Category: kmiz-local-news

Jazsmin Halliburton

HALLSVILLE, Mo. (KMIZ)

The Hallsville School District is hosting a community forum Tuesday night to discuss Proposition 2 and four-day school weeks.

District leaders will be giving an update on its bond issues for construction projects and the continuation of the district’s four-day school week for students and staff.

The forum will be in the Secondary Cafeteria at 6 p.m. on Tuesday.

The Hallsville School District’s $6.5 million bond no-tax increase to complete the second part of a three-phase plan for construction was approved during the April 8 election.

The bond would address:

Growing student population

Security upgrades

Improve parking and traffic flow

Building new classrooms at the primary school

New baseball field

However, the auditor’s office would not authorize the bond because the Boone County Clerk’s Office didn’t follow the newspaper publication requirements listed in state law, according to previous reporting.

The district will be discussing its four-day school week that has been in place since the 2022-2023 school year. Leaders will explain what it means for students, staff, and families, along with key dates and what is required by law.

Both will be on the Nov. 4, ballot.

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Ryan Shiner

COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)

The Columbia City Council on Monday unanimously approved an agreement with two businesses to provide parking for the NCAA cross country championships that will occur next month.

The championships will occur Saturday, Nov. 22 and is expected to bring 3,000-5,000 spectators, in addition to the 32 men’s and women’s teams who will compete, according to filings from the city. The event will be held at the Gans Creek Recreation Area.

Discovery Office Park will provide parking located at 4210, 4215, 4220, 4230 and 42240 Phillips Farm Road, while Eurofins BioPharma will allow its lot at 4780 Discovery Drive to be used, according to information from the city.

The lots are booked from 5:30 a.m.-1:30 p.m. that day. Shuttle buses will run from the lots.

The council on Monday also approved a contract for the city’s Convention and Visitors Bureau to be a third-party vendor for merchandise at the event.

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Ryan Shiner

COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)

The Jefferson City Council on Monday approved an agreement to hire Lauber Municipal Law to serve an interim role after City Attorney Ryan Moelman stepped down.

Moelman was recognized by the council at Monday’s meeting for his service. He will serve in the role until Friday. The city announced the appointment of Lauber Municipal by Mayor Ron Fitzwater on Friday in a press release.

The resolution was passed 9-1, with Ward 2 Councilman Aaron Mealey was the lone “no” vote.

Attorney Nathan Nickolaus will be responsible for engagement and will serve as the point of contact for the city. Office hours will be held from 8 a.m.-noon on Tuesdays, according to information filed by the city.

Nickolaus and the law firm represent a number of area municipalities, including Auxvasse, Fayette and Vienna.

Documents from the city say the law firm will charge $250 per hour per attorney and will not exceed $20,000 per month.

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Marie Moyer

COLUMBIA Mo. (KMIZ)

The University of Missouri System works is working to restore system services for students as operations to the school’s class management program Canvas remains unavailable after the massive Amazon Web Services cloud services outage Monday morning.

The outage, which began at around 3 a.m. was resolved by 3:40 p.m., according to national reporting. Experts estimated that the outage resulted in billions of dollars lost in missed work, delayed flights and locked accounts.

“I went to my French class and she (the instructor) was grading our midterm videos, but she said she had to stop around seven in the morning because Canva shut down,” MU student Beatrice Gottschalk said. “We were going to play them in class and comment on the videos and write down notes about each other, we couldn’t do that.”

MU spokesman Christopher Ave said in a statement that the school is aware of the issues.

“We are engaging with various stakeholders to work through the outage until services are restored,” Ave said.

In an email ABC 17 News obtained from a University of Missouri student, at 4:48 p.m., the UM Academic Technology department announced to students and faculty that Canvas was still facing service outages with no ETA for a resolution.

MU Professor and Director of the Cyber Education Research and Infrastructure Center Prasad Calyam reassured that no data was leaked, however, the outage did show potential holes in data storage strategies for major companies like Google, Venmo and Canvas.

Calyam compared Amazon Web Services to a storage unit, with the outage virtually “loosing the keys” to each company’s data storage locker, leaving websites in limbo.

“We access a lot of data and the system that actually helps us access the data basically went down, so we were asking for data and we were not getting any data,” Calyam said.

Calyam added companies are often advised to keep data in seperate locations to prevent this issue from happening.

“For those people who are building these services with Amazon, it’s a warning to kind of diversify their cloud strategy,” Calyam said. “Build a system that is not dependent on one source.”

Calyam also advises users to store important documents or files on hard drives to keep a hard copy available in case of future crashes.

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Ryan Shiner

COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)

Gov. Mike Kehoe on Monday announced in a press release that he appointed Beth Wulff to become Maries County’s next collector.

Wulff, of Vienna, currently served as the deputy county collector and replaces Jayne Williams, who had served in the role since 1999 before retiring.

