Columbia resident shines light on government

Wilson-Kleekamp uses public records to examine government activities.

By Angela Case

Published April 6, 2010

Columbia resident Traci Wilson-Kleekamp doesn't know exactly how many public records requests she has filed. The closest she can come to describing the number is "a lot."

Wilson-Kleekamp made her first public records request after she moved across the street from a park in Long Beach, Calif. She discovered the city had made an underhanded plan to replace some parkland and a school playground with a large 911 center. Wilson-Kleekamp filed an open records request to investigate how the decision was made.

"It turns out not only were they not telling the truth, but they lied about everything," she said. "They said there was a meeting between the school district, and the city so they could take their park, and they cited some committee which hadn't existed for 20 years. They had meetings that never existed. It just went on and on."

Eventually, the councilperson and city manager responsible for the incident were fired.

"That taught me a lot of times what politicians say isn't the exact truth," she said. "So you make a records request to make them prove to you that they're telling the truth."

Her experiences in Long Beach gave her a sense of skepticism about local media.

"A lot of local papers have gotten away from investigative reporting and asking hard questions," she said. "That's really unfortunate because it's their job to inform the electorate of what government's doing. If they're not doing it, people get a sopped, glazed over, superficial view of what's going on in government."

Wilson-Kleekamp has a degree in journalism from California State University at Long Beach but works as a diversity recruiter for the MU School of Medicine. She said she wasn't reporter material in college.

"Now I would recognize a good story," she said. "I would have a field day if I was a city desk reporter."

Wilson-Kleekamp moved to Columbia with her husband and three children in 2005, after becoming fed up with the traffic and high cost of living in California.

Wilson-Kleekamp's move inspired her best friend Lita Pistono to move from Long Beach to Columbia as well.

"When Traci moved away, I was absolutely miserable," Pistono said. "I came to visit her and fell in love with Columbia."

Pistono said Wilson-Kleekamp is an amazingly polarizing personality.

"She's the best friend you could ever have," Pistono said. "She would do anything for you."

Columbia resident DeAnna Walkenbach, who has campaigned on several political issues with her, said Wilson-Kleekamp isn't afraid to express exactly what she's thinking.

"Traci is more vocal than a lot of local people," Walkenbach said.

Wilson-Kleekamp is investigating an eminent domain case in Columbia involving the Missouri State Historical Society.

"The director of the Historical Society was very unhappy when I made a records request," she said. "He said I started a legal situation."

She said a records request is only a legal issue if the person or organization being investigated isn't telling the truth.

"The open records law is the law of the land," she said. "It's only a legal situation if you're lying."

Wilson-Kleekamp also sifts through records as part of another hobby: genealogy. She first became interested in genealogy when her son had a second-grade homework assignment to create a family tree. She said completing the assignment would be easy but then discovered no one in her family knew much about their past. From that simple assignment, her hobby took off.

"I am back about five generations, which is pretty darn good for African-American genealogy," Wilson-Kleekamp said, sketching a family tree of first names onto a scrap of paper.

In addition to tracing her own family's history, Wilson-Kleekamp helps other families find their roots. She has published a webcast series about African-American genealogy for the Missouri Secretary of State's Web site. Eventually, she hopes to write a historical fiction book based on some of her findings.

Despite her sometimes-jaded attitude toward government, Wilson-Kleekamp said she realizes it does a lot for its citizens.

"I love everybody in the world, but we live a charmed life here (in America)," she said.