Month: October 2025

Mitchell Kaminski

COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)

Columbia residents had the chance to learn more about the city’s newly approved fiscal year 2026 budget during a “Let’s Talk Local” event on Wednesday night.

Mayor Barbara Buffaloe hosted the discussion at Missouri United Methodist Church, where city officials outlined spending priorities and answered questions from the community. Around 35 people — including city staff and media — attended.

During the presentation, the city’s Director of Finance Matthew Lue shared an anecdote that summed up the message behind the city’s budget priorities. 

“Don’t tell me what your priorities are. Show me where you spend your money and I’ll tell you what they are,” Lue said in reference to a quote from James W. Frick. 

By that measure, public safety remains one of Columbia’s top priorities. The city will spend $35 million on police and $30 million on the fire department this fiscal year. The next highest line item is Public Works at $17 million.

“The majority of that is for people,” Buffaloe told ABC 17 News. “It’s for the people responding for when you call for service.” 

The city is operating under a planned deficit for the second straight year. However, City Manager De’Carlon Seewood said that was partly by design. Last year’s shortfall helped purchase new police vehicles, while this year’s budget focuses on raising employee salaries.

“Last year, with capital purchases, we bought police vehicles. We bought vehicles for public works and so that was actually purposely done,” Seewood said during the meeting when talking about the deficit. “This year, it is about employees. Like the mayor said, we made a commitment to our employees. In the past, we hadn’t been rewarding our employees, and our salaries hadn’t adjusted and what we saw was we couldn’t hire anyone.” 

Seewood told ABC 17 News the city is currently reviewing its revenue sources after being asked whether tax increases could help close the deficit and improve staffing. He said that while it’s an option, no decisions have been made.

Staffing remains a concern for the Columbia Police Department, though Chief Jill Schlude said the department is carefully evaluating its needs before making additional funding requests.

CPD plans to bring back the downtown unit in May, but that move will come at the expense of the traffic unit.

“A city this size should have traffic so we want to make sure we build out a real ask,” Schlude said during the meeting. “I told the mayor this the other day and I think she was surprised but at one point we only had one detective working all the property crimes in the city.”

Schlude was also asked about the homelessness downtown. She says the department has been tracking calls they get about the unhoused and roughly 86% of those are for trespassing. 

“I think it’s important for people to understand that the police department. We’re not policing housing status, we’re policing behavior,” Schlude said. “So we’re responding to what people are doing that is not within the law, and just the way the world is right now, we get called to handle a lot of things that really aren’t things that we handle.” 

​​Schlude said most of the city’s officers have received crisis intervention training, but the police training program the city previously used did not offer it, leaving a gap in the department. She said the goal is to reach 100% certification, though the training takes a full week to complete.

The city has recently ramped up enforcement efforts downtown, but questions remain about how long that can last.

“Obviously, we have outside forces that are helping out right now, especially on weekends and gamedays. But we don’t expect it to happen much after the season,” Buffaloe told ABC 17 News. “When it gets colder, we don’t have as many hotspots in the downtown area. But, if you look forward to our fiscal year ’26 budget, we actually will, because of people we have graduating from the academy, we will have our summer unit starting before the summer of next year.”

The next Let’s Talk Local discussion is scheduled in two weeks and will feature D’Markus Thomas-Brown from the Office of Violence Prevention.

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ABC 17 News Team

COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)

The Missouri Department of Natural Resources says it’s almost done cleaning up a portion of the Lake of the Ozarks where a marina caught fire over the summer.

Investigators say the Aug. 4 fire was accidental and may have been caused by an electrical issue with a house boat. Several docks and a boat caught fire.

The DNR first had to remove the docks before taking out the boats.

A DNR spokesperson told ABC 17 News that cleanup should be finished in one or two weeks.

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Nia Hinson

COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)

A full report outlining recommended safety improvements for Business Loop 70 in Columbia is expected to be completed by next spring.

The Bicycle and Pedestrian Commission met Wednesday night at City Hall, where leaders provided an update on the audit. The City of Columbia and CBB Transportation Solutions conducted walk-throughs along the loop on Tuesday and Wednesday to identify safety improvements needed in the area.

Mckenzie Ortiz, an advocacy coordinator at Local Motion, took part in the walk-through on Tuesday night and Wednesday morning. Ortiz said Tuesday night’s walk took place from the Aldi and Interstate 70 interchange roundabout to Providence Road. Wednesday morning’s walk took place from Hickman High School to Paris Road.

Ortiz said the walk gave her a unique experience of what activity along Business Loop 70 is at night.

“The one thing I noticed is that there’s a lot of pedestrian activity, even after dark in that area,” Ortiz said. “Also a lot of people driving, picking up folks so it was a lot busier than I thought. This morning, we were at Hickman High School so we got to observe the high school traffic and the marching band. We saw a lot of activity there too so overall we just saw how busy Business Loop really gets.”

Ortiz said overall, she believes the road could use more sidewalks, especially east of Range Line Street and said maintaining the sidewalks is key. She also said having traffic experts along the walk allowed them to view inconsistencies of drivers not knowing what to do, and trying to avoid medians.

Ortiz is a Columbia resident who doesn’t drive and said she has walked along the Business Loop before, and knows how scary doing that can be. She said conditions are especially scary on the east side, due to a lack of connected sidewalks.

“I was really excited to be there with professionals who are usually in their car to get them on their feet and kind of walking the lay of the land so that way they know what my experience is like and also the experience of so many folks, so many students from Hickman High School, so many people in general that don’t have cars,” Ortiz said.

The audit focuses on identifying safety improvements aimed at eliminating traffic-related deaths and serious injuries. The project prioritizes safer conditions for pedestrians, cyclists, seniors, motorcyclists and school-aged children.

A CBB Engineering Project lead told ABC 17 News on Tuesday that he sees a need to adjust the signal timing at Business Loop 70 and Stadium Boulevard on Saturdays during sporting events at Cosmo Park.

He also said filling in gaps along the  the south side of the corridor, as well as adding crosswalks to parts of the corridor for pedestrians is necessary.

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