Candidates battle about city growth

Incumbent mayor and challenger differ about city's direction.

By Jacob Barker

Published Feb. 27, 2007

When Columbia voters go to the polls on April 3 to vote for mayor, they will pick from two candidates with two very different platforms.

Incumbent Mayor Darwin Hindman was first elected in 1995 and has 12 years of experience on the Columbia City Council.

Like the Third and Fourth Ward City Council candidates, Hindman said the big issues this election will focus on how to take advantage of the expanding city.

"I think the most important issues this election will revolve around growth," Hindman said. "There is enough momentum, enough energy and enough creativity that Columbia is going to grow."

Hindman said keeping the infrastructure up to date with the city's growth is the big challenge for the City Council.

The things that make Columbia great, such as wonderful schools, a vibrant downtown, a good infrastructure, parks and recreation facilities, an excellent economy and a low cost of living must be maintained as new residents expand the area and population of the city, he said.

"When new people come in, they demand these services," Hindman said. "That means the services need to be provided before new residents' ordinary tax dollars pay for them. My goal as Columbia grows is to make sure that we'll be able to keep up with all those things."

According to the U.S. Census, Columbia's population grew 4.6 percent between 2000 and 2003. Hindman said keeping the city's services up to date with this growth relies on finding new sources of income or controlling population increases. But controlling growth is not that easy.

"Some people run around saying, 'Let's control growth. Let's control growth,' but in reality that's very difficult to do," Hindman said. "If someone wants to move to Columbia, they'll probably end up moving to Columbia."

Challenger John Clark, in addition to being concerned about dealing with the city's expansion, said he is also concerned with the leadership and effectiveness of the City Council.

"I am running for mayor to lead the City Council in taking an equal leadership role with the City Manager in developing and making policy for the city government," he stated in a news release on his Web site. "The issue is how to get the Council to be a policy-developing and policy-making body, not just a micro-managing and reactive body and how to make it more representative and more responsive to voters."

Clark, who ran against Hindman in 2004 and received 25.9 percent of the vote, said Columbia has lost ground or not made progress on issues he identified three years ago.

"In my opinion, over a number of years, the City Council has abdicated its role and responsibility as the governing body of the City of Columbia," he said. "Such abdication is a disservice to itself, to our form of government, to the entire city staff and most importantly, to all the citizens of Columbia."

Clark said the city has not kept up with the infrastructure to serve new residents. Clark is not proposing to slow the city's growth, but instead to figure out a plan to deal with the city's increased rate of growth.

"This Council has opted for a process of piecemeal financing of core public infrastructure," Clark said. "This piecemeal approach is a short route to disaster."

Clark said that approach would put Columbia farther behind in keeping up with public infrastructure needs as population and area increase.

Clark said in order for Columbia to thrive, it needs to dramatically change the relationship between the Council and the city staff members.

"Darwin Hindman thinks the role the Council is playing now is entirely adequate," he said. "He regularly states that nothing happens until it gets to the Council. I find this a recipe for Columbia to fail to thrive while going forward."

Clark said Hindman wants the Council to be a "sounding board" for staff-initiated policy suggestions.

"Darwin Hindman thinks small," Clark said. "The City Council needs to begin to think big."

Hindman said he thinks Columbia's government works quite well and cited the excellent economy, vibrantly growing city and absence of corruption.

"It's very easy to be a critic and call a body ineffective when it doesn't do what you want it to do," he said. "There are places with a much stronger elected body and a stronger mayor, but that ain't how it is here."