Interview with Fifth Ward Columbia City Council candidate Don Waterman

COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)

ABC 17 News is talking to candidates in select April election races about their positions on key issues.

Below is the transcription of the full interview with Don Waterman, the incumbent Fifth Ward representative on the Columbia City Council.

Christina Hartman is challenging Waterman.

LUCAS GEISLER: Would you mind just introducing yourself further and what it is that you do in town?

DON WATERMAN: Well, thank you, again.

Don Waterman, running for the Fifth Ward, actually currently the incumbent as well, running for reelection. And right now, council is my job. I retired from full-time work a couple of years ago, so now I'm able to devote much more time to city council than trying to juggle both.

So I don't know if you need more than that.

GEISLER: Why do you want to run for council?

WATERMAN: Primarily, the reason I'm running for reelection is unfinished business. There's several things. Some infrastructure projects that I ran on, especially in the Fifth Ward, the water tower, the transmission line, and then there's some continued, you know, development continues down there, and then public safety, we've made significant progress there with filling the empty positions in the police department.

Happy to say that, uh, you know, I was part of saying yes to starting our own police academy, which I think has been good for us. We've got a new class, I believe it's this month, starting. We're talking about staffing. We've gone from approximately 40 positions to now that we're down to about 15 vacancies, so we're making significant progress there. I think Chief [Jill] Schlude and her staff has been doing a great job with that.

GEISLER: So, city leadership in the last several months, they've been openly talking about this and seem to be gearing up for a public safety sales tax in the coming months here. Do you support any sales tax raise for public safety as long as it's dedicated to public safety?

WATERMAN: Yes, I do. I think that it's one of those things we can continue to grow it organically. But over the last couple of years, we've struggled with sales taxes being roughly flat, maybe a very slight increase, and given that the number of officers that we need to increase, and firefighters, public safety covers both, but given the number that we need for both of those, if we did it organically we're talking a number of years to do. I think this would give us the opportunity to hire the officers. Chief Schlude said she needs somewhere between 50 and 60 just to get us up to where she thinks we should be, given the way Colombia has grown.

Fire department is asking for 40 more, so you know that. You know that comes at a cost, and there's also capital projects that, there's the police station that needs to be rebuilt or relocated so that's there's that. The other is fire stations. We've got three fire stations, I believe the last that I heard that are nearing the end of their life that need to be rebuilt, renovated, new fire stations that will be coming online again as we continue to grow. They want to add a fourth firefighter to each shift. Right now, they're currently they're getting by with three. Four would make it more efficient and a better response for each shift. So again, all that, those additional services and those additions come at a cost. And given that comes out of the general fund, which is primarily funded by sales taxes and fees, there's not much room left to take it from somewhere else given the amount of money that would be needed. The other, the next two of the general fund, fire and police take up half of it. The next two largest are health and public works. Public works is our streets and related projects like that, so you know we don't want to see our streets go down. We don't want, you know, health department, they have their responsibilities, so we can't really take it from there. If we did, it would have a, a negative impact on those two departments and then the other departments within the city administration.

Again, as Columbia grows, the staff needs to grow, whether it's from customer service or just having more people available to, to do what needs to be done to run a city, or to run the fourth-largest city in the state of Missouri.

GEISLER: Which programs or city efforts now in effect do you support as far as public safety goes?

WATERMAN: Continuing to grow our police department, you know, whether it's a deterrent or first response, is a significant part of it. I know one of the potential benefits uh if we are able to. Add the additional officers, and then maybe we can go back to more of a specific or dedicated routes, almost a beat cop type. I know some of the other council people have mentioned that that's what they would like to see, is a return to that, so people get to know their neighborhood law enforcement. I know the Office of Violence Prevention, they're doing some work, I think they've got a consultant maybe in town this week I believe ... to help with them. And that's really kind of the two-pronged approach, the Office of Violence Prevention, they're looking at, and some of the programs and solutions that I believe they're working on are gonna be, the next generation, 'How can we advocate and show the young people that there are opportunities, there's things that they could do, and even if you have a disagreement with someone, there's other things that you can do to solve it rather than resorting to violence.' I think that has a lot, has a lot to do with it. There's kind of a, it seems that there's been a mentality, if you will, it's developed that people, if they have a disagreement, rather than trying to figure out a way to resolve it, they just step straight to violence, and that's not a good thing obviously.

