Columbia City Council members detail private meeting between the city, University of Missouri
Alison Patton
COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)
Some Columbia City Council members who were present at a recent public safety meeting between the city and the University of Missouri on Thursday told ABC 17 News on Saturday that the meeting was “productive.”
The meetings are typically held behind closed doors, which university president Mun Choi said is to keep the members focused on the goal: increasing safety.
Ward 5 Councilman Don Waterman said that Thursday’s meeting was a roundtable discussion, where each invited member gave updates from their department.
“Rather than getting into this stat or that stat, we’re not throwing information or accusations or statistics back and forth,” Waterman said. “Where do we stand on various topics and various issues? And then going on from there, and also looking at possibly some next steps.”
This is the fourth public safety meeting, following a deadly downtown Columbia shooting that killed a Stephens College student in September.
After the shooting, university and city leaders came up with a list of eleven actions that can be taken to increase safety.
Some of the actions have already been taken, like passing a median ordinance, meeting with Governor Mike Kehoe and the U.S. Attorney for Missouri’s western district, along with others.
Ward 1 Councilwoman Valerie Carroll said on Saturday that Thursday’s public safety meeting was more specific than previous meetings.
“We are speaking more directly about problems and solutions, and I really think that’s where progress lies,” Carroll said.
Carroll and Waterman have also expressed interest in making the public safety meetings open, despite Choi’s want to keep it closed.
Carroll said that an open meeting would mean that other council members could join the meeting. The closed nature of the meetings prevents council members from establishing a quorum and forcing the meeting to be publicly posted and open.
“Only three council members can attend,” Caroll said. “I feel like that’s categorically unfair to my partners. Similarly, I feel like that kind of limits the ability that we can be proactive. It limits what we can do because it limits our knowledge across council.”
Carroll also said she has been pushing for minutes of the meeting to be published, and that there will now be a “note taker” at the meetings.