September 30, 2021

The Columbia City Council met Tuesday, Sept. 7, to amend next year’s budget and make decisions regarding the city’s public transportation system. The meeting, which lasted 5 hours and 39 minutes, included a public hearing where community members raised concerns about ADA accessibility issues with the City Website, climate change prevention and homelessness. 

The City Council decided to extend an ordinance temporarily lifting fares to use public transportation into 2022. This will mark over two years of Columbia’s public transit system, Go COMO, giving Columbia residents the opportunity to ride for free. 

The original ordinance was passed alongside the state of emergency that City Manager John Glascock declared near the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020. 

The City Council also voted unanimously to appropriate funds from the Federal Transit Administration grant to replace buses and paratransit vans for the public transit system. According to a memo from the City Manager and Staff, the new vehicles purchased would be an upgrade to previous ones.

“All vehicles being purchased will be Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) equipped,” the memo states. “These vehicles will be used to provide fixed route and ADA para-transit service within the city limits of Columbia.”

Ward 3 Council Member Karl Skala said that the city should look into using smaller vehicles with fewer passengers for fixed routes. 

Citizens lined up to share their concerns during the public hearing. Columbia resident Lydia Olmsted introduced the first topic about accessibility issues within city databases.

Olmsted, who is blind, said that the city failed to make the COMO.gov website fully accessible to people with visual impairments. 

“Unfortunately, the new website is not screen reader-friendly,” Olmstead said. “For those who are not familiar, a screen reader is something that people like me who can not read print use.”

Columbia evaluates its website frequently with “automated evaluation tools” to meet ADA standards, according to the city website. 

Olmsted said she couldn’t access some parts of the website such as COVID-19 updates, information to city boards and commissions, broadcasted city council meetings and information regarding the 2021 Strategic Plan. 

The city adopted the Strategic Plan on July 6 to “serve the public equitably through democratic, transparent and efficient government,” according to the official report.

Mayor Brian Treece responded and said that the city would look into having these issues fixed to make the website more accessible.

City Council also debated how they would use the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 funds in 2022.  

The act gives $130 billion to local governments for pandemic relief. 

Bill Folk, a biochemistry professor at MU, urged the council to spend a portion of their ARPA budget to address climate change in the city. Folk said that rising temperatures pose an increasingly bigger threat to public health and safety, especially to people without housing in the city. Folk added that the city should focus on planting trees to reduce these effects. 

“Street trees particularly reduce the heat stress [that] the individual experiences,” Folk said. “They also remove the pollutants that are causing the warming climate.”

Folk added that the city does not include climate change in its projected use of ARPA funds. 

Representatives and supporters of People Before Projects made several comments during the public hearing. The group advocates for prioritizing ARPA funds for “housing, homelessness, mental and physical health, community violence prevention, and structural inequity,” according to their Facebook page.

Before the council meeting, supporters rallied in front of City Hall. During the meeting, several individuals spoke to the cause, and painted a picture of needs they felt the council should address. 

One of these supporters, Peter Norgard, said that attention should be on homelessness in Columbia. 

 “I live two blocks away from a Salvation Army Harbor House,” Norgard said. “I can say with no uncertainty that the number of homeless and unhoused individuals has increased dramatically over the past year and a half … and yet I see that we are prioritizing $13 million dollars for infrastructure projects.”

According to an estimation from a Columbia Daily Tribune article published Feb. 4, Columbia has from 120 to 288 homeless individuals. 

Another resident, Susan Maze, agreed that homelessness is an issue that needs to be addressed in the ARPA budget. She also urged the City Council to move the $25 million in ARPA funds into a separate process that focuses on public input.

“The numbers [of unsheltered individuals] were increasing — the amount of desperation that was obvious to anyone paying attention — people sleeping in bus shelters, arguments, fights,” Maze said. “There’s no place to go … The response from the city was to take down the bus shelter.”

Others on Sept. 7 advocated for ARPA funds in the budget to support minority-owned small businesses, funding for the city’s community media center and Columbia Center for Urban Agriculture projects. 

Council members agreed with the public that there needs to be a more robust conversation before finalizing the allocation of ARPA funds. Ward 1 Councilwoman Pat Fowler said that the City Council should go out into the community and talk to underrepresented populations rather than make decisions amongst themselves.

“This room is full of people who we could ask for help,” Fowler said to the other council members. “Why don’t we have a working meeting … where we get down from this stage and we sit down with people face-to-face and we talk about how we go about [using the ARPA funds]?”

The council members said they plan to hold a separate discussion with community members over ARPA funds and needs in the community.

The final 2022 city budget discussion will be held during the City Council meeting scheduled for Sept. 20. 

 Edited by Emmet Jamieson | ejamieson@themaneater.com

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