffering from laryngitis the last few

days, so he was not able to be here tonight, and he said you can use my name if you

happen to read it. He sent me

a statement, “tell them I’m a teacher at Battle High

and focus on serving underrepresented students. VidWest helped us serve this

population.” He says “VidWest studios has had an impact on me in multiple ways,

but I'd like to speak on

ago.” believe this was about three or four weeks ago. “I help run

school program, recording studio, out of CPS schools called Dark Room Records.

We record young artists trying to learn the expensive and often unattainable

experience of recording in professional studio environment. We had band

particular example that occurred only

few short weeks

free after

interested in recording some original music, but simply put, we currently don't

have the space to record larger groups of artists like those in our CPS school

buildings. We also host student interns to learn the trade of audio engineering.

Within hours of reaching out to the VidWest

team, we had a full weekend arranged

to record this band at their roomy studio space. Not only that, we were provided

professional equipment and resources to make our music sound as professional as

possible. The space is welcoming and, as

to explore media arts and simply cannot afford the costs of

environment. This particular band walked away with four recorded songs and

quickly learned. vital to those who want

typical professional

renewed sense of artistic inspiration, all for minimal cost, and our student interns

clocked hours of vital learning that they simply wouldn't get as quickly in our typical

building studios. While

love what Dark Room Records does with CPS,

I found this

resource in the VidWest studios to be

valuable asset to bring art, creativity, and

even career paths to young people we work with. Please consider supporting this

venture because we need more of this the world today. Please consider supporting

VidWest. I believe it will vary greatly and enrich our community. Thank you.”

ASHER: Hi, my name is Jonathan Asher.

spoken with you guys before. Columbia is fantastic. It's got all the things we want.

It's got the Center for Urban Agriculture, who have volunteered for their Harvest

live at 313 North William Street. I've

Hootenanny for many years now. I’ve volunteered for Roots and Blues, volunteered

for Peddlers Jamboree, and the True False Film Fest, of course, because we all love

that,

assume. Anyway, so this most recent year at True False,

I was also -- I was on

the photo team, which

normally am, but was also on the Build Team, and that

was -- they asked me, hey, do you want to help on the Build Team? And I'm like,

yeah, and I'm like, this will be convenient because in this very building I've already

got --

other tools. They're already in there because

photo studio for VidWest up and running. And

brought my own circular saw and

band saw and

was helping work on getting the

was like, yeah, that's super

a table saw and a lot of

convenient. I've already got my tools here. So build team was fantastic. So having

the camaraderie of that spirit of people getting together and actually making

something that you get while volunteering at these very special events is there at

VidWest all the time as long as there's someone there because, you know, there's

no paid staff so they can't be there all the time. But

studio manager, and I've had lot of great exchanges with people just wanting to

know how to use the equipment that they just got, that they have promised to

photograph wedding with the next weekend or some other, you know, some

I volunteer there as the photo

other situation that they're like how does this even -- how does this all work

together? And it's fun. And then, the thing I've been putting off forever is learning

to edit video, but I'm in the right spot because these are all -- they're all too

humble. There's

going to say having

entertainment economy is valuable.

go to physical places and we bring physical props and we make art and we take

pictures, but also, at the end of the day, I'm selling digital version of it. Short films

-- how many kids want to be stars on YouTube? How many -- when was in at MU

lot of really fantastic filmmakers. So before

space where people make these digital things for the digital

make and sell digital files for living. Sure we

I run out of time, I'm

studying mechanical engineering ten years ago, how many other young engineers

wanted to be -- like they grow up watching Mythbusters and see -- hear stories

about doing special effects for industrial light and magic, and be like that is what

engineering is going to be, or the things that they do at Disney. How many people

who are currently students at Stephens College studying fashion design are

watching Bridgerton or Drunk History, which

like, will do wardrobe will do period specific wardrobe for those shows or films?

And they're learning these skills in school right now, and they feel like it might just

have to be foregone conclusion that they have to move away as soon as they

graduate because there's not even single studio to do small, you know, small

production in. This -- earlier today, spoke with professor at the University of

Missouri -- so spoke with professor at the University of Missouri who told me

that they had to double the size of their -- let me see -- jotted it this down so

wouldn't get the words wrong, and now, haven't got it here. Give me just one

second. So, here it is, film studies program. They doubled the amount of film

production courses this past year because there is lot of interest in film

production. One of the professors pointing out that there is only three cameras for

every 40 students in their program is, like, oh well, if you want access to cinema

camera, just go to VidWest. One of the people who’s setting up show for CAT-TV

at VidWest is both employed by MU and is film studies student at MU, and they

have their friends who are volunteers, helping them make their show, borrowing

the saws have, as volunteer, in the studio, because that's how committed we

are. Because the people who make short films -- it's incredibly hard to do. don't

I also hear is very popular, and being

know how it gets pulled together. I've gotten to do behind the scenes photos for

two short films recently. One of them is -- both of them had maybe 15-20 people on

the set. All of them -- there's hair and makeup, there's wardrobe, there's the script

assistant, there’s

a slate -- they're all doing things. It's hard work and it's long, long,

grueling days. One of them -- everyone on the staff was paid money. The other one

-- no people were paid money -- long days. The two directors got to speak to each

other about which hotels they were putting up their actors and actresses. Yeah, so

to wrap it up, you know, the need is there. So, I guess that's all I've got.

TREECE: How many of you -- raise your hand if you agree with what this person said.

[About nine people raised their hand.]

MOONEY: [Chris Mooney] I’m going to bring up socio economics. Two terms, barrier

to entry and equity. So,

community is near impossible. If it was not for VidWest,

film, would not believe it would be possible for me to be in film.

want to be very clear, barrier to entry to film without

would not only not be in

want to make

that very clear. And also equity -- if you can't afford to be in film because the

[inaudible] are too expensive or we don't fund this, we are telling the community

that we do not believe in equity -- that we want

a high barrier to entry thing to be

available only to people who can afford that. That is what we're saying at the city

council, if you do not support community media. Also, we're going to talk about

Mediacom barrier to entry and equity. VidWest cannot get another ISP because the

infrastructure in that area only supports Mediacom fiber. So I’m going to be very

clear, there's no other options except Mediacom. Also it's not public access because

in order to get

public access channel through Mediacom you have to purchase

their cable package. So, I’m going to be very clear about this -- not only does

VidWest not another option to get fiber except Mediacom, but the community

would have to purchase

package from Mediacom -- again equity. If you can't

afford to purchase the package from Mediacom -- they get the public channel, you

don't get it. So we're not supporting community access by holding this up. We're

only enabling Mediacom to promote dis-equity and still keep barrier to entry.

TREECE: Thanks, could I have your name again for the record.

MOONEY: My name is Chris.

TREECE: Chris, your last name please.

MOONEY: Mooney and 1708 Sun Court, Columbia, Missouri is my address. And

want to tell you what I’m doing at VidWest, what I've done at VidWest. First of all,

groom who could not afford videographer for their

Let me -- equity and barrier to entry -- they could not afford

there was

wedding.

bride and

videographer for the wedding, which should be the best day of their life.

them will do this for you for free because

We shoot for the Law School. We shoot for the State Historical Society. They need

to get their budgets every year, you know, money is tight. VidWest comes in and

provides affordable ways to get their livestream out. recently had camera

told

I had the resources of VidWest to do it.

operating at the Veterans Advocacy Symposium at the Law School. I'm going to be

camera operating at the State Historical Society. Again, the rates that they're

getting, because VidWest offers the lower rates, is affordable to get these

livestreams out for these important things. I'm producing

actually mentioned me specifically. I'm film production student at the University

of Missouri. got -- brought in fifteen people to start show VidWest. All these

people working together -- building set, shooting the cameras.

bunch of actors -- that's 15 people. People don't realize there’s

film. Someone can't just go get

team. They need connections, and if they don't have access to community

want to get back --

equity, barrier to entry. If you don't have the connections and the money, you

cannot get into film. want to be very clear about that. And so if we do not support

this, believe that we are not supporting equity and we are not supporting barrier

a show -- Jonathan Asher

got

whole

team required

about

need

a camera and produce good work. They

media, how are they going to get those connections? Again,

to entry. Thank you.

HARRIS: Thank you for the opportunity. Hi, my name is Richard Harris.

I live at 5803

Red Wing Drive. I'm

originally from here she retired.

degree in Dallas, Texas, where I'm originally from, and

Real Songs Music, which is Diane Warren company. She's

VidWest. Oh, well, they found me, and what found from these youngsters was this

-- that they are diverse and great group of kids who are on the verge of doing

something wonderful for this community. want to be part of it. So I'm here

recent transplant from Los Angeles, California. My wife is

did not. am recording engineer. got my

worked in Los Angeles at

songwriter. found

speaking in their behalf. Give them the opportunity to make Columbia great in this

medium because they will.

MYERS: Hello, my name is Chelsea Myers. I'm going to speak to

of what VidWest does for this community than what you've heard before, even

though all of the comments made thus far. run company called Tiny Attic

Productions. was told in college that could not start media company here in

a different element

Missouri, especially being

get over five emails

locally. People looking for films to either tell the story of their lives, the story of

loved one's life, the story of their business, how they got started, what they're

woman.

I did it, and we've been going ten years strong.

a week about new commissions that they need for film gigs

doing here, why Missouri is important, and

send those on to the VidWest. Vidwest take takes care of those people.

take care of them. If

cannot take all of those messages.

cannot

didn't have VidWest, I’d just have to tell these people, no,

you don't have the money to get your story told. You're not going to get your film

made. So please allow VidWest to continue in supporting this community where

people like me who run

a company that should be able to support this community,

but we can't take all of the asks from our friends, or family, or neighbors. Allow

VidWest to do that. Thank you.

