Columbia mayoral candidate interview: Barbara Buffaloe
COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)
Municipal elections in Missouri are April 8, and one of the roles up for grabs is the mayoral seat in Columbia.
Incumbent Barbara Buffaloe is running for reelection, while challengers Blair Murphy, Tanya Heath and write-in candidate Lucio Bitoy take a shot at the seat. View an interview ABC 17 News reporter Erika McGuire did with Buffaloe in the player above, and read Buffaloe’s answers below.
McGuire: So let's start off with, why are you running again for mayor a second time, and what makes you feel that you're qualified?
Buffaloe: I guess I'll answer the second part. First, doing the job for the last three years I think is some of the best experience you can have and qualifications for applying for the job again, and I'm doing it again, because in the last three years, we've had a lot of momentum on projects getting done, like big issues that we've been trying to tackle for years, and with the council, we've actually gotten things done like automated-trash collection, the improvements to the water treatment plant, talking about the transmission line, investing In employees. So I want to keep that momentum going, because I think we've built a good foundation to continue to prosper.
McGuire: Let's turn to homelessness. What is your plan to address homelessness in the city? It's really an ongoing issue, a big talking point through the community. So what's your plan for that?
Buffaloe: Yeah, so homelessness is a complex issue, right? Because it's not just about housing, which is part of it, which is like one of our focuses on housing. First creating more housing units in our community. We've partnered with the county to identify the areas that we could grow, as well as ways that we can in policy like the local government, invest in additional housing to be developed and then also the social services that are needed. Often people who are experiencing homelessness, it might come from a substance abuse or mental health or some something, some crisis that happened. And so, by investing in those social services so that people can get help, then that helps them have stability, so that they can be on their feet. And then with that also it means a partnership within our community. And it takes more than just the City of Columbia doing this. This is us working with our partners at the county. It's also working our statewide region. So in the state of Missouri, where we are in Columbia, especially with things like the MU Psychiatric Center and our great health care system, we have people coming in here and sometimes being dropped off here. And so it's really about, how do we help reconnect them back home, to their to their safety net. And also, how can we rely on the state, like the Department of Mental Health and Human Services, to put the investment where they're supposed to, which is in community mental health? And so we've been advocating at the state level for that as well.
McGuire: You kind of touched on the affordable housing, but if you could just go a little more in depth in that, and how can the city increase affordable housing?
Buffaloe: We've seen an increase over the last year, with number of housing building permits being pulled from us. We know we're working on expediting our own permitting process. How do we make it easier for builders to go through the process and start construction? We're also looking at in our own zoning in areas that, especially around like transit, what can we do to increase some intentional infill in those areas to create more housing so people have a walkable neighborhood? We have people that (of) all walks of life living together in a community. So we're reviewing those right now with our Planning and Zoning Commission, and looking for opportunities to increase density.
McGuire: I had a question about the encampments. Can you just really address the encampments and how they kind of affect business owners, and homeowners. Fires kind of get started with them. So how would that be addressed as well?
Buffaloe: What we've been working on over the past year, especially have been identifying where people are and helping them get services. So, the Columbia Police Department started the homeless outreach team for the point being to go out, especially to encampments, and try to connect these people with the services we have in our community. You know, when they're on private land, we have to ask permission to go on to that land from the property owner. In some ways, we get that. Sometimes, we don't get it. If it's on public land, they're not allowed to be on public land, and so we help relocate, find places for them to be. Our investment that we've done in Room at the Inn, to be in a year round shelter, helps us have a place for people to go. But we also know with things like the opportunity campus, it will have an additional place, because no one wants people to sleep outside. We want them to be in safe, healthy housing. And so that's our goal.
McGuire: Now, switching to crime, what is your plan to your continuing plan, really, to reduce crime in the
city?
Buffaloe: As we saw last, last week... with the numbers... 2024 the differences in our crime statistics. But also, I think the main thing I had that takeaway was actually accurate reporting and understanding where the trends are happening. I'm really, really thankful that the police chief is investing in this, really looking into the ways that we can put our resources to where we see crime increasing, or it's decreasing, and what have been the cause effects of that? Also, our partnership and our new creation of the Office of Violence Prevention, right? This is the idea. Is like our police, as Chief Schlude says, they're reactionary. They react to a response. But what can we do as a community to prevent having to even call them? And so, you know, with [Office of Violence Prevention Administrator] D'Markus Thomas-Brown joining us next week, he'll be helping coordinate the efforts in our community and looking at those trends and those data to help us identify where we could work on preventing crime from happening in the first place.
