Hindman wins record fifth term

By Jacob Barker and James Patrick Schmidt

Published April 6, 2007

Through 12 years, two battles with cancer and unprecedented city growth, Darwin Hindman has served the city of Columbia as mayor. Tuesday night, the city's voters overwhelmingly re-elected Hindman over John Clark with 75 percent of the ballots cast.

"As a city, we know this city is growing," Hindman said. "I have an objective to try and make Columbia maintain the qualities that it has now and even improve them as the city grows."

Hindman and his campaign staff met with supporters at the Tiger Hotel in downtown Columbia on election night to follow returns. Throughout the evening, he socialized with those in attendance and gave a speech to thank everyone who helped with his campaign.

"It's been a very traditional campaign," Hindman said. "We were able to get everything organized — the advertising, the fundraising, the Web page. All these things were set up, and it was a pretty smooth campaign. But only because people just jumped in there."

Clark, who also ran against Hindman three years ago, met with his supporters at his home to socialize and wait for the election results.

Clark campaigned on a platform of strong City Council leadership that would take a more active role than the city staff in directing city policy. He said Columbia needs strong leadership so the infrastructure can catch up with the growth the city has experienced in the last decade.

"Looking at the percentages, which are very close to the percentages three years ago, I'm certainly disappointed that the citizens of Columbia don't want a City Council that will take back control of and take responsibility for governing the city of Columbia," he said. "I think that the re-election of the mayor simply points in another direction, and I think that's unfortunate for the city."

Clark could not say whether he would consider running for mayor or another office in the future.

"I'll always be interested in public service," he said. "But that doesn't mean I'll actively pursue any particular office."

After declaring victory, Hindman outlined some of his goals.

"There's a broad range of things I want to do," Hindman said of his new term. "For example, I'm very interested in the economic development of Columbia." Specific efforts that Hindman wants to push for are the commercialization of MU research, replacement of lost manufacturing jobs with comparable jobs and ensuring that the city infrastructure is capable of handling the growth in the community.

"Obviously, parks and trails are one of my great interests," he said. "The idea of getting people so that they can be active in their neighborhoods, the safety of neighborhoods, trying to help neighborhoods that are having some issues overcome those issues."

Hindman said he also has several projects he would like to see worked on in conjunction with MU.

"We're also working with the university on such things as closing Rollins Street to traffic (and) possibly Hitt Street to traffic to try and make it a more pedestrian campus," he said. "Those are actually city streets, so we have to work together on that."

Another idea Hindman supports is working with MU to create a museum district in Columbia.

"We've been working with the idea of getting the Missouri State Historical Society to move to north of Elm Street," he said. "The same thing with the archeology museum, and also with the university performing arts center, is now being planned in the downtown area."

Also winning City Council elections were Karl Skala in the Third Ward and Jerry Wade in the Fourth Ward, both of whom are new faces to the council. Skala defeated opponent Gary Kespohl and Wade defeated Mike Holden.