FY 24 proposed budget

Improve Downtown Visitation

Columbia is growing at an exceeding rate but unfortunately I am not seeing the officials of Columbia keeping up with this. Parking is getting crammed, congestion is being noticed, and visitors are not finding the place attractive with it's "oldish" building structures. There are areas to downtown Columbia that would be deemed "modern" but on most of Broadway some would think differently. Complaints from out of town Mizzou families on the parking and the lack of parking, especially when downtown parking garages only offer the first level of parking at an hourly rate, then promoting a risk of tickets just so they can find a spot on a higher floor. The safety of downtown has been advocated by female students with many homeless harassing students keeping them more on the campus premises affecting the businesses on the the main streets of downtown Columbia. Overall, please direct your funding in building Columbia to expand and become modernize with proper safety and parking to accommodate the growing population.

Increasing funding for Transit System

This council gives a lot of lip service to the homeless issue. Yet, we already have a tool to allow people to stay connected to educational opportunities, schools for their children, jobs, and services that could prevent residents from sliding into homelessness to begin with. It's called a bus system. Except our buses are so poorly funded that only the most desperate people will use it. Yet, we spent roughly the same amount on an airport that serves exclusively people who have other transportation choices. Further, the City has signed on to intentional efforts to reduce greenhouse gases. A public transportation system will get cars off the road, reducing the emission of greenhouse gases. Flying has the opposite effect. Let's shift our priorities towards the values this City pretends to have. Increase funding for our transit system so that we can expand - not eliminate routes and services. Goettingen Germany is a very similar community, by size, demographics and population density. Go to this map to see their many transit lines. https://www.goevb.de/fileadmin/user_upload/Web_TLNP_Goettingen_600x630_08-2022.pdf

CPD pay must match Boone County Sheriffs pay to ensure our staff is staffed accurately and can service the community.

Please dedicate money towards a mental health co-responders program that can respond independently to crises as they occur

I am glad that the city is hoping to solicit services of a vendor to provide dedicated mental health and crisis response professionals to deal with mental health and domestic issue crises. However, I hope that the city dedicates enough money toward it that it can adequately pay responders and attract the best possible applicants for the positions. I also hope that they will also have the discretion to be able to respond to calls pre-emptively as well to be a primary first response to certain lower-risk calls. This would also cause there to be fewer resources used per crisis response and allow for CPD to focus on other activities that they are more adequately equipped for. A program much like the STAR program in Denver or CAHOOTS in Eugene, Oregon could be models to look at for a program.

Thank you for your interest in including roller derby in your plans for the future NERP. I hope this project will be completed quickly. TY!!

NERP and Roller Derby