CASADY:

you for hearing from all of my colleagues and community members on the subject.

have brief summary of what I'd like to say. Creative expression is the ultimate

form of healing and brings people together, from good times and bad times, which

we've all experienced recently, would venture to say. I've been involved with

Yes, my name is Megan Casady, 1641 Highridge Circle. First of all, thank

VidWest since, really, its inception 2016. And since then, it's been focused on

cultivating an inclusive environment for future leaders, serving as the link to

Columbia, Missouri and surrounding areas, indie the film industry. If the Columbia

City Council decides not to continue funding this program, it would be

a loud and

clear signal to our community that this Council does not care about the arts

community, plainly put. It would strip away necessary resources for creative

expression and deeper community connection to

filmmakers, Missourians, artists, what have you. That's all, thank you.

BYNDOM: My name is Tyree Byndom. live in Second Ward.

address because I've had death threats before. I've been in Columbia for about 40

diverse collection of students,

I don’t give my

years.

worked with KOPN for about 20. During that whole time,

I always supported

CAT-TV.

think came up here and spoke one time and sacrificed myself in front of

the City when

asked for $4 million for social equity in all. So asked for $50,000 for

CAT-TV.

because

think that was back November in 2015. After that I left to go to Dallas

had death threats. But the reason that I’m here is just to share

DLC in capacity of really trying

budget for that board, but also to push to have focus with minority

business. You know there are six downtown. Out of 15,000 businesses, we got

about 300. But one of the things that found was, as transition as an individual

who's been doing news -- got over 10 million reach on my social media every

a brief

story. I've been serving for the last two years on

to help get

month. I'm constantly contacting and communicating with people, but the next

medium that -- on TikTok and Reals with the metaverse -- all of them are really

looking for visual experience.

stories, and share this every day, it's not the same as video. It's having

representation, being able to illustrate and show it in form of multimedia. But

one of the things that found is that, when it comes to black and indigenous people

of color in this industry, there are few. I've been having good relationship with

RagTag, with True False. For the last couple years, we've been really bonding,

Even right now, as you type

lot of words and

visual

making some deep connections. We did the Summer of Soul, we did the True False

Film Festival, and we have some good connections between the community and

some of these entities. Listening to their advice, after meeting with them,

and looked at VidWest. looked at the website. looked at the offerings.

to apply for the board, decided to submit and really try to help them, but also be

transparent with at saw for this industry. think that most of the videographers I

went

I decided

know are only shooting videos, but

I keep telling them you can make $30 to $50 to

$60,000 a year in this industry easy. We have nothing other than this that is working

to help these individuals, and it needs to not only be $35 it needs to be $300,000 in

order to make it robust so that you can grow this industry and have 100 people go

through this process to learn filmmaking so that they can actually serve the local

community. So, it's not

lack of being able to have this representation. There's not

talked to Dean Kurpius, told him about this,

lot of connections with MU.

challenged him, not much happened. So hopefully this is up to you guys to make

this choice, but not just give what they what they asked for, but give above and

beyond. Thank you.

The Council asked further questions and made comments.

PETERS: So, I'm not sure if it should be for this one or something else, but we seem

to be hung up that they need cable access. So maybe this is

we -- is there some reason why you even need to be dealing with Mediacom?

mean, it sounds like you guys have fairly robust presence, presume, on the

a question for Matt. Do

computer, some other internet form. So why did you pay Mediacom $7,000, and can

you get it back since they're not providing the service -- the same issue that we’re

having, where, you know, the contract we have with you all, or the City as has, it's

hard for you guys to do.

anymore?

So what's the reason that Mediacom is in this mix at all

SCHACHT:

So,

came into this knowing very little about how community media

think you're asking

worked and how the planning process worked for it, and

question that actually goes to the heart of maybe what is wrong with community

media right now in Colombia and why every year we have to bring like ten people

here, and, you know, you've got

up so much of your time. And

lot of important issues, and why this has to take

think the problem is that we have contract that

was created probably around 2009. That contract has been recycled for the last 13

years and the services that community media have changed. The contract has not

changed. And, what

staff don't want to be in

They want contract, and they want to be just be able enforce it and administer it,

and make sure it's clear. But City staff, think, have been put into the position of

having to update contract and invent community media policy. And think it may

be time for the Council and maybe committee to ask what is our long term

commitment to community media. What do we want this service to do for our

community? And then we can make contract that makes sense, that staff would

be happy to administer. And whether Mediacom was part of that contract or not

could be decided. Right now, think staff is doing their best to administer

learned engaging with Mr. Glascock and City staff is that City

position of having to make policy for community media.

contract. We're doing our best to perform that contract.

PETERS: Okay, thank you.

WANER: Can you talk

guys have done to try and remedy the impossibility of the Mediacom situation?

SCHACHT: Sure, so, started never had started channel before. So, Sean Brown,

the last director of CAT -- called Sean Brown. was like, how do you do this Sean?

And he said, okay, you email these guys that Mediacom and they'll get you started,

right. So emailed them in January of 2020, and Mediacom was very, maybe, we’ll

wait and see. Their maps about where they provide services is proprietary so was

like trying to figure out, okay, what location do we need the channel at. Do we

a little bit about how this has been impossible and what you

need it downtown? Do we need it Stephen's College? Do we need it at Ragtag? Do

we need it in some office space we have access to? And Mediacom could never say

where we needed to put the channel. So, eventually, we just said well, here’s our

studio, let's put it there, that makes

lot of sense. And Mediacom said, well, we

said, well, what do you have to do?

don't know if we can get you fiber there. And

How do you figure that out? How do you answer that question? And they said, well,

we have to cross railroad tracks and they made that sound like it was impossible. So

said, okay, well, before you go down that rabbit hole, let me see if

can find some

lot of new technology in the broadcast world in

gentleman named Charles Paige, who’s sales rep

reached out to him or he reached out to me

other options. So, there’s been

the last few years, and there's

at TelVue in Boston, and somehow

and he kind of guided me through -- okay, here are your options. If you're not going

to use this Mediacom fiber, here are the other tools available to you to get the

signal out so that you can complete your contract for the City. And, we looked at

each of those options, and it was either too expensive or just not reliable. So we

came back to Medicom, and

do for us? And at this point,

they, you know, thought about some more. We had some Zoom meetings.

loop in Sarah Dresser to those conversations because wanted Mediacom to know

that the City was part of the conversation. felt like, if Mediacom knew that the City

was interested in this, they wouldn't just blow us off. And think it took-- it was

really helpful that Mr. Glasscock wrote that letter because think that really

said Mediacom, we have to go with you, what can you

think Mediacom realized we weren't going away. So,

tried to

showed Mediacom that the City was serious about defending its interest in its cable

channel. And now we know why Mediacom was delayed. They’re waiting on this

permit, and they have some steps they need to take on the permit. And now we're

hoping that in November, they might put a shovel on the ground. We'll see.

WANER: Perfect,

mentioned earlier.

just wanted you to get at the impossibility defense that you

SCHACHT: Sure, thanks.

THOMAS: Talk about the relative community value in terms of public access media

of the media center as well as the broadcast channel and whether cable or internet

broadcast is preferable, but particularly, talk about the community media center.

SCHACHT: Sure. So, I'll be honest, we’re

a very small nonprofit. We don't have any

full paid, any paid staff. So our metrics aren't good, and I've been told this. My

board knows this. So what I've been able to do is really collect stories of people and

how those stories of the media center have valued them. One of the first stories

got was when was at Salvation Army store, think on Walnut Street, and was

buying rug for the media center. It was giant rug, like 20 feet by 20 feet. It was

the biggest rug they had. And bought this rug and while I'm waiting for like the

clerk in the back room, because it's such big rug can't carry it out myself, this

African-American gentleman comes up to me and he asked me why I'm buying such

big rug. And said, well, we're starting community media center. And he says

you mean like CAT? And was like, yeah, exactly like CAT. And the gentleman says

he tells me his story, which was he was -- he's minister at local church, and

some years ago, they didn't have way of filming their congregations. So if you

were sick, or if you had family or work obligations, you couldn't participate in their

religious services. So they sent group over to CAT and CAT trained those people

on cameras, taught them how to edit the videos, and then gave them the

equipment to then film their congregations. And so those individuals became their

AV staff at that church. And, then those individuals actually then moved to another

state -- to another -- and then became part of another church that also didn't have

any AV staff, and they became the AV staff there and train that people there. So

what you're really talking about here is -- you're teaching people how to fish, right?

And if you do that they will teach other people how to fish. And if we live in

community where people can tell their stories, lot of the problems we’re talking

about, lot of the frustration and lot of the anger, will find solutions, and people

will generally have more hope because they feel like they've been heard, and we

just want to give them the tools to do that.

THOMAS: Right. Thank you, Matt.

FOWLER: So,

have

couple of comments, and I'm going to reference

city -- was the chairperson of the committee. Actually,

was the volunteer coordinator for large undertaking known as

Let's Salvage the James. Matt contacted me because he wanted to tell our story.

