Downtown Safety Summit discusses crime prevention
The summit was part of a plan for the community to work with CPD on safety measures.
Published March 26, 2010
The Downtown Safety Summit held an open forum Thursday evening at the First Baptist Church in Columbia. Members of the Downtown Safety Summit are downtown-area stakeholders.
The Safety Summit came together following discussions between the City Manager’s office and the Columbia Police Department. Columbia’s community visioning process recommended CPD work with the community to prevent crime and diminish its effects, a CPD news release stated.
Summit chairman and First Baptist Pastor John Baker said the forum’s purpose was to present ideas and receive feedback from citizens.
Fourth Ward Councilman Jerry Wade and CPD Chief Kenneth Burton were in attendance.
Baker presented eight recommendations group members have come up with during months of meetings.
The first recommendation was the continuance of CPD’s geographic policing of the district. Baker said since its implementation, assaults appear to be down, hot spots for crime have been identified and CPD calls for dispatch have been down for most crimes.
Baker also outlined the summit’s recommendation for the installation of security cameras in the downtown area. The cameras would be installed at locations chosen by the police chief. Baker said summit members feel cameras can deter crime and help identify perpetrators.
“Nobody here is wanting to be overly intrusive into people’s lives,” Baker said.
Dan Viets, a Columbia attorney and counselor did not agree with the suggestion. Viets said cameras are not always effective in preventing criminal activity.
“I hope we don’t inadvertently give the public the idea that downtown Columbia is a high crime area, because it’s not,” he said.
Another recommendation was to ask the city to identify certain weekends, particularly those with big sporting events, where downtown Columbia could be designated as a hospitality zone. This provides for the well-being of customers and business owners by providing extra resources to the downtown areas on particular weekends, Baker said.
During the summit, it was also recommended to improve public transportation, particularly from Thursday nights to Saturday mornings.
Downtown business owner Molly Wagner said her primary concern was how quickly changes could be seen.
“It’s more the process of implementing the great suggestions the summit had in a reasonable amount of time,” she said.
Downtown business owners can begin enacting some of the summit’s suggestions on their own, Wade said. This could expedite the process.
“These suggestions are wonderful and some of these don’t require council action,” Wade said.
During the Safety Summit, it was also recommended to enhance lighting in alleyways, rewrite the panhandling ordinance to provide more flexible entry to businesses, make all bar employees pass the MU SMART program and possibly install strategically placed emergency-call boxes like the ones found on the MU campus.
Baker said these recommendations seek to make downtown a safe and viable place for businesses and customers, a goal echoed by Burton at the end of the forum.
“We don’t want to become so heavy handed that it’s not fun anymore,” Burton said. “That’s not what we’re talking about.”