TRCM: The Real Columbia Mayor -- and city manager

COLUMBIA, Mo 4/20/25 (Essay) -- Cartoon fans may recall Ralph Wolf and Sam Sheepdog (left, Wiki) from Bugs Bunny, Roadrunner, and Looney Tunes.

Ralph and Sam were arch enemies during the work day. They fought within an inch of annihilation between 8 to 5. But when work ended, wolf and sheep dog set aside their differences for a unity period that lasted at least through the weekend.

For such a unity period, Columbia may be in the best position I've seen in thirty years. To confirm I was not delusional, I asked my wife: Have you ever seen any candidates -- state, school board, county, city, mayor -- who better represented our complicated divisions than Barbara Buffaloe and Blair “Murph” Murphy?

"No," she answered, without hesitation.

What does this clarity of division mean? That we MIGHT stand a CHANCE of a having a unity period to get some important stuff at least started, recognized, discussed.

Boosters and Knockers

About those divides. Conservative and liberal. Democrat and Republican, though City Council races are non-partisan. Red city, Blue city. Gown and Town: Mizzou, Columbia College, Stephens College, academe -- and the rest of us.

Murph and Buffaloe represent each divide, clear and clean. There is ONLY one divide where I think they are the same. Where their thinking might unite: Booster and Knocker.

Nobel and Pulitzer Prize winning author Sinclair Lewis applied those terms toBuffaloe post-World War I Midwestern society and they are as relevant as ever.

Knockers knock. They criticize. They fight the status quo. I am a knocker.

Boosters boost. They promote. They cheerlead, love on, praise. Lewis captured the concepts perfectly in his novel, Babbitt.

Blair Murphy and Barb Buffaloe are classic Boosters. This similarity between such different people may seem strange. But Boosterism is among the most powerful civic forces anywhere in America. It became a “thing” Midwestern communities used to regenerate post-War economies.

As a booster, Mayor Buffaloe is the natural successor to longtime Columbia Mayor and city cheerleader Darwin Hindman.

The Hindman Way

On the surface, Barb represents everything Darwin cherished and promoted: trails, environment, outdoors, inclusivity, accessibility. Mizzou, where Hindman's father spent his career. Columbia's college town vibe.

But Mayor Hindman, a pragmatist, also promoted public safety, a third wheel during Buffaloe's 2025 campaign. Me being me, I got into it with him on KFRU one morning when he was pushing a "public safety property tax.” Though neither of us backed down, it was just another among dozens of controversial issues boosters and knockers debated.

Unlike Barb, "Darry," as he was known, had a unique way of bringing the sides and corners of this complex community together. I did not appreciate that talent until I started door-to-door campaigning for various candidates and myself.

After getting screamed at, loved on, spit at, offered cookies and tea, I wondered: How did Darwin Hindman bring this political madhouse together?

Mayor Brian Treece did the same, but with a different skillset. I knew him well. But I have no idea how he managed to coalesce Columbia to defeat two well-known, well-connected opponents -- attorney Skip Walther and Judge/State Rep Chris Kelly -- in subsequent elections.

Though I can’t decode the how of community unity, I can see the outlines of the where -- where we are now and where we may be going. Currently, that direction, as CoMoBuz publisher Mike Murphy has detailed, is grim.

THWADIMurphy, right

Buffaloe, the city's first Millennial Mayor, could be the change agent our segregationist, elitist, leadership-dysfunctional, non-transparent City Hall -- mostly shuttered to the People since the pandemic -- has needed for generations.

How many times over not just years but decades, have I heard, "it's the leadership culture at the city. THAT's the problem." Or it's "THWADI," former Mayoral candidate and City Finance Commission chair Maria Oropallo’s insightful saying.

"That's the Way We've Always Done It." So that's the way it stays.

At the ironic heart of this status quo, a younger Gen X city manager, De'Carlon Seewood, STILL awaiting direction. Still waiting for the City Council to tell him what they -- what We -- want.

I understand calls for his termination. Mr. Seewood is selectively enforcing the City Charter, making life a bigger grind for the people stuck with the bills. Columbia’s vaunted quality of life has declined under his tenure. He is not taking care of business.

BUT :

Mr. Seewood will not move an administrative muscle unless the City Council so directs. He was hired for that reason. He was hired to be NOT Mike Matthes.

Not Matthes

Matthes was Seewood's Machiavellian predecessor who ignored or manipulated the City Council and did his own thing at the behest of the Town Bosses, most of whom have since passed on. Matthes resigned when Treece got elected, a nod to the Mayor’s, if not power, then influence.

Seewood has never had a chance to do what he was hired to do: Take direction from the City Council.Seewood They've never given him much direction.

Why not? City attorney Nancy Thompson, for one. She plays an inappropriate and interfering role in The People's business. She should retire, and turn the reign(s) over to a newcomer willing to take some risk, like our candidates and elected officials must do.

Blair Murphy went through the fires of political-rhetoric hell for Columbia, for you, me, our families, our loved ones, our friends and neighbors. He started out the straight-shooting, beloved owner of a century old paint and decorating store. He ended up, as election season ground on, the "fascist, oligarchical, Nazi MAGA Adolf Hitler.”

Murph did it representing the 45 percent of Columbia who voted for him, including prominent small to medium sized employers who pay the lion’s share of taxes in a non-profit college town. They sent the loudest message in Columbia political history to the incumbent Mayor and the status quo, donating over a quarter million dollars to her opponent.

But like Mayor Buffaloe’s local donors, Murphy’s local donors love Mizzou and Columbia, too. They are boosters through and through. What an evening it would be if Barb and Blair were on the Missouri Theatre stage together, telling Columbia where they see us going, how we might travel on the same path together, at least for a brief unity period.

And tell us why they both care about our city as much as they obviously do.