And didn't want to create controversy. There were lot of things that happened,

including some fraternity students who are damaged -- did some extensive damage

in the building on their way out the door. so there was lot of sensitive things. We

wanted to do this in proper and constructive way, and he didn't stop asking me if

he could tell the story of what we were trying to accomplish. And recall at some

story. In

2006, when

was

wasn't

the chairperson.

point after that, he met me at the salvage barn and he asked me about why is it

important to save the inside of buildings? And at the time, you know, we generated

lot of excitement about that salvage. We were using power tools, which gets

of people excited. But we didn’t have any way as legacy to carry that story

forward, and so that was my first introduction to Matt. He is storyteller, and the

fact that he's undertaken to continue CAT-TV after the previous organization folded

-- Sean Brown and other nice people -- is really testament to the fact that, as

storyteller, he sees the potential. Now I'm going to switch over to contract

a lot

conversations -- is what I've observed as

later. We have -- when we're engaged in

city councilperson now -- all these years

contract with provider, consultant, or

otherwise, and they discover that they don't have enough money in the contract to

complete the work we ask of them, they come back to us and they ask us for an

addendum. We have done that with the Integrated Electric Resource Management

Planning process.

believe that we added at least $80,000, it might have been

$89,000, to the scope of work and the compensation for that work in order to get

that project finished. When WasteZero, which bid on our trash bags for the

pay-as-you-throw system, was unable to get enough retail establishments to carry

those bags to further the ability of community members to go exchange their

vouchers and buy extra bags, they came back and asked for money in order to pay

the retail establishments

contract addendum with them, and we voted and approved that.

similar thing to the way the City and the City Council already does business. When

we have contract that doesn't work, for whatever reason, and someone comes

fee in order to deliver those bags, and we made that

see this as very

back to us in good faith and explains why it doesn't work, we then -- whether we

are comfortable with the fact, like darn it, we wished we'd known that at the

beginning -- and I'm sure all of us wish we'd known at the beginning that Mediacom

was going to be so reluctant and exhibit so many difficulties. And in fact,

I wish I

had known at the beginning that the pandemic was going to slow down almost

every aspect of our lives in one way or another. We could have made, perhaps,

made other plans. But we have

a group and a community of people here who are

storytellers and who have heart for doing volunteer work for those among us who

don't yet have that ability, and we are going to shut them down over an

impossibility that was outside of their control. And now knowing what we know

about supply chain issues and whether or not they had the fiber to lay or they didn't

have the staff to lay it, whatever Mediacom’s issue is, it's not unforeseeable given

every other experience we've had with COVID that there would be something that

would prevent an important supplier from fulfilling what we needed them to fulfill

as part of that contract. So, I'm in favor of revising this -- of declaring this one

contract -- accepting the performance of the contract dated October 11, 2019 and

relieving VidWest of any further contract obligations because the obligation that

was left undone was the connecting of fiber so that they could bring that channel,

that public access channel, back up on Mediacom, and moving forward with an

agreement so that they can continue the good work they've already started.

THOMAS: Well, I'll just add one final point. It's very debatable that VidWest did

satisfy all of the conditions of the contract because if you all take

a look at R146-19,

which was the original contract, which is attached to this resolution, the scope of

services says operate public access channel. Contractor will operate the channel

dedicated by video service providers operating in Columbia, will operate

channeling in accordance with federal, state and local laws. It does not say cable

channel, and think it's very arguable that they did operate public access channel

using the technology that was available to them.

SKALA: I just had a -- part of this discussion -- I get - I’m very sympathetic to the idea

of the difficulties that VidWest ran into with Mediacom and COVID and some of the

rest, and

I don't want to get too far ahead [inaudible], but it's my understanding

that the very next bill when it deals with -- there was some admission that --

Although this bill was just to forgive that, those contract terms, if you will, the next

bill was to involve restoring the very same contract without some of the -- with the

changes.

mean things had moved on

bit, even in terms of VidWest’s business

little bit of

plan, if you will,

think, and what they have to offer. So I'm having

difficulty with this idea of -- not so much the difficulty of forgoing some of the

previous contract because of the real difficulties that they ran into -- but the idea

that they're going to replace it with another contract that’s virtually identical is

giving me a little bit of an issue.

THOMAS: Well,

should be negotiated with the big picture goals of the Council in mind, and with

current technology considerations. think that that's been big part of the

I can tell you, Karl, I don't think it should be identical. I think it

problem. So, maybe we need to amend the second resolution if this one passes.

PETERS: Let's just do, one at a time.

TREECE: Just do one at

a time. And, that goes to my concerns about both of these,

and that is the process by which we're doing this. And, we just don't -- we've -- this

is not, as Matt said, this is not the first discussion that we've had on their inability to

meet the terms of the 2020 agreement. We've had close sessions, staff has gone

back and forth, and

accepting your performance as meeting the terms of it

And we don't do that with any other contract, and we don't have

member bringing -- driving this process. It's done with an RFP. It's done with staff

input, with council consensus, and we're not even at 175 yet, and that's why did it

don't like we are going to retro actively say, you’ve -- we're

and -- when they haven't.

single council

separately because they are two separate things. And if they can't do what we

asked them to do last year, I'm not sure why we're asking them to do the exact

same thing next year. And I just wanted those to be two separate conversations.

R174-21 was read by the City Clerk, and the vote recorded as follows: VOTING

YES: SKALA, THOMAS, PETERS, FOWLER, WANER. VOTING NO: PITZER, TREECE.

Resolution declared adopted, reading as follows:

R175-21

Directing the City Manager to execute a new contract with VidWest to

provide public access channel programming and community media

services.

The resolution was read by City Clerk Sheela Amin.

Council discussed the issue and asked questions.

THOMAS:

should be reapproved.

probably lack -- think Matt would admit to this --

knowledge at the time that the City and VidWest signed the first contract in 2019.

think that they have grown lot and they now understand lot better, you know,

what all of the, you know, details of the contract entail, and think that the goals

from the Council for what we want community center and community media

did not draft this resolution intending that the exact same contract

think the problem was lack of communication, and

lack of legal expertise and

center and public access channel to look like are pretty clear, and that we should

ask the staff and VidWest to negotiate that. We don't need to do another RFP. We

already did an RFP. They wrote

contract. So just think it's -- we need to get beyond

probably over decade ago, and put something together. We've heard all of the

value that this operation is adding to our community, addressing many of our

priorities, community priorities. So, let's I’m not sure exactly whether this-- it says

very good proposal, and they were awarded the

contract that was drafted

such agreement shall be in substantially the form -- and that's not my language, by

the way, it was Nancy -- as set forth in Exhibit B. Now whether we should change

that language, Karl, to something

little, you know -- directing staff to negotiate,

you know, terms and conditions that achieve the overall scope, then I’d be very

open to that amendment.

SKALA: I don’t -- this is kind of unusual.

TREECE: Yes, the whole thing is very unusual.

SKALA: It does give me pause that what we're about to vote on -- the language that

we're about to vote on is not the language some of us really want to see. That even

-- by the admission that the -- some of the things have changed and there are going

to be different aspects of this, potentially, this new contract that have not -- are not

the same thing that happened with the last vote that we just took to forgive the old

contract.

I don't know exactly how to proceed with that. Whether that's to vote no

on this, and then have the staff come back with the language that’s sufficient to

make that clear, with some of our input. I'm just needing

in terms of -- what -- how we are proceed.

a little bit of help on that,

THOMAS: We don’t normally pass

for community media center and public access channel. We voted on it. It stayed

in the budget. There was motion to take it out, but it didn't pass. So, we don't

normally have to direct staff, but wanted to bring this forward because this thing

a -- we've already put this money in the budget

has just been stalled for nearly two years. And, meanwhile this small nonprofit

with all volunteer staff is doing tremendous work with virtually no revenues to

work with, and that isn't going to be sustainable. So, whatever you all want to do,

but let's just honor what we put in the budget and get the -- let them continue the

work.

SKALA: Just

question of staff -- I'm not sure who to ask here, legal or the city

recommendation? mean, what would be the best

manager. What -- do you have

way to deal with this? Would it be to give you the understanding that other things

need to be included in this, or the best way to deal with this would be to turn this

over to you so that we can have something in front of us that reflect those changes?

GLASCOCK: The reason the original scope is in there is Mr. Thomas asked to not go

through an RFP process. And if you don’t want to go through an RFP process, you

need to keep the original scope. If you want something different, we need to go

through an RFP process so everybody has

a chance to bid on it. That's the way

government works. I'm sorry that we didn't make this happen, but we would love to

do it. We started out -- the history was franchise fees from cable. This is how this

started. That’s how we got

We still have cable company that pays these franchise fees. And so, yes, it goes

into general fund, get that. But we've always history -- we've always used cable

think we ought to do an

a cable channel. And so we've kept the same contract.

as the mechanism for it. So if we're not going to do that,

RFP.

THOMAS: And John,

told you at the time

don't think anybody else would bid on it, but if they do, great

a good thing. The problem was that you said that all of that fragile

I think that they’re fine doing an RFP, and

I'm fine with that.

competition is

and valuable equipment that belonged to CAT really belong to the City was going to

have to be removed -- brought back to City Hall.

GLASCOCK:

I said it would if they didn't get the RFP. It would have to be given to the

next person.

THOMAS: Well, I thought you said -

GLASCOCK: That is not what I said, Mr. Thomas.

THOMAS: All right, great. Well, I'm -- I don't know. Matt are you good with --

TREECE: We do not spend taxpayer monies negotiating this in an open session of

City Council, okay.

