NORTH, CENTER, SOUTH: Three-part plan a triple boost for CoMo public safety

COLUMBIA, 6/8/25 (Op-Ed) -- It's rare anymore that I support anything Columbia City Hall wants to do with our money. I wrote a  "Top Ten Things City Hall Does Best" column for the Heart Beat and the Columbia Business Times. But that was YEARS ago.

Still, there are exceptions.

One that surprises me is a three-location plan to re-center the police department, including a new headquarters at the former IBM building in south Columbia; a new downtown precinct in the former Turner Jones Law Offices at 11 N. 7th Street; and a finally-completed Molly Bowden Neighborhood Policing Center in north Columbia.

North, central, and south Columbia police stations including a much enlarged headquarters. Even geographically, the plan makes sense.

"The city has been exploring options for a new police headquarters for more than a decade," CoMoBuz reported about the IBM building idea. "Police headquarters has been located in a building on Walnut Street downtown for 92 years."

 

Former IBM bulding, CoMoBuz story

Big Blue for The Blue?

The tax incentives, political hoopla, and basic inequity of the IBM deal, which became a notorious failure, illustrate why I dislike the way City Hall spends our money.

"The rich and powerful make the plans, then go to the broken for an endorsement," was Rev. Carl Kenney's description of the Columbia/Boone County way. Nowhere was Kenney's one liner, which I later named "Kenney's Law," more evident than in who benefitted from the IBM deal. Not employees, not taxpayers, but a prominent local family and IBM, aka Big Blue.

City Hall paid the Lemone family $3.2 million for the building, leased it to IBM for a buck a year, then got it back with some expensive improvements in 2023, leaving state and local taxpayers out millions of dollars after plenty of broken promises. The city tried to sell the building to Veterans United, which walked from the deal after so-called "forever chemicals" known as PFAs were found on the site. 

While IBM left a political and policy mess in its wake, City Hall has a rare opportunity to make right the local part. Which brings us to the present idea, as Columbia Police Chief Jill Schlude explained it to Columbia Heart Beat Facebook followers May 27.

"The South District (Beats 50, 60 and 80) would be served by the South District Station/HQ in the IBM building," Schlude commented on the Heart Beat Facebook page. "We would consolidate all training operations, including the Police Academy, at the IBM building, as well as records and evidence. Our evidence space is very near capacity and the IBM building is well suited to housing evidence as it includes a 4,000 sq ft tornado shelter which could partially be used for evidence storage." 

The former IBM building's other advantages include "over 750 parking spaces, so plenty of room for visitors, police vehicles and staff parking," Schlude explained. The current downtown headquarters is "not ideal for emergency vehicles trying to get in and out of downtown due to all the vehicle and pedestrian traffic, which is only increasing." 

With "no environmental issues inside the IBM building," and "PFAs found only in the groundwater outside the building," Schlude is not concerned about contaminant exposure, she explained. "The building is on City water, not well water."  PFAs are so ubiquitous, every urban property has them.

Turner Jones Bldg

Sorry centerpiece

The same arguments city officials used to justify a brand new $40 million City Hall in 2011 apply moreso to the police department's headquarters. 

"The department has outgrown the existing building and the needed repairs to much of its infrastructure make it a money pit," Schlude explained. "Evidence storage needs to be remediated in the next couple of years, and there is no space in the current building. Parking is extremely challenging. There is no dedicated parking for visitors, which we often hear complaints about."

What's more, CPD headquarters is so forbidding and foreboding to the people it serves and protects, it encourages dislike for the department when it should stand for support.  

But the police still need a strong downtown presence, which Schlude envisions in the "Turner Jones building as our 'Central District' station serving beats 70 and 20 (downtown and the central city). I recommend utilizing the lower level of the Turner Jones building, where the CPD police academy is currently housed."

A police station strictly devoted to long-underserved central Columbia and a downtown in dire need of better public safety would help make right another purchase I found inequitable: The nearly $3 million City Hall paid land use attorney Turner Jones in 2021 with no plans for his building's use.

"If Council approves the purchase, an evaluation of the most advantageous use of the office space based on the existing and projected future needs will be performed," city staff wrote in a Council memo about the Jones building acquisition.

Note the stark contrast with city government's demands from less prominent folks about other buildings it owns.

Central Columbia's frustrating Heibel March store renovation project comes to mind. Neighbors tried to get the building renovated for years. And even though City Hall owns it as part of Field Park, city officials refused to pitch in. Neighbors, they said, "had no immediate plan for the building." So it sat derelict for years, blighting the neighborhood.

A similar scenario played out with the Blind Boone Home. City Hall bought it with no plans either, and then let it sit derelict and empty until central Columbia residents and the Black community made a political stink about it.   

Molly Bowden, 1978-2005Molly's Memory

North Columbia's Molly Bowden Neighborhood Policing Center has never been completed, an oversight I found unbelievable when a Facebook follower pointed it out.

But Chief Schlude confirmed.

"Unfortunately, the Molly Bowden building was never finished," Schlude commented on the Heart Beat Facebook page. "By the time the City started the project, the construction costs had increased to the point that only a third of the plan was completed.

"The second floor is only a shell, no elevators were installed," Schlude continued. "The K9 kennels and sally port were not constructed, and the outbuilding for our large vehicles (command post, SWAT vehicles, and equipment) was never built. We are just now having a backup generator installed."

As the only Columbia police officer ever killed in the line of duty, Bowden's memory and legacy deserve better from our city leaders.

Taxpayers and voters also deserve better.

The neglect of the Bowden police station mirrors the neglect of the Heibel-March store and too many other basic amenities lower-income neighborhoods with less prominent citizens -- like those in north Columbia -- need as much as everyone else. 

Under Schlude's plan, "the North District (Beats 10,30 and 40) would continue to be served by the Molly Bowden Station," she explained. That service includes writing reports, processing evidence, meeting with victims, and every other service police provide downtown, Schlude added. The only service lacking is enough staffing to open the Bowden Station lobby.

"Once we are able to fill more Community Service Aide positions, we will open the lobby," Schlude noted. 

Schlude, as CPD PIOOnce a PIO...

As the Columbia police department's former public information officer (PIO), Chief Schlude brings a much-needed level of public interaction and increased transparency to one of City Hall's most important missions.

No CoMo police chief I can recall would have ever engaged the public on a Facebook page, let alone a non-city, media Facebook page.  

And this police chief doesn't stop there. Schlude adds corrections or clarifications to local news stories, and appears on news broadcasts like Sunday morning's Columbia Buzz. In a world where policing is suffering a lack of good public relations, having a PR expert at the helm of a police department is a good thing. 

"If this project moves forward, there will be multiple public engagement sessions," Schlude commented on the Heart Beat Facebook page. "I look forward to hearing ideas and concerns should we move in this direction. I am happy to answer any questions or give tours of the current facilities. Please email me, as I may not see a FB reply."