The other is, you know, there are a lot of other organizations in town that are doing work, working with the youth, and again showing them the alternatives, and the path forward, that there is a path forward, that they're not trapped in the circumstances that they grew up in, that they can step beyond that.

GEISLER: How do you think DeCarlin Seawood has done as a city manager?

WATERMAN: I think that he's done an effective job. I think, actually, I'll say he's done a good job. I know that there are those who would like to see him out front more in a case. Probably the latest major incident we had was at the sporting goods store where there was, originally, it was a report of multiple people, involved turned out to I think be a single individual carjacking, and through the technology that we have brought in, we were able to get it into the system and they were able to locate and apprehend the individual quickly out of town, but they were able to locate the individual but I go back to your original question about DeCarlin. Part of what he's responsible for doing is hiring the various department heads. I think Chief Schlude and [Fire] Chief [Brian] Schaeffer have both been great hires. As I said, with under Chief Schlude, we've increased the number of officers, decreased the number of vacancies. We've got our own academy now, which again, we can then train our candidates or the recruits on how Columbia polices from the beginning rather than having to retrain them if they went somewhere else. And it's at a lower cost to us than going through the Law Enforcement Training Institute. Great organization, we used them for years, but now we have our own academy with either current and/or retired Columbia officers that are, are running it, and again, doing a good job.

Some of the other department heads, I think, Erin Keys, a new recent department head in utilities. When she was with stormwater, I'd worked with her and thought well of her then. The new community development, Clint Smith, bringing him in, every indication, I know he's relatively new, but every indication is that he's gonna be good at it as well.

So I think in looking at the people that he's bringing in, I think are good, so he's made some good choices there. So that's one evaluation. The other thing, and what I heard when I first got on council, was that there's not a lot of communication between city government and the community. Well, some of the things we've done now, the Be Heard website, "Let's Talk Local," I actually have one coming up, I think later this month. I don't have the specifics yet, but, later this month, but, so those, twice a year we go to every ward, and generally there's a specific topic, so we can address that. The community summit coming up ... Last year was the first year we did it, and was a resounding success. We had I believe over 300 people come through, and I was surprised when I arrived. I did not expect that big a crowd. It was full. So I'm expecting a similar turnout. So it was a way to reach out to the community, listen to the community, the budget process. We've had a number of town halls to inform the people, let them know what goes into creating a budget, you know, of the size for Colombia that it's not just, it's not a simple process.

Those are all things that have come to fruition that were asked for, and De'Carlon has said 'yes, let's do that," so he supported it. I know we just approved the new communications department. Now what that's gonna mean, it's gonna be one new hire. The rest of the people will be reassigned from others, so it's more of a, call it a reorganization, but that the intent of that is to help try and get information out a little more quickly, maybe a little more efficiently, when something happens like again the incident I just mentioned or the incident yesterday, we're getting information out to the public, and not just about violent crime but other, other things that are involved with the involving the community. So again, that's something that he spearheaded. So, all in all, I think that, as I said, I think he's done a good job.

GEISLER: You mentioned at the beginning of this some infrastructure projects that have long been on the minds of Southwest Columbia in the Fifth Ward. Well, and the people of Colombia voted for them -- the water tower project and an electric transmission line, specifically, as far as high-value, high-dollar projects, high visibility ... and that still have not come to fruition in the several years that they've been talked about. So you've got three years under your belt. How are you going to keep on city staff and city leadership to get some of these things done in the next three years?