I will open the public hearing where we can ask if someone from

the public would like to be heard. But just because we have money in the budget,

doesn't mean we can hand it out to every well intentioned not-for-profit that exists

in our community. That's why we have

contract. And if it's not this contract, then

we need to write an RFP to create

this council agrees on.

new contract based on scope of services that

THOMAS: As

I said, I think everybody's fine with doing an RFP, just as long as we

don't have to transport a large amount of fragile equipment across town and back.

PETERS: Probably store it there until we get the RFP.

THOMAS: Exactly.

PETERS: But, we do need to have

a contract that actually reflects what it is that

people presently are doing to communicate and tell stories, and beating our heads

against cable TV does not appear to be appropriate, and we should be getting that

money back from Mediacom since they have not gotten around to putting cable in.

But I think an RFP would be fine. We can have a public hearing if we need to do that

on this.

Matt Schacht and Traci Wilson-Kleekamp spoke.

SCHACHT: [Matt Schact]

just want to say

understand the stewardship you need to

would like to

do over taxpayer funds, and that you need to show no favoritism.

point out that cable franchise fees -- the spirit of those fees -- is to support your

PEG channels. Public media is one of those channels, and this funding was created

through the Federal Communications Act of 1984. So this is not just any nonprofit.

This is this is

public media, and these funds were created to support that cause. And

real question is -- is that you are key partner, the City, and as the legislative

nonprofit that was created, at least this role was created, to provide

think the

branch, you have control over those funds and you also have control over the City's

right to the channel. If you don't exercise those rights, then the whole community

loses this resource, and then it's gone. And I'm sure all of the artists here will find

other ways of doing their work. This, mean, this is not group that just lays down

think it would be sad to basically start over again from zero when this

already invested hundreds of thousands of dollars, hundreds,

and dies. But

community’s

thousands of man hours. There are people who are no longer alive who started

CAT, and their legacies are what is partly at stake here. So think you should not

handout. There's more at stake.

just treat this as any other nonprofit. It's not just

Thank you.

WILSON-KLEEKAMP:

chance to get talking about what to do with the American Rescue Funds,

remember somebody made

decided who the money should go to, before it came to the public for us to talk

about it. Not naming names. It's seems like we have hard time really investing

what does it mean to be stakeholder -- saw you have that Granicus thing agenda

tonight -- and maybe you passed it already. So to me, it seems like we're struggling

to really understand what it means to serve stakeholders in transformative way.,

and it keeps coming up over and over again. And it's like we just can't dig into the

weeds with it. And heard someone yelling tonight who always talks about

[Traci Wilson-Kleekamp] It's not

handout. Before we got

wish list of how we should spend it and already

decorum. I’m not saying anyone's name.

R175-21 was read by the City Clerk, and the vote recorded as follows: VOTING

YES: THOMAS, FOWLER, WANER. VOTING NO: SKALA, PITZER, PETERS, TREECE.

Resolution declared defeated.

R176-21

Establishing a ward reapportionment committee.

The resolution was read by City Clerk Sheela Amin.

City Counselor Nancy Thompson provided a staff report, and the Council

asked questions.

THOMPSON:

can give you

committee

really quick overview. This is in essence the ward

reapportionment

structure

that

has

been

adopted

previously

councils at the time of the census. As Council asked last time, at your last

at your

prior meeting -- you did request that the committee be charged to make its final

report and recommendation to the Council no later than February 15 of 2022 so that

it can be in place by April of 2022. I just wanted to call that to your attention. I don't

think there's anything else that has changed to any substantial events since last

time you saw this.

SKALA:

absolutely correct with this deadline, more or less this deadline, of February 15

means that this group has to get together relatively quickly and has considerable

amount of work to do in order to produce this report by that date. And I've

inquired, as suspect some of the other council members have, as to potential

nominees for candidacy for this for this commission. But, it would be nice to know

I just wanted to ask a question with respect to -- what you just indicated is

what some of their, in anticipation of some of their responsibilities for the amount

of work that's necessary to accomplish that -- so are we really talking about the

potential of more than -- certainly more than one meeting once

month, maybe

every couple of weeks or even more? So, I’d just like to have sense of how much

work we're talking about to be able to bring back to potential candidates so that

they know what it is that they're in for.

GLASCOCK: I would think it would be up to Council, and what you're --

TREECE: My sense that’s the direction of the chair and the members of this

commission, and

I think you need at least one meet I don't want to presuppose

what their public hearing processes is or how much community interest there is.

think there's one meeting in November to get organized. think there's at least two

in December and January. There maybe -- don't know if they want to have

hearings in every ward or listening posts or -- but for them to get it back, it's going

to be pretty compressed. FOWLER: looked at the resolution and then looked at

some of the materials that City staff provided us at our work session last time, and

as far as the descriptions and paragraphs A, B, and -- and just wanted to read

those seven qualities that were in the materials that the City staff gave us which i:

population equality, which think is covered by A, B, or C, compact districts of

contiguous territory, believe that is also covered, retention of existing

neighborhood boundaries, covered, doesn't mention retention of precinct

boundaries and perhaps that's contemplated that our county clerk would then have

to realign precincts, don't know, cohesion of other existing communities of

believe that that's covered, desire to retain historic boundaries,

don't know that that is specifically covered, and then consideration of

decision not to

wanted to just double

interest,

believe,

incumbency as in where the current council members currently reside.

remember from 10 years ago that the committee made

reapportion sitting council member out of their ward, and

check in asking, before we pass this resolution, that the resulting committee, once

they begin their work, will be free to make those additional recommendations

should they think that's appropriate as they did 10 years ago. Is that something

contemplated by the resolution, City Counselor, for them to be able to make those

additional, again, there were seven qualities? That's my question.

THOMPSON: Sure.

FOWLER: Yes, they they're free to make those additional qualities in the maps they

present to us when they bring those back.

THOMPSON: Yes, they can do that. What you're doing is identifying the emphasis

that you find to be important in there. Those are really the legal standards that are

listed, but

I think they can make whatever recommendation as an appointed board

or commission to this Council as -- based on that criteria.

FOWLER: Will they be given that same material that City staff brought to us at our

work session?

THOMPSON: Assuming so.

believe so.

am --

won’t staff that board or commission, but

FOWLER: And that they’ll be free under this resolution to meet as many times as

they, as group, decide to meet. Yes, they’re going to work fast. get it. So, thank

you. Those are my questions.

PITZER: Yeah, just two questions. So if we wanted to give any additional guidance,

it would be pertinent to or relevant to include that in the resolution. Is that right,

on any of those things? And then my second question is -- Section 4, the city

manager shall provide staff to assist the committee -- so would the, you know --

know that there was somebody from the GIS department here last time -- so they'll

be available to draw maps or assist however the committee wants?

that, you know, everybody's busy, but --

I mean, I know

GLASCOCK:

Yeah,

would say the GIS and planning -- Tim Teddy, Community

Development would be assisting as well.

PITZER: But you -- they have the resources to be able to assist this process

throughout however many meetings there are over the next couple of months.

GLASCOCK: Yes

PITZER: Alright, thanks.

Jeanne Mihail and Traci Wilson-Kleekamp spoke.

MIHAIL: Hello, my name is Jeanne Mihail, and

live at 3101 Crawford Street, and I've

already spoken with Mr. Pitzer about my interest in serving on this committee.

hoping that the staff available will be able to create scenario maps for us aligning

the census tracts with, or the census blocks with precincts and with current ward

boundaries so that we can ask census related questions as we, as whoever is on this

committee, develops the proposed maps for City Council's recommendation.

think

it's wonderful that you’re going to go through this process and have citizen

representation and citizen outreach and input into it. Thank you.

WILSON-KLEEKAMP: [Traci Wilson-Kleekamp] Thank you for doing this process. It's

important. Getting good maps is really important.

you tonight. That's great stuff. Those resources are great. We live in

visualize data and change. Let’s take advantage of it. think she gave some good

tips on maps. There was work session couple weeks ago, and there were some

maps that didn't have street names and things like that on it, and think the maps

with the more data came later, and don't know if those have been put back online

or not, but didn't get them yet. So, I'm hoping that we put maps up there that are

interactive and helpful, and I’m looking forward to this process. think there's lot

for us to learn. The only other thing want to add about it is, how do we embed

equity in the conversation about reapportionment. We say it lot, we equality, but

we don’t say equity, and they're really different terms. There's been lot of change

hope you saw what Aída showed

great time to

in the past 10 years, and there's actually some stuff to learn about equity looking at

what the last task force did, the last reapportionment committee, around equity.

They kind of kicked the can

a bit, so I'm hoping that there's some direction or some

instructions. And I'm not sure you're ready for that, having to know how to

articulate that, but thinking about equity and these boundaries. Not equality --

equity, which means you have to ask some different questions about what you're

doing. Good luck. Thanks.

TREECE: Quick question.

WILSON-KLEEKAMP: Yes.

TREECE: So I've been following the State Senate and State House redistricting

process, and how would you incorporate equity into maps because

with different preconceived notion? One would argue that -- so and I'm not sure if

we're talking about majority/minority district or if we're talking about making

sure that there are multiple districts or wards -- and we this is just hypothetical, not

necessarily Columbia City Council. But was struck by Mayor Ella Jones. She's the

come at this

mayor of Ferguson. They have four state reps and two state senators that represent

the city, the small city of Ferguson. And on its surface, the Senate Commissioners

thought, oh, but look, you have two votes in the Senate and four House members --

yes, but

can't get any of them to return my phone call because no one is

responsible for just Ferguson, and Ferguson want’s its own senator, Ferguson wants

its own house district, so that we are represented -- so that there's one person

responsible for us. So how do you apply that, just philosophically, with equity and

representation, and is that sprinkled throughout all of the wards or is there one

ward that, or one district that, is responsible for that ethos?

