TOM BRADLEY'S LETTER TO THE MAYOR: A plea for CoMo leadership

"Our safety, our future, is at stake."

COLUMBIA, Mo 09/21/24 (Beat Byte) -- The Governor of Mid-Missouri has a message for the Mayor of Columbia.

Host of the long-running Tom Bradley Show on 93.1 JACK FM, Bradley wrote Mayor Barbara Buffaloe a frank, heartfelt, no-nonsense letter after reading dozens of remarks on a Facebook post she accidentally left open for comment. The Mayor turned off commenting on her posts months ago, suggesting to Bradley that an old-fashioned snail-mail letter might be the best way to reach her.

Among Missouri's top radio personalities, Bradley is better known for boosting everything about Columbia, from the Mizzou Tigers to local breweries. Of late, though, he has criticized city leaders for taking their eyes off the ball across almost every city department and responsibility.

Transcribed from his show, which runs 7-10 AM M-F, here is The Governor of Mid-Missouri -- Bradley's media nickname -- to the Mayor of Columbia.

Dear Mayor Buffaloe:

We don't need you to resign.

We need you to look at our city, take your emotions out of the mix, and become the leader we need.

Our safety, our future, is at stake.

No: You don't already know what's best for Columbia. The City Council, city manager and his four assistant city managers, the chief of police, the heads of city departments and employees of the City of Columbia do not already know what's best for us.

We are not children who should be spoonfed only the information YOU and top leadership deem correct, safe, or important enough. We need honest, transparent, and full disclosure from our city leaders.

The Columbia police department, water and light utility, solid waste, parks and rec, street maintenance: all failing. Not because city employees don't care. They DO care. They bust their asses. It's because of the LEADERSHIP or the lack thereof.

Water towers funded -- and never built.

Electrical transmission lines needed and funded but -- who turned out the lights?

A police department understaffed, under-supported, under-reporting to the public they serve and protect. HandsBuffaloe tied from getting anything REAL accomplished. We have advertising from Springfield, Missouri -- three hours away -- [recruitment ads] poaching our potential police officers.

And trash? Trash and recycling? I thought a planet-saver like you might have had something to say about our green CoMo failing -- on recycling! But as I DROVE my recycling to the dropoff yesterday, I used all eight cylinders for my six pounds of cardboard. So I guess the plan is working??

Look: it's not just you. And it didn't just start with you. Thanks to Missouri, Boone County, and Columbia, the meeting of Interstate 70 and highway 63 is a living, breathing tragedy. Whenever discussions ensue on replacing that snarled monster, and expanding the number of lanes on I70, Columbia's input and concerns center around beautification -- and planters! Why? So homeless panhandler drug-abusing bastards can take craps in the chrysanthemums?

Mayor Buffaloe: this is your job. Being the "effing Mayor" isn't fun. Writing this letter to you isn't fun. It's work: The work you and I ASKED for.

If saving the planet from global warming is your personal priority, we are very happy for you. We're even damned proud of you. So go: do that. God knows we're destroying our planet and could use more fighters out there. Fly around the planet like a superhero fighting the burning of fossil fuels.

Meanwhile, we'll be here in Columbia, staffing and empowering our police department. Building working infrastructure, so that we can first DELIVER electricity and THEN look into renewable energy.

We'll be back here in mid-Mo picking up trash, recycling what we can, and for the love of everything sacred in this world, NOT allowing transient, nomadic, panhandling, drug-snorting-huffing-injecting-smoking, dangerous criminal street-crapping homeless sad sad humans to TRASH our CoMo.

So Mayor Buffaloe: Get with the program. Or get out of the way.

Sincerely,

Tom Bradley