Columbia City Council Ward 4 candidate interview: Ryan King

ABC 17 News is interviewing candidates heading into the Aug. 4 election. On the ballot for Columbia's Ward 4 seat is Ryan King, Dave Sorrell and Sharon Jones.

COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)

OLIVIA HAYES: Today, I am here with Columbia City Council Ward 4 candidate Ryan King. Ryan, thank you for joining me today.

RYAN KING: Thank you, Olivia. Happy to be here.

HAYES: So just to start, tell me about your history with Columbia. You can talk about your personal history, work history, whatever you want to include.

KING: Sure, yeah. So I moved here in 2019. My wife is getting her PhD, and I've been involved a lot in the community. So I'm a board member of Columbia Track Club, community wellness is really important to me, parks and community wellness, and we're a nonprofit. So I joined that, I'm on the board, and I even have my own race that I direct each year.

Also within the community, I'm on the Housing and Community Development commission, so we work a lot with affordable housing and some other things. We make recommendations to the city council. So, I've been pretty heavily involved with the community since I moved here.

HAYES: What made you decide to run for this seat?

KING: Well, I just feel that my ideas, if implemented, would make a big difference in the lives of Columbia's residents. So, I'm a pretty independent voice. I don't have a lot of political connections, and my career has been based in public service and community service. So I want to make Columbia's neighborhoods stronger through fiscal responsibility, infrastructure, also access to parks and trails, and we also need to focus on affordable housing to make sure that, you know, young families especially are able to live in Columbia and enjoy all the great things about it.

HAYES: Explain what you mentioned about physical responsibility? What does that mean to you?

KING: Oh, fiscal responsibility, sorry about that. Yeah, so Columbia, we've been running a deficit in the millions like the last year, especially. So we just need to ... we have a rainy day fund, we have a reserve fund, but you know, we need to make sure that things are balanced. We need to make sure our spending is deliberate and that what we're spending money on is things that we actually need, so essential services and things like that. We, we just have to make sure that things are in balance.

HAYES: And what do you think is the biggest problem currently facing Ward 4?

KING: Currently facing Ward 4? I think infrastructure is a big one. I mean there are some infrastructure projects that were approved by voters in 2015, and they still haven't been completed, so we just have tens of millions of dollars sitting in escrow. If you think about what's happened since 2015, the rate of inflation. I don't even know if we have enough money from those bonds to pay for these projects anymore, so we just need to be deliberate about completing infrastructure projects because they said that these lines were needed in 2006. We just need to make sure, for the future and for everyone who currently lives there, that we complete projects like this.

HAYES: Yeah, I know we're seeing a little bit of that issue in some Ward 5 projects like the water tower situation. It's gone up tremendously to actually do it.

KING: Right, and water especially, it's all connected, you know. So things in Ward 5 could also impact Ward 4, and I think we're seeing that and there's like a proposed ordinance saying when we can and cannot water our lawns, so infrastructure is very important, and it makes a big difference in our lives.

HAYES: Definitely, and when we spoke with Nick Foster around the time of his resignation announcement, he said he wanted whoever took over the seat to kind of match his same ideals. Is there anything from the work that Nick Foster did that you would like to continue and kind of pick up where he left off?

KING: Sure, well, I'm really big on community. I already mentioned affordable housing, but on the, on the Housing and Community Development Commission, we hear a lot of proposals from nonprofits, and there's a lot of great work being done on affordable housing, like Habitat for Humanity building a whole neighborhood, but some other things I'd like to emphasize are multi-family. Like, especially if we have empty lots in certain areas of Columbia, I'd like to try to ... incentivize multi-family and you know, try to get some, some housing on these lots because with multi-family, you know, what's better than, than one unit? You know, two units, three units. Let's increase the supply and try to get some more housing out there for people.

HAYES: I know that two of your other candidates, or the two other candidates that you're running against, they have some involvement in the City of Columbia government. Sharon Jones is on the Planning and Zoning, Dave Sorrell has a long history with Columbia Utilities. I know that you are on some committees through the city as well. How do you think, given your guys' involvement across the board in the city, what do you think sets you apart as a candidate from the other two?

KING: So I'm on the Housing and Community Development Commission, but the big thing for me is my public service and community service. So I'm an attorney, I've worked in social services for the last 14 years. I'm also in the Army Reserve. I'm a judge advocate, and as I mentioned before, I'm on the board of Columbia Track Club. So I have all these, all this diverse experience, and I think that would serve me well in serving a diverse group of people like we have in Ward 4.

HAYES: It sounds like you serve the community with everything you're a part of, but you're also a part of it at the same time.

KING: Yes, yeah, the things I care about I like to get directly involved, and that's a big reason why I decided to run for, run for this office.

HAYES: Definitely. Well, is there anything else that you want the ward for voters to know about you?

KING: Well, I'm big on community well-being, and parks are really important to me. I feel like one of the great things about Columbia, of Columbia's character, are our parks and forests, and I think access to parks is a big thing. We need to make sure that as Columbia grows, that parks and trails are at the center of our neighborhoods and not big box retail development. You know we want to avoid sprawl. We want to keep Columbia, you know, the way that it is ... with access to parks, so.

HAYES: It's good scenery.

KING: Yeah, they're very much at the center of the, like the life of my family. We walk there, we bike there, we picnic there, we meet people who we would never meet, you know, just walking through the parks, and it's something that everyone should be able to experience.

HAYES: Definitely. Well, thank you so much for speaking with me today.