WILSON-KLEEKAMP: So you're piling layers of political conflict into one question.

So, what they do at the state level to get that outcome is on purpose. That's just

political segregation on purpose so that they don't have to give Ferguson the

representation they want. That's

political problem at the state level, not

city

problem. In terms of representation here, my read or understanding of how the

map is changing -- we will get some more representation for Columbia. So what we

have in our situation is not the same as theirs, and our population is not the same.

They have

much totally different population than we do, so it's not apples and

political situation like we have with the Police Officers

oranges. But they have

Association and the rules that they put in with SB26.

TREECE: Well, take race out of it. What if it was the city of Springfield?

WILSON-KLEEKAMP: Can’t take race out of it.

TREECE: OK, but take that out of the example

Springfield, that wanted more clout in Jeff City.

they want two senators.

used. What if it was the city of

Do they want one senator or do

WILSON-KLEEKAMP: It’s still state politics. It’s still power at the state level. It’s not

local. Local is everything.

The Council asked further questions and made comments.

SKALA:

whole idea --

there was

gerrymandering to make

Just kind of

can remember the last redistricting go around 10 years ago when

good bit of controversy because there were some attempts at some

safe but very diverse First Ward and relatively more

a comment as sparked by this mini conversation here. But this

conservative wards to surround them. And there was also discussions about the

number of council members, which would be Charter change and all of those kinds

of things beyond even,

I mean -- with the City Council. But, I also remember quite a

bit of intense conversation in the redistricting process with the commission about

homogeneity and heterogeneity, or within the wards and that -- I'm not sure that

was ever fully exploited or satisfied, but it was beyond just equalizing numbers. It

really did get to the, or it attempted to get to some of the discussion about equity

in terms of those characteristics.

us. I’d be very interested in to find out because

numbers. mean, there is -- but there is also the reality of what the census

don't know what this group is going to return to

think there's more than just the

returned and the changes in some parts of the City that are significantly larger than

the changes in other parts of the City.

PITZER: Yeah,

wanted to kind of maybe synthesize

couple things that we've

talked about tonight, and also previously, and that is, you know, Ms. Fowler, some

of the things that you mentioned in terms of the guidance from the earlier work

session. There are several things that were not included in the resolution. One of

them, desire to retain historic boundaries. We talked about the amount of time

that's going to be, you know, available to work through this process. And then, you

know, also we talked to the last time -- at the last meeting, when we had the

discussion about whether or not to go forward with this, you know, full blown

committee approach -- was the reality that the population shifts since the last

census were not that dramatic and that there are

you know, shift things to equalize those populations. So

paragraph under Section 3, suggesting that in consideration of the modest

couple of areas that we could,

would propose new

population shifts since the prior drawing of ward boundaries,the plan should

prioritize equalizing wards with minimal change to existing boundaries.

Council Member Pitzer made a motion to amend R176-21 by adding a

new paragraph D under Section 3 stating, “in consideration of the modest

population shifts since the previous drawing of ward boundaries, the plans

should prioritize equalizing wards with minimal change to existing

boundaries.” The motion was seconded by Council Member Peters.

SKALA:

Just a question I guess. I mean, it seem to me, and maybe it's not sufficient

to just suggest that seems to be implied with the redistricting action -- that you

don’t move things unless you have to do, but it's necessary to move things to

equalize the populations with some of these other considerations as well

wrong in making that assumption that that's implied so it's sufficient or, obviously

PETERS: Apparently, it wasn’t 10 years ago when they're talking about making pies

out of the City or whatever.

SKALA: Well,

mean, it's always -- it did come up that there was -- someone brought

pie shape chart, you would eliminate

up the issue that in order to make this really

the first ward and there would be there would be six wards that were actually pie

shaped to do that, but it never got anywhere.

PETERS: I guess the question is --

SKALA: Is that what you’re trying --

PITZER: Well you might think it’s implied, but,

the committee.

I mean, but that - this our charge to

SKALA: Yeah, yeah, I understand.

FOWLER: So,

the committee, but

enough information about the kinds of things they will discover when they go

understand that you're trying to simplify the process, Mr. Pitzer, for

think I'm going to vote against your amendment. don't have

down to --

did ask somebody who's knowledgeable about the census data to

I think they spent two hours with me, showing me how you dig in

spend, actually

down to the block level, and

I realized there's an enormous amount of data there

that is interesting that

window we have. So,

personally will not have time to spend time with in the

don't want to predetermine the outcome for this group who

is going to pour themselves into this over three months and come up with their

best work product, so I'm going to vote against your motion, and let them -- let the

process and the data guide them to what they think is best to bring back to us.

TREECE:

summer when

times.

votes here and 800 votes there that need to be moved, and we've gone from, you

know, 10 percent deviation to less than two percent deviation. And, think more

than anything, mean -- we're not going to get this done before the April 22

think you have

good amendment.

just don't, you know --

think this

suggested this and, you know, we hit the pause button

couple of

think we were anticipating dramatic changes. The reality is there's 1000

election, and for those one or two people that are elected in this April, to have

those districts -- for them not to know -- at least Fourth Ward is one of those that is

going to gain 1,000 seats or needs to add seats -- to dramatically change that ward,

and you know, in April of 23 or the day after the 22 election, you have 1,000 new

constituents and they may be in your neighborhood or they may be right next door.

don’t know.

think that's

a big -- that's a dramatic change at a time when you

probably need

little more predictability or stability in the process, but the ward

reapportionment committee may disagree. I just think that's a -- good language.

PITZER: I'll just clarify. It's not 1,000 votes that need to be moved, it's 1,000 people,

residents.

TREECE: People, sorry, correct.

FOWLER: Children included.

SKALA: Duly noted.

TREECE: Thank you. One thousand people, including children.

The motion made by Council Member Pitzer and seconded by Council

Member Peters to amend R176-21 by adding a new paragraph D under

Section 3 stating, “in consideration of the modest population shifts since

the previous drawing of ward boundaries, the plans should prioritize

equalizing wards with minimal change to existing boundaries” was

approved by voice vote with only Council Member Thomas, Council

Member Fowler, and Council Member Waner voting no.

TREECE: Assuming this passes, could -- so, the resolutions says individual council

members appoint

representative from their ward, Mayor appoints

member

at-large. Would everyone be willing and ready to communicate their appointees to

the City Clerk by the end of this week?

FOWLER:

may need the weekend because

work full time and

I work the phones

on the weekends, but

could have my work done.

could by Monday morning have, by next Monday morning,

TREECE: Could you try and do it by Friday?

FOWLER: It’s hard for me, Brian, when I have a full time job.

TREECE: I have more than a full time job.

FOWLER:

get it, but

have physical requirements of being in the office at

can't make that promise because

certain

time, but

will do my best, but

rely on

Saturdays and Sundays to get my council work done.

TREECE: And here’s why, would there be any reluctance, if when we communicate

these to the Clerk that we notify -- assume everyone is -- no -- everyone has

permission from the people they’re appointing that they're willing to serve -- this is

not going to be surprise to anybody -- that we notify them of -- and appoint the

chair -- that we notify them who that commission is and let them get organized

next week, and then at our meeting on November 15 we read those into the record

when we do regular boards and commissions. Everyone comfortable with that?

THOMAS: Yeah, and is there

a problem with us making Monday morning the time

we notify the Clerk, rather than Friday evening.

TREECE: No.

THOMAS: It doesn’t seem to make any difference to me and it gives -- it’s helpful

for Pat.

TREECE: Alright.

THOMAS: Let’s do it Monday morning.

TREECE: Alright. Is that all right with everyone?

SKALA: Sure.

R176-21, as amended, was read by the City Clerk, and the vote recorded as

follows: VOTING YES: SKALA, THOMAS, PITZER, PETERS, TREECE, FOWLER,

WANER. VOTING NO: NO ONE. Resolution declared adopted, reading as follows:

R170-21

Authorizing FY 2022 agreements with various arts and cultural

organizations; authorizing agreements of up to $500 per agreement for arts

programming or services for cultural organizations.

The resolution was read by City Clerk Sheela Amin.

Cultural Affairs Manager Sarah Dresser provided a staff report, and the

Council asked questions.

DRESSER: Sarah Dresser, again, with the Office of Cultural Affairs. This is the

culmination of our annual arts funding process that occurs every year where we

receive applications from eligible agencies in Columbia which are 501(c)(3)

nonprofit arts agencies who are applying for funding for various programs and

services in the community. Our Commission on Cultural Affairs reviews all of those.

We have

rubric for evaluation.

believe my chair spoke with you during the

budget process in August, and now that the budget has passed, we are doing the

formal contract agreements with these agencies for their art services that they will

be providing this coming year. And then also, as you see in the memo, it is also

authorizing the City Manager to execute any additional small request funding

applications that are rolling that come in throughout the year as well. So, if other

kind of unique one-time opportunities pop up, agencies can apply for smaller

requested funding, and then we are able to do those in house.

FOWLER: So the language in the header to the Resolution 170-21 talks about -- so

the $500 is separate from the list of, approximately $5,000 for about 20

organizations that was on the list as the Attachment A?

DRESSER: Correct. So that $108,100 is going to those 24 local organizations, and then

we also have in our budget $3,000 that then can be used for small requests, and

agencies can apply for up to $500, so some might have

that is a separate amount.

a smaller need than that. So

FOWLER: And so they, in order to access that smaller amount, they come back to

through your office, and then you take that to the City Manager based on --

is that a process that involves you -- the selection?

