New Columbia city manager sworn in and COVID-19 update given Tuesday night at the City Council meeting

COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)

The Columbia City Council met Tuesday night in the council chambers to swear in De'Carlon Seewood as city manager and give a COVID-19 update from the Columbia/Boone County Health Department.

Watch meeting replay in the player below.

New City Manager

On Dec. 20, the City Council unanimously chose Seewood as the next city manager after he has worked as deputy city manager under retiring City Manager John Glascock for two years.

Seewood said a top priority will be changing the way the city takes feedback from the community. He said he wanted city employees to go into neighborhoods to talk to people about proposed projects, and also open new lines of communication online and over text.

"We don't do a good job of empowering residents to give us feedback," Seewood said. "So the idea for engagement, it's not just letting people know 'Hey, this is a project,' but it's getting feedback from residents saying, "Yes, it's a project I want."

Seewood has several top-level hires to make such as directors of the Public Works and I.T. departments. He is also in charge of hiring a human resources director, a new deputy city manager and the city's first diversity, equity and inclusion officer.

Seewood was city manager in Ferguson, Missouri, from 2015 until 2019. Before that, he was the village manager for the Village of Richton Park, Illinois, manager for the City of Berkley, Missouri, and assistant city manager in Ferguson.

He is Columbia's first Black city manager.

COVID-19 Update

Stephanie Browning, director of the Columbia/Boone County Health Department, gave a COVID-19 update at Tuesday's City Council meeting.

Browning said cases across the county started to go up after the Thanksgiving holiday and with the biggest spike during the week of Dec. 20. She also said cases are mainly the omicron variant.

This comes as Boone County added 1,588 new COVID-19 cases for Saturday through Tuesday with a total of 3,254 active cases in the county.

Browning said one of the main age groups where cases are increasing is the younger population.

Columbia Public Schools has 134 students out due to COVID and 72 staff members. CPS returned to mask-wearing on Tuesday and also canceled several days of classes in January and added two early release days in an effort to relieve pressure put on educators during the current surge of new COVID-19 cases.

Even with the increase in cases, Browning said there is one benefit to the Delta variant no longer being the dominant variant.

"The benefit of is that the delta is the one that really had probably more people hospitalized and had more severe complications and the omicron is more contagious," Browning said.

Browning also said she expects to see COVID-19 testing improvements this week with testing options at local hospitals, pharmacies, through the state's health department and now through the White House.

Browning said an area where the department is working to limit the spread of the virus is among the homeless population.

She says warming shelters must make sure people are safely spaced out, but also make sure there is enough staff to keep the shelters up and running.

"They're struggling to have enough volunteers because as the number of cases go up, the people that volunteer are worried about their own health and safety," Browning said.

The state of Missouri reported 24,256 new and probable coronavirus cases for Sunday, Monday and Tuesday.

The state's daily average of new coronavirus cases has gone back up to an 8,755 seven-day average (61,285 confirmed cases from the previous week of reporting) as the state reports new coronavirus cases across the state according to state health department reporting.