Nia Hinson
COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)
Downtown Columbia businesses are experiencing issues and are asking for the city’s help to solve them.
“It’s a very frustrating time for a lot of the businesses,” Executive Director of The District Nickie Davis said. “We have seemingly a rotation of of people in different stages of crisis sometimes coming into businesses or being out on the sidewalks, and our businesses not really knowing what to do with that and feeling like they’re on the front lines and nobody behind them.”
To help address that, a group of city leaders and downtown business owners gathered Monday afternoon at The Blue Note to discuss resources available in the city. Leaders from the Columbia Police Department, Columbia’s city manager, Office of Violence Prevention leader, Boone County’s prosecutor office and Burrell and local shelter leaders all attended the meeting.
Davis said most of the problems businesses are experiencing are feelings of discomfort. She said she hoped the meeting will help everyone in the city be on the same page.
“It seems like a lot of us are doing amazing things but not necessarily in the same circle, talking in the same circle so that we can build upon what each of us are doing,” Davis said.
The meeting consisted of a group of city leaders sitting at a table, discussing what resources they have available that could potentially help frustrated business owners. One of the sessions included during the two-hour discussion included a portion from CPD on how owners can work to deescalate situations, or what to do when they encounter someone who may turn violent.
Assistant Chief Mark Fitzgerald provided tips including:
Presenting options, not ultimatums;
Being mindful of your body language;
Create store policies;
Be consistent when enforcing policies.
Police Chief Jill Schlude also urged businesses to be mindful of the lighting around their businesses.
City Manager De’Carlon Seewood said the city works hard to ensure people feel safe, and viewed Monday’s meeting as a time to show people the things the city is doing to do so.
“We created the hot team (Homeless Outreach Team.) We created the divert program. We created programs to help address those issues so that we can be quick to respond to the needs of our residents,” Seewood said.
Some business owners, like Keisha Edwards who owns 50 Yard Line Sports Bar and Grill downtown said the meeting was a good first step, but said there’s still work to do to address what she called a “growth issue.”
“Most of the businesses that came here wanted to be heard. You cannot sit here for two hours and listen to what the city thinks the issues are,” Edwards said. “I think this is more of a growth issue. What the business owners in the downtown area see is overpopulation. We have way more student housing. We have way more of a homeless population and I think that because of this first meeting, it opened the eyes of the business owners in Columbia to be more vocal with the city about some solutions.”
Fitzgerald told ABC 17 News that he believes the biggest areas of concern for business owners currently is the homeless population and the amount of violent crime seen downtown during the past 18-24 months.
According to Fitzgerald, there have been 11 shootings downtown since March 2024. Eight of those shootings occurred between 1:30-4 a.m. The last reported shooting downtown happened on June 8.
“I think everybody’s kind of pretty aware that the Columbia Police Department is aggressively trying to enforce the misdemeanor crimes that are preceding some of those violent encounters and I think that we’ve put a giant lever on that over the last four or five months,” Fitzgerald said. “We’ve put another lever on the conflicts between the business and the unhoused community. There’s still room to improve and a lot of that has to do with the capacity from the police department.
Fitzgerald said CPD is still understaffed, but is chipping away.
Sixteen people started the police academy on Sept. 2 and another eight or nine are in field training. According to Chief Jill Schlude, the department currently has five vacancies.
Fitzgerald said CPD is having discussions about bringing back its downtown unit.
Fitzgerald also mentioned to business owners the possibility of exploring the city of Lawrence, Kansas, to see what works for them. President of the University of Missouri Mun Choi pushed leaders to take a trip to the area.
“Let’s find out what they did so we can improve the situation in Columbia, a city that we all love,” Choi said.
That’s something Davis said she hopes the city continues.
“There’s a lot of other cities doing really cool, exciting things and it seems like they’re (The City of Columbia) starting to do that, going to look at other cities of what they’re doing, their policies, their ordinances so I hope they take a lot away from that,” Davis said.
According to Davis, the city still has grant money left for businesses that want outdoor cameras.
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Robert J. Anselmo (Morgan County Sheriff’s Office)