I mean,

DRESSER: Right, so it still will be reviewed by our Commission on Cultural Affairs, so

they still make that recommendation to fund that project, but then the contract

agreement is handled then with the City Manager’s approval.

FOWLER: So, we’re giving you, in addition to that list of the 24 organizations, the

ability to disburse those $3,000 as part of this resolution?

DRESSER: Correct, that was also in our budget.

FOWLER: So there was another question

Because, in your agreement, you talk about pre-paying 90 percent of the funds to

the organization ahead of time, and that struck as good thing because small

organizations don't have cash flow. And just wondered about -- when we’re giving

had on it which is why

pulled it.

out money in small doses like this -- I’m thinking back to the conversation we had

about the supplier diversity program we had at the time of the report from the

consultant who's doing our audit, and the conversation that we had subsequent to

that is that while we have

and lists out who they are, we don't really bring that forward in how we distribute

money within the City. And wondered if, in giving out these grants, it's not an

a supplier diversity program that Mr. Whitt administers

opportunity for us to look at the supplier diversity program because these

organizations are spending that money on something, whether they're buying

services or products out there. Is there any way to connect that?

DRESSER: That’s

good question. Our Commission on Cultural Affairs does an

annual review process of the full application and evaluation, and the particular

questions that were asked the particular evaluation tools, so one of our areas is

community

presentation or education. So, you know,

tying that into how maybe it relates to our strategic plan and if that fits.

FOWLER: So, it's not so much who they're serving, but let's take Ragtag because

involvement

who

these

programs

are

reaching

with

their

think you bring up

a really good point in

everybody's familiar with Ragtag. So Ragtag’s getting,

So, they're probably -- what if they were planning to spend that on media

promotion, and would they be encouraged to spend that with minority owned

business that does media promotion? It's kind of getting it to that -- is there policy

think, $5,200 or something.

or is there part of that process that could highlight that we do this supplier diversity

program, but it sits out there as something that's informational, and we'd like to

see it actually in practice.

DRESSER: Well, that’s something

possibility to include something like --

I could definitely bring up to my Commission on a

FOWLER: And it ties in with the Chamber too because the Chamber is helping to

grow or plant or seed -- I'm going to use all the wrong language -- the Columbia

Association of African American Business Owners, which is part of their initiative.

see Lily’s in the audience, hello, Lily. So that was my point in asking that. And

particularly where small minority owned business being able to have money

upfront is an important process in ability to be able to do the work. So that's why

pulled that from the consent agenda. Thank you. Those are my questions.

TREECE: So most of these, Sarah, are -- they're all not-for-profits, right?

DRESSER: Yes, that's part of our eligibility guidelines is to be a nonprofit arts agency.

TREECE: So not-for-profit wouldn’t -- could not be black-owned or women-owned

or disability or veteran status. Do you ever go back and look at the board of

directors of the not-for-profits to see if they have representation that reflects our

community?

DRESSER: Right. That is one of our -- part of the application is to attach their list of

Board of Directors, so we -- the Commission has that information on kind of who's

representing, not just with the staff profiles, but also on their board as decision

makers for the organization. We see that in the review.

TREECE: You do ask for that?

DRESSER: Yeah, we do ask for that.

TREECE: And

that a percentage of what they asked for? Is it a match? Tell me about that.

DRESSER: Right, so it is determined by mathematical formula -- so, hence the very

I noticed these are kind of random amounts, $5,005, $4,822, I mean, is

different very specific dollar amounts -- based on the total average score from all

Commissioners, their request amount, and then we have an adjusting percentage,

which is based on the total amount requested versus the total amount available.

So, when you kind of mathematically do all of that, you get all these varying award

amounts, and then they also request different amounts as well, with the threshold

$7,500.

No one from the public spoke.

R170-21 was read by the City Clerk, and the vote recorded as follows: VOTING

YES: SKALA, THOMAS, PITZER, PETERS, TREECE, FOWLER, WANER. VOTING NO:

NO ONE. Resolution declared adopted, reading as follows:

R171-21

Authorizing a first amendment to the service agreement with Granicus, LLC

for implementation of a digital citizen engagement platform.

The resolution was read by City Clerk Sheela Amin.

Communications and Creative Services Manager Brian Adkisson provided

a staff report, and the Council asked questions.

ADKISSON: Good evening, Brian Adkisson, Communications and Creative Services

Manager. So, Bang the Table is

a digital engagement platform that will be used in

addition to the City's other engagement efforts to help in soliciting feedback from

our residents and various stakeholders. It uses mix of online engagement tools to

capture variety of feedback. Think of the platform as combination of website,

social media, and survey service, with lot of enhancements. Users create an

account and answer variety of demographic questions that we choose, and that

feedback can then be collected and analyzed in variety of ways. We can analyze

the feedback on the core of what they provide, and we can dissect it based on the

various demographic factors as well and go lot deeper. One of the things we

realized during the pandemic was that the digital communication increased great

deal, and this project -- or example wanted to point out. When we had the airport

terminal project, we had over 23, or nearly 2,300 responses to that, and that was

used through Survey Monkey. This platform would provide that type of avenue for

our residents to provide that feedback. It will not take the place of in person

meetings and it will enhance our overall engagement efforts. Basically, when you

think of this as an additional avenue for our residents and stakeholders to provide

feedback.

FOWLER:

members of the Disabilities Commission to ask them about the platform. They

were -- the chairperson is familiar with it, and so she had question. She wanted to

So, yes,

have

couple of questions, and

actually reached out to

know who is going to use the software -- is it for City Council to put out questions to

have them answered or will the commission's be able to push out information that

way?

ADKISSON:

Council. It can be used for -- as an addition to an online IP meeting, which is

formal type thing, or it can be very open ended to something, just you know, what

are the things we want to look at in the future -- very strategic thinking if you will,

or very visionary thinking. Certainly, think Council and the boards and

commissioners could certainly use this tool for their benefit. It's very robust. It's

very flexible. So it can be very structured content that we're getting. We can put in

polls. It just has lot of variety based on the topics that we can use it for, once we

think there's lots of opportunities. We can look at departments,

very

build that online community.

FOWLER: So when do you anticipate that you'll start building that online

community.

ADKISSON: So, if approved tonight, we'll start working with the vendor to have the

platform built. It is essentially

a website, and we will brand it to look like the City of

Columbia. We have been in various talks with various departments to look at

maybe, Public Works in terms of an example for an additional IP online presence. It

also could have opportunities for the ARPA funds as well.

FOWLER: And, do you anticipate that once you have this approval and that you’ve

started to roll out and build this site, and that you would then take that to --

I would

start with some crucial boards and commissions, like Disabilities, you know, where

we have shown that there are obstacles to people participating at the City level? Do

you have

a plan to then visit them, to meet with them, bring that to their attention,

ask for their input?

ADKISSON: Certainly. So we have had conversations with other municipalities to

get -- what is the best practices, what were the things that worked, what didn't

work -- and what they suggested was starting with something that was large that

really -- you would grow that online presence because it does require you to create

an account and log in and provide, you know, your information. So, having that

online community built, and then you can go out to the smaller more specific

topics. So the key is really finding that initial step into the program and to build it

from there.

FOWLER: So, then

I have another question about, hold on, that came from the -- this

is another from the Disabilities Commission, and that is, let's see -- we need to

make sure this is accessible and screen reader friendly if you want build the

community. She’d like to see there ADA compliance and accessibility rating for the

software.

ADKISSON: They’re a AA

FOWLER; They’re a AA. Okay, AAA being the best.

ADKISSON: As the City is currently AA as well.

FOWLER: Okay, and we will have to have our commissioners with low and no vision

involved in setting up the platform.

ADKISSON: Certainly, and so, like we’re doing with our other websites. We have an

independent company now -- is now auditing our sites to give us feedback. So,

we're continuously making modifications as we get that feedback, and we have the

outside vendors looking at it to make our of sites better and more accessible for

everyone.

FOWLER: Thank you. Those are my questions.

THOMAS: Has anybody done any research on how effective Bang the Table is at

gathering input from communities that typically don't participate in these kind of

public processes, low income communities, minority, racial, and ethnic groups,

people with disabilities.

ADKISSON: I'm not aware of any specific research.

did lot of the peer conversations, they were all very supportive and that it did

enhance their ability. It provides that extra avenue for individuals, and so again,

I know when we looked out and

think it's just the more avenues we can provide people. It does provide that

additional accessibility, and that's what we want to do to make sure we're hearing

all of our voices in our community.

THOMAS: Great, thanks.

PITZER: Yeah, your memo says that it will replace the outdated SpeakUpCoMo.com.

I’ve never even heard of that. What --

ADKISSON: And

was product of Granicus back in the day, and,

the last election for the ballot issue for Parks and Rec. And it was used at that point,

and then it didn't get used is my understanding. can't, I’m looking -- just don't

think there was anyone really to shepherd it and manage it and keep pushing if

forward. But when we looked at this product, we looked at it in very strategic

way. So when we did the website and the app, we also looked at this product and

can’t speak to

lot of that, but, as

I understand it, SpeakUpCoMo

believe, it was launched prior to

couple other social media products that we hope to use that will be helped manage

by the new digital communications coordinator that you approved in this year's

budget. So, this will have

a person dedicated to managing it, keeping it up to date,

ensuring that everyone -- the engagement is happening from the departments --

because it does allow individuals in various departments to be directly engaged

with the public when they provide that feedback. And so, this is very much

different model, different plan, at least than think understand that was used in

the previous software package.