McGuire: What can city government do about gun violence? I know a few months ago, you signed the letter to Kehoe with three of the other three mayors in the major cities here. So can you just touch base on that? Because we see a lot of, you know, youth violence here in the city.
Buffaloe: Yeah, it is one of the most disappointing things to also have, like, no control over, right? So gun laws are not allowed at the local level. It's a state issue. The letter that I wrote with the governor for the letter that I wrote with the mayors from St. Louis and Kansas City was really asking for Gov. Kehoe to involve us and our local police departments to the table to talk about what we can do. Some of the examples are right now there's a legislation being discussed in Jefferson City that's again, the Second Amendment Preservation Act, which takes away our law enforcement's ability to partner with federal partners to remove guns from dangerous people. And this, to me, is a basic common sense gun legislation that we should see happening in Missouri, because I think every police officer would agree that they don't want felons to have access to guns, or people that are struggling to have access to guns. And so how can we make sure that we're trying to prevent that from a city side, what we can do is really about the advocacy and education. We're partnering with Columbia Public Schools to talk about safe storage to make sure that responsible gun owners are storing them responsibly. We've had incidents where people are stealing cars from gun or, sorry, stealing guns from cars that are just like in a glove compartment, and it's like, alright, let's be if we're going to have a gun, let's be responsible gun owner, so that we don't have these incidents where people can break into your car and steal it. I know, right? It's crazy.
McGuire: Now switching to city expenses and stuff, where can the city trim expenses, if necessary?
Buffalo: So, we've asked the city manager to tell us, hey, we first want to know, we project it out, right, where is our revenue coming from, and what our expenditures and you know, a couple years, it looks like expenditures will surpass revenues. So we have to identify where the opportunities in the short term. What we've done in the past is, like some vacancies we don't fill we identify maybe, you know, the city manager, for instance, has an opening in his administration. He's not going to fill that position. He's not going to fill that position as they make sure that they are within budget. We can also identify efficiencies. For instance, maybe some programming doesn't happen one year, and we kind of hold it off for another year. Or things that have happened in the past, we've delayed purchasing of vehicles because an initial purchase of a vehicle is a large ticket. And so are there ways that we could help work on maintenance of some of these that hold them off on purchasing for another year or two, until we really identify what do we need going forward to do our basic services as a city.
McGuire: Inflation is just out of control. families are struggling, here, but across the country, how can the city government help residents with that issue?
Buffaloe: Yeah, so some of the things is in what we control, right? So for instance, we're the utility company for electric and water and sewer and solid waste, so we're doing cost of service studies right now. On some of those, how do we make sure that we're covering the cost of the service while making it affordable to our residents? And so those are going to be conversations that we're having. Also, some of the things that we do have are, you know, we have service programs to help those who are in need, and we help collect that through our social services so that if people are struggling, they can come to us for assistance. One of the other things that we're identifying, too, is within our community. As a utility owner, can we look at affordability of our rates and adjust them based on people's income? And so I know our waterline advisory board is reviewing that right now. Some of those are just the basics that we do. But also, if you think about it like our transit is free because of this, you need, right? We want people to be able to get around town without the burden of having to pay for it. So we're identifying where other ways that we can try to reduce our own cost and fees to people, but still provide a level of service that we expect.
McGuire:This is my last question. What is your main priority if reelected? You know? What will you continue?
Buffaloe: Well, I want to keep getting things done like this is just the basic first part of this. We need to continue to invest in our city employees. These are the people that are doing the hard work every day, and I want to make sure that they are being treated fairly, and they're making sure that they're being compensated for the hard work that they're doing. Also looking towards the future, we need to continue to invest in our resilient infrastructure as a as a community, and as we see an already changing climate, I want to make sure that when we experience some of the hot summers or or the really wet, wet springs that our infrastructure is is held up to that so that we don't see some of the devastations that you're seeing in other cities. Because I think if we're proactive, it's going to cost us a lot less than it will if we have to be reactive.
