The City Council approved a donation at Monday’s meeting from Keep Columbia Safe for a new downtown camera to be installed at Tenth and Cherry streets.
The donation amounted to close to $3,000, and the purchase will cost the city no additional funds.
The topic drew some discussion because of the fear this new camera and cameras already installed are being used for live surveillance.
Attorney Dan Viets said the live surveillance breaks the promise the city made just a few years ago. When the city voted to allow the cameras downtown, Viets said the community was assured that they would not be used for real-time live surveillance.
“It astounds me that without the bat of an eye that promise, that representation to the voters, which was without question a part of the reason the voters agreed to accept this proposition, has been cast aside with so little notice,” Viets said.
Viets said the issue was more than just accepting or denying the camera.
“The issue is that the voters were told that the cameras would not be used in this manner,” Viets said. “I think that when a candidate for office makes a promise the voters expect that candidate to follow through.”
Keep Columbia Safe founder Karen Taylor’s son was brutally beaten in a 2009 attack in a downtown accident last year and founded the organization in response, according to the organization’s website.
Mitch Richards, Treasurer of Keep Columbia Free, said though what happened to Taylor’s son was terrible, that same reaction doesn’t happen in areas where this is more common.
“In a sense, this camera is a monument to a past event,” First Ward Councilman Fred Schmidt said.
Taylor said the camera didn’t violate anything the voters didn’t approve.
“The ordinance did state that the cameras would be used at the discretion of the police chief in the appropriate manner that he deemed necessary to benefit law enforcement,” Taylor said.
The city also discussed a proposal to characterize some areas of Columbia as enterprise zones. The areas must be approaching blight as defined by Chapter 135.205 of Missouri Revised Statutes, which states the area must be “one of pervasive poverty, unemployment and general distress.”
Several citizens spoke with concerns about why such a large area of the city, more than 50 percent, was included.
Pat Fowler, president of the North Central Columbia Neighborhood Association, said with 30,000 students in town, most of whom make little or no money, the poverty numbers in the city can be skewed.
The city also agreed to a purchase of wind energy from Crystal Lakes Wind Energy Center. The purchase will increase Columbia’s renewable energy reliance up to 8 percent from its current level of 5.4 percent.
The city also swore in a new fire chief, deputy city manager and assistant city manager to complete its senior city staff.
“I’m very excited that we are fully staffed and can’t wait to see what we are able to do,” City Manager Mike Matthes said.