PITZER: So there's going to be one person monitoring and reviewing all of the

posts?

ADKISSON: As

administrators. Myself, Ms. Olson, and

administrative access to look at all the projects, but then we designate an

individual who has project, and project could be -- let's say it's the ARPA funds --

management level. So, there, we'd have,

believe, four

couple of individuals in IT will have

we designate someone in the Health Department. They would also be monitoring

that content as well. So each project or an IP meeting, if you will, would have

specific subperson monitoring comments.

PITZER: And what would they be monitoring it for?

ADKISSON: If, depending on the type of questions we asked, if it's an open ended,

where it's an open dialogue -- is the expectation that staff engage with that

individual and answer their questions if they have any. The other monitoring would

happen at the company’s level. They monitor to check if they see duplicate IP

addresses. So, if you're familiar with Survey Monkey when we did the airport

terminal project, we had

a - we put in that that you couldn't vote from the same IP

address more than once. They looked for these kinds of things too when they

monitor it, to make sure that someone isn’t making 100 accounts, if you will, to

skew the voting on a poll, if you had something like that.

PITZER: But as

apply.

government platform, so First Amendment protections would

ADKISSON: Correct.

PITZER: So, you could have toxic hate speech that would be --

ADKISSON: Potentially, now they do filter through for -- they do flag content, and

we would have to work with the Law Department in how we're approaching all of

our social media channels right now, to ensure we're honoring First Amendment,

but not having speech that would cross the line. And that one

speak to that.

I would have Nancy

PITZER: Is there’s

basically no line.

line? My understanding is that in political speech, there’s

THOMPSON: There are some lines. You can’t use profanity, and there’s some lines,

but you know the, think, what was -- well, there was comedian once that did the

seven dirty words that don't think -- think that's probably expanded, like, or

reduced itself to like three, but for the most part, -- we do watch for that and we

do watch for threats and things like that. There are some guidelines that we’ve

received, but for the most part, free speech is out there.

PITZER: Racist, sexist --

THOMPSON: Correct.

PITZER: All of that would be okay.

THOMPSON: Right. No, we watch. If it’s

a racist -- if you get people that are arguing

and attacking other posters, those can be monitored and removed. Individual

attacks on people, or individual attacks on other posters can be removed.

ADKISSON: And they do that 24/7. That is

a part of our service that the company

monitors and would flag content that we would still be able to see internally and

work with the Law Department, if necessary, and the vendor to whether or not that

becomes public on the on the final platform. We know this is not intended to keep

any content away. Certainly, it’s not that. We want it to be an engaging,

constructive conversation for the community members.

PITZER: Yeah,

partially social media, and you know, one of the things that

that you don't want to -- you don’t necessarily believe the things that you read on

social media. You don't necessarily believe, you know -- even if majority of voices

on particular social media outlet that may not be representative of any particular

view of the majority of the community.

ADKISSON: That is topic that we are all grappling with because that -- the online

guess. You know, one of the things --

mean you mentioned that it’s

think we've learned is

atmosphere has certainly changed for certain topics in the past 18 months,

certainly.

THOMPSON: And I’ll just point out the role of the staff member or the role of the

administrators it is to make sure there is accurate information out there that gets

posted over inaccurate information.

lot of times that has to happen because of

free speech because we can't regulate based upon the content.

PITZER: Right, yeah, that’s part of my concerns, you can't regulate it.

ADKISSON: And when we build

project online, we have different ways that we

can, depending on what kind of content we’re looking for, we can control if it’s an

open dialogue where the commenters can comment back to each other, or if it’s

just strictly that they can -- we call all see the comments, but only the City can

comment back. So, there is some controls that wouldn't happen say on Facebook, as

an example. Facebook is an open -- you post it and it's open for anyone to go back

and forth. In this platform, we can set different controls where that can't happen, if

we choose that to be the mechanism that we’re working on that project.

PTIZER: Okay, thanks.

SKALA: Just to,

mean, Facebook is open, and now meta, but -- and there are some controls

whereby folks can complain about being mistreated and so on and so forth. mean,

mean, you've kind of answered the question to some degree.

I'm not necessarily anticipating that, but does this have the capacity for folks who

feel they have been wronged by some comments to

report that issue?

ADKISSON:

can't say with 100 percent it does, but

know with the monitoring

service, they can -

SKALA: The oversight -

ADKISSON: The oversight -- in that regard,

I think the flagging is really going to be

key. And in terms of what we're seeing with the other communities, it hasn't been

problem. This tends to be little more formal in terms of individuals having to

way promote, that back and forth banter. This is really meant to be between

ensuring that we, the staff, are engaging with our residents and answering their

questions in way that we haven't done so in the past. We know it's lost

opportunity for us. So, we want to make sure that we're taking advantage of all

those opportunities as we go forward.

TREECE: So when you brand the product for the City of Columbia, will it be branded

as Bang the Table, or will it -- is that just the backbone?

ADKISSON: No, that is -- we have not determined the name.

Technically, we could

use the SpeakUpCoMo or some other variation of that. That was not the actual term

or the name of that program.

TREECE:

I appreciate that. Despite comments to the contrary, I do try to encourage

civil discourse. Thank you, and less Banging of the Table.

Traci Wilson-Kleekamp, Jonathan Asher, and Karen Sicheneder spoke.

WILSON-KLEEKAMP: [Traci Wilson-Kleekamp]

thank you, Mr. Pitzer, for bringing up the questions. And, I'm reading this from the

Change Management book, so before mentioned anything from here, want to

know what the change management plan is before you spend money on this

software application. You already have customer service portal that people can do

just did

little homework today, and

things. You haven’t said anything about how you’re going to expand access to

council meetings. We've asked for meetings to be on Zoom and things like that, but

that hasn't come up. It sounds like you're setting up

a panopticon so that you can

surveil comments and monitor them and all that other kind of stuff, and I'm not

sure that's the best and highest use for your PR people and IT team. But I'm not

hearing that there’s

supposed to get from it? We already have an issue with

don’t have access to the internet. And the big thing they talk about here is, are you

looking for incremental change, the step at time. And if you do the big bang

approach, it applies all the changes all at once. So, if you have change theory plan,

you've thought about that. You’ve thought about what is it I'm trying to get out of

this, not just bunch of comments from people, but what is it you're trying to get

change management plan on the table -- and what are we

lot of people in town who

and how does that connect to your strategic plan, not just being strategic because

we say strategic like we say diversity all the time. It means nothing. Strategic what?

How does this connect meaningfully to the items that you have listed in your

strategic plan? How does it increase accessibility? How does it increase inclusion?

How does that make our constituents more informed? By doing this you're staying

in house and you're not getting out in the community. You're at your computer

monitoring people's comments -- complete waste of time if you ask me.

can't we have access to council meetings via Zoom? No one’s responded to that. We

already have Facebook we don’t need more of it. It’s pain in the neck, alright. So

you need change theory plan if you're going to do this. It's just not -- $17 grand’s

lot of money to not have plan for what is it that you want to change and

transform? What is it? Define it. Thanks

ASHER: [Jonathan Asher] Oh yeah, real quick, I’m super curious about the platforms

for civic engagement because when I’ve heard about the strategic plan, it was

about -- like lot of it was about the City and, like, City staff, and City Council, and

But why

just general members of the public being able to communicate with each other.

And, one thing that's worked really well for me was just over the past couple of

years, the pop-up window to chat with someone at the City, just like, right on the

website or through the phone to be, like, hey who do

that’s worked for me great several times. assume the emails to specific

departments, if know which department to email, also works really well. What

does this do beyond, like, those sorts of direct communications where someone

knows they have problem or question, where it's like which department does

blah, blah, blah, you know. So people can already ask those questions. want to

I even ask about this, and

know more about how this will reach out to people who don't currently do things

like email with questions. Just what I'm thinking.

SICHENEDER: Karen Sicheneder, 1817 Timber Creek.

Marketing here in town, so, have little bit of experience with some of this stuff.

One of the comments that raised some concern with me was that we're only

allowing comments from individual IP addresses. This starts to become problem

when you start to look at households that don’t have dedicated internet access,

which we have found during the pandemic is quite large number of houses. So, in

those cases, when we're reaching out to those individuals who don’t have this at

home, they're going to the library, they're going to coffee shop, they're going to

place where they’re going to have shared IP address in order to be able to make

those comments. So, we really have to kind of consider the equity that goes into

using something like this. And then, on top of that, whenever we're introducing

also own 360 CoMo Digital

new platform that is not already part of people's normal workflow of going to

Facebook, of emailing -- how do we get the message out to -- hey, go to this thing

and sign up with this thing if we're not focusing on throwing maybe some SEO

behind it, in order to get it in front of as many people as we can. I think one of the

barriers that we see to community involvement right now is people just don't know

where to go. People don't even know that the City has Facebook pages dedicated to

individual departments where they can get information on, like, changes in trash

collection so, what are we going to do, what kind of plan are we going to have in

place in order to get to people who are not already engaging? Thank you.

The Council asked further questions and made comments.

WANER:

I am curious about how do we control for people go to the library and using

the Internet there, and wanting to submit comments that way if the IP address is an

issue. I'm outside of my wheelhouse with that.

