TRUTH ALERT: Checking the claims made at the Columbia mayoral debate
ABC 17 News took a look at some of the claims made by Columbia’s candidates for mayor. Brian Treece, the city’s current mayor, is seeking a second three-year term against Chris Kelly.
On the budget:
Chris Kelly: “In the first three months of this fiscal year, we’re not under by 1 percent as the council, or by 2 percent as the staff said. We are under by 8 percent.”
Kelly is close, but wrong. The city collected $8.6 million in sales tax from the start of the fiscal year in October to December. That was 7 percent off the mark budgeted by the council, which estimated the city would take in $46.6 million. The city is set to receive sales tax revenue from February next month, providing the city with a look at how much revenue it has at the halfway point of the fiscal year then.
The Columbia City Council estimated a 1 percent drop in sales tax for the fiscal year, despite city staff recommending a 2 percent drop when crafting the budget. Some sales tax funds came in higher than anticipated the previous year, but the city ultimately came up short by $522,000 in sales tax last year.
On growth of business in Columbia:
Brian Treece: “When we invested in Aurora Organic Dairy, we made sure that a certain portion of their workforce came from our target neighborhoods.”
That claim is false. A provision of Aurora Organic Dairy’s agreement with the city when it bought land for a plant calls for the company to “implement an employment plan for operation of the Project which includes a target of a workforce reflective of the demographics of the City, including a 10% African-American workforce.” That benchmark is nonbinding, and the agreement does not include any requirement that the city hire from within Columbia’s three strategic neighborhoods.
On crime:
Treece: “”Where we have implemented those [community-oriented policing] techniques in our target neighborhoods, crime has gone down.”
That is true. A city manager report from 2018 showed that in the neighborhoods where the Community Outreach Unit worked, crime dropped by 22 percent. That reduction accounted for 45 percent of the city’s overall drop in crime that year.
Kelly: “The police morale is low, the police are not paid enough, and there’s not enough of them.”
This is mostly true. City leaders have long discussed the lagging number of officers at CPD. Data from the Benchmark Cities program shows that Columbia has an average rate of officers per 1,000 residents compared to cities of a similar size. Patrol officers reported low morale in a survey released in February, but the head of the Columbia Police Officers’ Association said the timing of the survey may have affected the results.