The release says Wulff is a “a member of her local parochial schools, where she serves as SCRIP coordinator.”

She earned an associate’s degree in business and computer specialization from Metro Business College, the release says.

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Ryan Shiner

COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)

A man was sentenced to seven years in prison on Monday after he pleaded guilty last week to first-degree involuntary manslaughter.

Diego Popp Popp was accused of hitting 50-year-old John Brummit on Highway 50 West on July 14, 2024, according to previous reporting.

Police wrote Brummit was riding a bicycle on the shoulder of the highway when Popp hit him and drove away.

Popp allegedly told officers the next day that he did not stay because he was afraid of getting in trouble for being “drunk” at the time of the crash, previous reporting indicates.

He was initially charged with second-degree involuntary manslaughter, leaving the scene of an accident and misdemeanor reckless driving. His manslaughter charge was upgraded in August 2024.

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Ryan Shiner

COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)

A Jefferson City man was charged with two felonies after he allegedly tried to assault and smother his mother.

Danial Lowe, 34, was charged with first-degree domestic assault and first-degree kidnapping. He is being held at the Cole County Jail without bond, but a mugshot was not available on Monday afternoon. A court date has not been scheduled.

The probable cause statement says the victim spoke with police on Sunday after she was assaulted and not allowed to leave her residence for multiple days. A person described as a witness said the victim had asked for help after her son had been hitting her, the statement says.

Lowe allegedly tried to smother the victim with a pillow at one point and was “behaving erratically, believing himself to be either God of the Devil,” the statement says. The victim was brought to an area hospital and was diagnosed with a broken clavicle and soft tissue damage in her ear, resulting in losing her hearing, the statement says. Additional injuries were observed by medical staff and police.

Lowe allegedly denied assaulting the victim and told police she fell, the statement says.

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Ryan Shiner

COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)

A Fulton man was charged with several felonies after he allegedly raped and assaulted a woman on Oct. 16.

Joseph Mazella, 39, was charged in Callaway County with first-degree rape, first-degree sodomy, second-degree domestic assault, third-degree domestic assault and misdemeanor fourth-degree domestic assault. He is being held at the Callaway County Jail without bond.

The probable cause statement says police were called to a residence on Saturday about a sexual assault that occurred two days prior.

The statement says Mazella had first assaulted the victim by slamming them into a door, choking the victim and making them fall and hit their head, the statement says. A witness also described the assault and police noted the victim had visible injuries. Police wrote an argument preceded the assault.

Mazella then allegedly raped the victim, the statement says. Mazella allegedly admitted to having an argument and the first assault, but claimed the sex was consensual, the statement says.

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Dan Kite

COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)

A Camdenton man is facing a pair of felonies following an incident at a Lake Ozark bar on Friday.

Jordan T. Cardwell was charged Saturday in Miller County with first-degree making a terrorist threat and resisting arrest on a felony charge.

According to a probable cause statement, officers with the Lake Ozark Police Department were called to Rock Island Bar in the 1200 block of Bagnell Dam Boulevard for a disturbance call. Cardwell was identified as trying to fight multiple patrons after being “cut off” by bar staff, according to witnesses.

One witness alleged that Cardwell threatened to “shoot up the bar” as he was being escorted out of the bar, a statement that was reportedly confirmed by several of the nearly 20 patrons at the bar, according to the statement. He was later arrested outside the bar.

Once in custody, he reportedly injured himself by banging his head on glass in the patrol car, then attempted escape multiple times after being let out of the car. He was taken to a Lake-area hospital where he allegedly attempted to escape again.

He was booked on a $25,000 but is no longer in the Miller County Jail.

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Ryan Shiner

COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)

A man from the Kansas City area was charged with a felony after authorities say he exposed himself to a child at a hotel in Columbia on Sunday.

Kyle Baranowski, 39, of Independence, was charged on Monday with sexual misconduct involving a child younger than 15 years old and misdemeanor trespassing. He is being held at the Boone County Jail without bond. An arraignment was held on Monday.

Court documents do not name the hotel or location of the building. The probable cause statement says a manager at the hotel told Baranowski to leave between 8-9 a.m. that day after Baranowski allegedly exposed himself to a youth.

Baranowski was not staying at the hotel, the statement says. He allegedly went back to the building, was told to leave again and he allegedly told the manager “No,” the statement says. Police saw Baranowski at a stairwell of the hotel and detained him.

The child victim allegedly told police that they saw Baranowski urinate on a bush outside the hotel. The victim then claimed that they were later with adults who told Baranowski to leave and Baranowski allegedly responded by putting up his middle fingers and pulling down his pants, the statement says.

Court records show Baranowski has pleaded guilty in several cases for first-degree trespassing in Boone County since December 2024.

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