ADKISSON: So,

didn't mean to cause

straight survey in Survey Monkey. What this service would do would

look at it with them,

and see what that look like. If it was someone that looked like they were just

spamming it, hitting it, repeatedly, that would be cause for concern, right --

because we want validity with the data that we're getting. If it was variety of

comments, you know, that's very different story. So, it's not like we’re trying to

a confusion. That was what happened with --

when we had

flag, if it saw an unusual amount of activity. We could take

control or stop comments, it’s really looking for irregularities with that data coming

in.

PITZER: There's,

guess, potential here.

think there's some pitfalls anytime, you

guess be willing to give it try, but be

get into the social media type world. So,

careful.

TREECE: I’d prefer to keep it

we’re polling. If everything is

staff tool and not

a council tool in terms of what

poll, nothing is important. If we just do it on hot

button --

meetings, that’s probably

you’ve got neighborhood of people that are looking at

improvement, or you know, non -- not that they’re not polarizing, everything’s

polarizing, but you know what mean -- just think it's way to maybe generate

just --

think if we’re trying it out as an addendum to interested party

good use for it and good trial run. You know, because

fire station or road

some additional comments and we take those with all the other comments we

receive.

FOWLER: In your statement that you would like not to be

a council tool but a staff

tool, does that exclude the use by board or commission coming forward to staff

and saying we'd really like to put this information out and ask people to respond.

TREECE: I’m not opposed to that. Do you have a hypothetical?

FOWLER: The Disabilities Commission,

TREECE: Like what would they be asking?

FOWLER: You know,

when she raised up the issue that -- would it be available for boards and

commissions. would assume that we’d need to ask them. I'm not going to

I reached out to them to ask them their thoughts on it, but

presuppose what they’d want to ask, but in trying to do more outreach and engage

with more people who are limited in their ability to come to City Hall -- well, let me

throw one out that people call me all the time about, paratransit, and they express

their concerns about paratransit. And

try and connect them with the Disabilities

Commission, who cares about paratransit because they are -- there are lots of

people, knowledgeable people there. And so maybe they would bring something

forward about how do we engage with the community around paratransit and meet

their expectations.

TREECE: Maybe, and this may sound naïve on my part, but

I guess I don’t want it

used for advocacy, and it'd be -- meaning, don't want to be lobbied with it. If staff

wants to use it to make

a better fire station or take community input about what an

intersection or road improvement looks like, and they incorporate that input into

their plan, and that plan starts working through the public improvement process,

and they show us that we had 200 comments on Bang the Table and we listened to

those comments and that -- made some changes that we added basketball courts

instead of, you know, soccer fields and -- you know what

don't want -- I don’t know.

mean?

I guess I just

FOWLER: Well, you've just described the department that does that the best of any

department we have because Parks and Rec are so responsive. But don't know that

it’s advocacy if you ask people to share their experiences with paratransit because

you genuinely want to know.

TREECE:

agree, but

think there’s

difference between boards and commissions

route and bring us the results of

using that and Public Works using that to change

those route changes based on that input, if that makes sense.

FOWLER: They're collecting data as well, yes.

TREECE: Not that staff doesn't manipulate us and lobby us and advocate for their

point.

FOWLER: But the goal is to, again, engage with people who we are not currently

engaging with, and it's another tool in the toolbox. I'm looking forward to seeing

how it rolls out and seeing if it reaches those harder to reach folks who use the

library or somebody's smartphone with their limited data plan or, you know,

however they organize themselves around looking for information if they’re able

to do that.

ADKISSON: And that is key. This is really not meant to change or take the place of

any other avenue that our residents have. It’s to add another additional way for

them to provide feedback.

TREECE: You know, and if you all sufficient concerns, you could always ask for

report in 12 months or do pilot project and you know, we used it on six different

occasions, and, you know, we got 2000 users accounts set up or we got 10,000.

don’t know.

THOMAS: Yeah, and

community, you know, input gathering process for the American Rescue Plan

Funds. think that, you know, is exactly where we want to hear from people that

we don’t normally hear from. So hope that Stephanie can have access to it too, if

she chooses to incorporate it into her plan.

I think you mentioned the possibility of using this as part of the

ADKISSON: We had some preliminary discussions and they were excited to see the

abilities that they saw in the platform and thought there might be some ways that

they could really use it to the benefit for their work.

THOMAS: And

people expressing what they believe. I think it's all good.

PITZER: Yeah, mean, would like to see some sort of feedback on how this is used

I don't think there's a line between that and advocacy. I think it’s

and how it's working. It looks like an annual contract so would you have to -- maybe

when you come back for a renewal?

ADKISSON: Certainly.

TREECE:

don't think we need to add that to the resolution, but if everyone’s

comfortable with you bringing that back.

ADKISSON: Happy to.

TREECE: Good suggestion.

R171-21 was read by the City Clerk, and the vote recorded as follows: VOTING

YES: SKALA, THOMAS, PITZER, PETERS, TREECE, FOWLER, WANER. VOTING NO:

NO ONE. Resolution declared adopted, reading as follows:

R172-21

Authorizing an agreement for professional services with Barlett & West, Inc.

for design services relating to nonmotorized/pedestrian and intersection

improvements along Ash Street, between Providence Road and

Clinkscales Road.

The resolution was read by City Clerk Sheela Amin.

Acting Public Works Director Shane Creech provided a staff report, and

the Council asked questions.

CREECH: Shane Creech, Interim Public Works Director. This project will be

completed in two separate phases. Phase 1 includes data collection,

study, development of conceptual plans, and consultant led public engagement

process to determine the best improvement option for the corridor. This may

include non-motorized improvements, intersection improvements, or

combination of both. The Phase 1 agreement is for not to exceed amount of just

corridor

over $95,000 and will be funded by the quarter-percent capital improvement sales

tax. Public engagement process will consist of two interested parties meetings, and

up to two meetings with local property owners and stakeholders. The consultant

will develop up to three alternative intersection improvements for the intersection

of Clinkscales, Pershing, West Boulevard, and Garth. The consultant will also

develop

non-motorized

improvement

plans

for

the

corridor.

All

these

alternatives will be presented at the interested parties meetings, and the

completion of the process -- at the completion of the process, the design

consultant will also present their findings to Council at

Intersection improvements could include roundabouts,

intersection, or other similar improvements. Corridor improvements could include

public hearing.

stop controlled

shared use paths, bike lanes, etc. Cost estimates for each will be prepared along

with pro and con lists, which cover areas such as safety, cost, construction phasing,

and right-of-way impacts. Phase 2 of the process will include the completion of

preliminary plans, right-of-way plans, and final plans and specifications for

construction. Staff anticipates the completion of Phase 1 in the first half of 2022,

and an agreement for Phase 2 engineering services to come forward to Council in

the summer of 2022. Happy to answer any questions.

THOMAS: Well,

I asked for this because constituents contacted me and -- I've got a

couple of questions, but I'd rather hold them until after we've had the public

hearing.

FOWLER:

also have questions, but

think there's representatives of the

neighborhood that would speak to it.

will tell you, generally, that when became

the First Ward Councilperson, one of my first meetings was with the West Ash

Neighborhood Association, and they had done considerable research and had

recommendations for how to improve the safety of their children crossing the

street, whether they wanted to go to West Boulevard Elementary or West

Boulevard Middle School or just wanted to cross Ash to get from one side of the

neighborhood to the other. And they're -- what they reported back to me was --

they brought those things forward. It was at

resurfacing of one of the streets -- think it was West Boulevard -- and that their

plans were -- there was no action taken by the City staff. And so -- that was my

immediate reaction when jumped to do this, and so wondered if you have that

time when there was to be

information that WANA brought to City staff before, and if there's any way to

incorporate those concerns into this project plan.

CREECH: There were staff members, clearly, that were involved in that meeting,

and involved in other conversations. Our goal would be to get all of that

information to the consultant to look at as part of this process.

FOWLER: Well, I'll do what

I can to get you some of that information through the -

I’ll encourage the neighborhood association. But it's one of those things that we

learned when Chuck Marone came to town -- about if you look for where people

struggle and you provide them some immediate relief -- and so what the

neighborhood -- we know how expensive

master sidewalk plan would cost for

this neighborhood, but we have families that just want their kids to be able to ride

their bikes and to safely cross the street and maybe walk to school because they’re

into active transportation. So, it would be important to incorporate that at the front

end before you -- we started making assumptions about what would work best for

this neighborhood.

Dee Dokken spoke.

DOKKEN: Okay, my name is Dee Dokken.

neighborhood area. am member of the West Ash Neighborhood Association. I’m

not representing them because, though I've talked to several leaders, we did not

have time to have meeting and come to conclusion since the first heard of this

was when finally read the agenda on Saturday. So, the first thing want to say is --

this will affect us. This goes right through the center of our neighborhood. It will

affect us lot. We would have liked to have been involved already in the same way

live at 804 Again Street in West Ash

and Local Motion was, and we want to be involved from the beginning, and not just

have plans brought to us and say do you like this or do not like that. And, as Pat

Fowler said, we had that big meeting with Public Works to discuss -- and had some

suggestions. So, we want the West Ash Neighborhood Association and other

residents of the Ash Street corridor to be included in planning from the start, not

just give input on limited options. I, also, personally think the contract would have

been better if it had asked for

as improving safe, environmentally-friendly,

Ash Street. Instead it proposes -- what I've been calling roundabouts -- when

listened to it now, it's intersections. But, there’s been

to me, those seem -- they’re great in the proper context.

neighborhood -- going through neighborhood, we’re afraid it would speed up

traffic. It would make it even harder to get across and navigate. It’s harder for

pedestrians and bikes to navigate roundabout it seems to me. mean, I'm willing