WATERMAN: Well, again, it's just a matter of staying focused on it, the water tower, and it's kind of funny we'll talk, let's talk about water first when the water bond was passed, yes, the water tower was part of it, but if you look at everything that was approved under that, from the renovations to the water plant and other things, the water tower was actually dollar wise one of the lower cost items, maybe the most visible, but the lowest cost. And yeah, that's run into some snags, and so that's kind of on a hold right now. In trying to address those, the transmission line again, for whatever reason, there was some pushback on it, specifically the route. I know there was a task force put together. They had some alternative recommendations. One of those, the cooperation, trying to do something with Ameren, we weren't able to do that. The second one was to piggyback along the current transmission line on Chapel Hill, and then the other one was to bring the line up Vawter School Road. That one is gonna be the quickest and most cost-effective. In the electric bond that approved that, yes, that was the most visible and most expensive part of the project, or the bonds that were approved to be issued at that time. And that one is going to be. It's back on. We just got a report recently, council did, and we asked them to move forward with it, bring us some more information, so we're waiting, waiting to get that. It's been long enough now that they're gonna have to restart the entire process

To circle back around to the alternatives, the Chapel Hill, because you're going to be, it seems simple. Just string another wire on some existing poles. It's not that simple, because this is a different voltage. The poles would have to be replaced. We've seen pictures of where the current poles are. I mean, you're talking backyards, front yards. They showed us a picture where the pole is literally in the front corner of the yard next to the driveway. Those poles would have to be removed and replaced with bigger poles ... and be given that it would mean taking down the current line, it would take a lot longer to do, and so the cost would be significantly more. I think the report we got was about $20 million more than bringing it down Scott and up Vawter School and Nifong and Grindstone. So that's the most cost-effective way to do it, the quickest way to do it, but we're gonna basically have to restart with inform -- interested parties meetings, public hearings, and I expect that there will be some questions, and some pushback from individuals, that concern about property values. I know there's some questions about safety electrical emissions. Fortunately, [Ward 1] Councilwoman [Valerie] Carroll has actually done some research in that area, and she's provided us with some information that, couple of reports, National Institute of Health that the radiation, or the emissions, probably a better term that come from the high voltage lines, are not as concerning as ionizing radiation which like gamma rays or something of that nature, and if there's reports of higher instances of illness, there's also usually some other circumstance or some other issue that contributes to it, it's not solely from the emissions from the high voltage line.

GEISLER: So do you want to see these projects then started, or really moving in the time that you are in office here in the next three years?

WATERMAN: Yeah, yeah, oh definitely, and that's one, like I said, one of the reasons I'm running is to try and keep moving those forward. Again, the transmission line, the report came back, and it didn't seem, and I haven't been able to find any clear direction from council to staff on how to proceed with it. I think they did investigate the cooperative process or approach with Ameren, and, like I said, that didn't come through. So the line, again the Vawter School option ranked high in the task force report, or maybe middle of the pack, but from a cost standpoint and efficiency standpoint, that's gonna be the best route.

The other thing is we need this line, it's from a redundancy standpoint. If you think about it right now, if you look at how it's laid out we have the transmission line up Chapel Hill, there's another one north, this one would be south, so it gives us more if one were to go down, then we would have a backup. That's another argument against running it down Chapel Hill is you've got it on the same poles. We had the tornado in April, with that recycled our recycling facility as I like to put it, there were some transmission lines taken down for that. Now they were older on wooden poles, and they were in the process of replacing them, but it just shows what can happen, so that's why we need the other route, and again, from a redundancy and it's not just Columbia and being able to provide, continue to provide in the event something happened, but also allows for maintenance and we're part of a larger network of the electrical grid.

If you stop and look at it, it's very much an interconnected grid. We're part of what's called MISO, the [Midcontinent Independent System Operator] ... and that covers 13 states, and then of course that then falls under federal regulations. So you know, it's all part of a network that we need to be able to maintain, and they have said since this was first initiated, actually going back almost 20 years, that it's something that we need.

GEISLER: What role does the city play in addressing homelessness?

WATERMAN: My position on it is I think the local nonprofits, private organizations, I think can be much more efficient than if the city were to administer it. I think the city's role should be to support as much as we can, whether it's, you know, approving, improving building, making adjustments to various codes or something like that if necessary to kind of clear roadblocks if necessary.

Again, time and again, they've proven that they're much more efficient than trying to have a city organization do it. So I think, 'Might we need to support financially?' Possibly, but again, I think from a city standpoint that should be, should be minimal.