UPDATE: Council delays vote on police community engagement contract
UPDATE: The Columbia City Council voted 4-2 to delay a decision on the contract until August 21.
Councilman Clyde Ruffin recused himself from the decision because he is a board member of the Heart of Missouri United Way, the company in question for the contract award.
The vote to table the decision came after two hours of public comment and council discussion, with the proposal getting mixed reviews. Mayor Brian Treece and councilman Matt Pitzer voted against tabling the proposal.
The council appeared to be split on the prospect of approving the contract before the motion to table it. Treece, Pitzer and councilman Karl Skala all disapproved of the project for various reasons, including the cost and process council members used to bring United Way and others into the fold.
“The lack of a competitive bid process has not only deteriorated our ability to get a cost-effective proposal, it’s probably forfeited the opportunity for consultants to bid and compete intellectually with a scope of services that we could all have buy-in and agree on,” Treece said.
Council members Ian Thomas and Michael Trapp helped negotiate the price and work United Way, alongside New Chapter Coaching and Mennefield and Associates, would do. That includes putting together a 20-person committee to plan a one-and-a-half day summit on police and community engagement.
City Manager Mike Matthes will alter the scope of work United Way is expected to do. That includes broadening the topics the process is expected to address, a concern some at Monday’s meeting had with the plan.
Several groups, including Race Matters, Friends, the NAACP, the Columbia Police Officers Association, Neighborhood Watch and Faith Voices of Columbia all spoke at the meeting, sharing both support and reservations about the plan. Many doubted whether United Way and its partners would be capable of facilitating a conversation or process about police and community engagement. Others felt it was a positive step to take to help shape the future of the police department’s community policing model.
Reverend Molly Housh Gordon, a pastor and leader of Faith Voices Columbia, said the there was no clear assurance those affected by crime would be involved in the process.
“As faith voices, we know our faith calls us to listen closely to those deemed the least and the last,” Gordon said.
Judy Hubbard, a consultant with the city who works on connecting people in Columbia’s strategic neighborhoods to resources they may need, said she would help United Way in that process, if necessary. She agreed that those voices needed to be heard, but that it would take more than one meeting to improve relations between police and communities that may mistrust them.
“This problem certainly didn’t arrive in one day and will not go away in one day,” Hubbard said.
Thomas said he was “extremely encouraged” by the input people gave to the plan. He found himself agreeing with almost every comment, despite some of them contradicting each other, he said. While many criticized the proposal for its focus on the seminar, Thomas pointed out that the 20-person committee would have several meetings before then to plan it.
“The Mayor’s Task Force on Community Violence said we should have an annual forum focusing on crime, social need and discrimination,” Thomas said, citing the 2014 group’s work. “This could be the first in an annual series of these.”
Ruffin did not speak on the issue during its debate, but said after the hearing he was disappointed to not be more involved in the crafting of the proposal. He told ABC 17 News that his conflict of interest did not occur to him until days before the vote.
“I feel that I have something to say about these issues, and I am uniquely qualified to reach out to a diverse African-American community,” Ruffin said. “So I trust that as we go forward that I will be allowed to participate in some degree in this process and to help this process along.”
ORIGINAL: The Columbia City Council is set to vote on whether or not to spend thousands of dollars on a contract to facilitate a community engagement process for a community policing forum.
The contract is with the Heart of Missouri United Way and will cost $60,320. According to a council memo, fundraising efforts are underway to reduce the amount needed from council reserves.
There are already verbal commitments and grant applications from groups like the University of Missouri Division of Inclusion, Diversity and Equity and Columbia Public Schools.
In February, council approved a new resolution that called for a community engagement process about policing in Columbia to address concerns like staffing levels, morale and community-oriented policing.
Since then, council member Ian Thomas met with the Heart of Missouri United Way to discuss how to facilitate the community engagement process.
United Way, along with partners New Chapter Coaching and Meinifield and Associates, provided a document that identifies the scope of their work, which would center around hosting a major forum in Columbia.
According to the memo, the proposed process and forum would happen before a November 30, 2017, deadline, and a post-forum list of recommendations and ideas would be presented before then.
There will also be a forum planning committee that will develop the agenda and decide who to bring in as speakers.
United Way and its partners identified members of the community and other organizations that would need to be included, like residents from high-crime neighborhoods, representatives from Columbia Public Schools and Mizzou and representatives from the Columbia Police Officers’ Association.
The contract is up for second reading and vote at Monday’s council meeting.
You can find a link to the supporting materials, including an outline of the four-month process, here. It’s the first item on page four of the agenda.
(Editor’s note: This story contains updated information on the topic. It has been renamed from its previous version, titled “Columbia leaders consider funding new police community engagement process.”)
