The Columbia Heart Beat

01/01/2026

It's not everyday you get to see a picture & thoughts like this from a visionary who is the Voice of the Coming Renaissance. One day, historians will look back ...

There have been African leaders who tore down barriers to justice. But they did not have the time or the opportunity to build the bridges to prosperity needed to maintain and enhance the justice they spent their lives pursuing. That point is true of justice seekers everywhere. You build the foundation, but you must have the plans and the time for the framework that follows.

Magatte Wade has those plans and the time to make them real. Wishing a happy and prosperous 2026 to her, and a world in great need of new and amazing ways forward.

#2026

2025 was the year everything finally started to make sense.

It stripped things down in a good way. My faith grew deeper and stayed steady during the quiet moments instead of getting loud. I just started to trust that God is at work whether I can see it or not.

I have learned so much about restraint lately.
We live in a world where everyone wants to win fast, but I understood that some seasons are just about staying the course and refusing to walk away.

The year refined my sense of work and responsibility. I was reminded that leadership doesn’t need theatrics. It needs integrity, steadiness, and respect for people as they are. I never want to treat people like props for a story.

The ordeal I went through did me a favor. It cleared things up and showed me exactly what is mine to do and what I need to let go of. That kind of clarity is a gift.

I have spent so much time lately moving between different countries and seeing so many different ways of living. It always brings me back to the same place.

We need to listen first. We need to judge less.

I have found that when your feet are finally planted on solid ground and you know exactly what you stand for, the rest of the world is just wind. It might blow hard and it might be loud, but it can never move you.

Beyond the work, my family and my friends are the ones who truly carried me. They are that quiet strength and unshakeable presence. Their unconditional love is the daily reminder of what actually counts at the end of the day.

I am ending 2025 with so much gratitude.

The year wasn't easy, but it gave me a level of clarity that I wouldn't trade for anything. I am stepping into the new year with my feet on the ground and my eyes wide open. There is so much beauty in the work ahead.

I truly believe that everything we have been through has just been preparing us for something even better.

12/31/2025

😅 PSA from The Party 😂

(Cuz equal time, you guys).

12/31/2025

Tons of convictions, address looking homeless.
Has been a "streets of Columbia" designee during his long criminal career.

Reginald Dent, 64, was charged with two counts of stealing more than $750 and one count of misdemeanor stealing.

12/31/2025

This official PSA is currently making the rounds. May know of some vacant "farmland" where peeps can pitch a tent. 😅

12/30/2025

For Sale: Vacant Lot with Big Rabbit Hole
(and questions for the hive mind)

You guys might remember a Civil War-era barn burned down next door to that new Homeless Opportunity Campus on Business Loop a couple weeks ago. The widows who owned the barn also owned the Opportunity Campus land (5.7 acres), until they sold it to a City Council lady for $600K in 2023.

People feel like the widows were cheated, cuz the Council lady said she was buying the land for a different reason, maybe for a park or senior center or something, then sold it to the homeless heaven folks. Anyway, that land sale came up again when the barn burned, with people also claiming the widows should have gotten a lot more money for their land, too.

Someone brought up a similar-sized lot (6.6 acres) just down the street (across from Westlake Hardware) that one of the School Board ladies and her family owns that's on sale now for $2.5 million!

There must be a rabbit hole on the School Board lady's land, because other people were like, maybe it's because that is farmland and is worth more, or is it less?? It DOES pay the farmland property tax rate, which we like to goof on because it's WAY lower than the commercial and residential property tax rates and lotsa rich folks get it.

But then the rabbit hole gets deeper cuz the property taxes on the School Board lady's land have actually FALLEN 26% since 2020! The School Board lady's fam paid $6,109 in property taxes in 2020. They paid $4,491 in 2025, both times at the farmland rate, which seems like a double bonus discount!

Which seems weird since didn't everyone's property taxes have to go up because the State said they had to earlier this year?

Property taxes could have fallen too because of that special tax district on the Business Loop, but aren't peeps in a special tax district supposed to pay MORE property taxes to improve the special tax district (this one is on the Business Loop)? No idea.

Maybe the Homeless Opportunity Campus is lowering property values in the area, which city leaders said would not happen? The value of the School Board lady's land did fall, from $715K to $570K, according to the Boone County property tax website.

Finally, the Columbia School Board has been fussing about two new Charter Schools taking -- you guessed it -- property taxes AWAY from Columbia Public Schools. But what about this kind of thing? $2.5 million worth of land in a prime location pays 26% LESS in property taxes in five years?

And you gotta figure it's not just that one $2.5 million lot.

There's always an explanation for this kinda stuff, so it's probably just fine and whatever (still feel bad for those widows). What's the hive mind think?

12/30/2025

Evening edition

12/29/2025

How Unsafe Neighborhoods Harm Affordable Housing

In 2019, the City Council did what it too often does: approved a resolution -- this one about affordable housing -- to guide the city into the future, with little consideration of the people it would affect.

Neighbors in areas City Hall targets for assistance often face problems and perils from that assistance. Central Columbia is a regular example.

In the early aughts, exotic approaches to affordable housing like land trusts, consultants, public forums, and City Council resolutions were not in the offing.

To maintain affordable housing, central Columbia neighborhood associations focused on the basics: code compliance, infrastructure improvements, safe streets, and crime control. Crime creates fear, which stresses households and housing providers, which harms affordability.

Neighborhood leaders led the charge to establish the "Chronic Nuisance Property Ordinance" that sent the message "criminal activity around our homes is BAD."

Neighborhood associations were also concerned about outside organizations, from city government to non-profits, setting up shop where none of their leaders lived. City Hall and non-profit groups often ignore the "do no harm" concept. Their leaders take advantage of a low-income neighborhood's political weakness, imposing outsized burdens on vulnerable residents and city servants such as police, fire, and code enforcement.

For City Hall, opening shop in a low-income neighborhood often means luring wealthy developers with tax incentives like TIF, Blight/EEZ, and the re-zoning that gave birth to the first downtown student apartments on College and Walnut streets.

For non-profits, setting up shop often means poorly-planned programs run by well-meaning but under-supported volunteers. Such programs routinely increase neighborhood crime.

Unlike private enterprise that must meet city-imposed zoning and code standards, City Hall exempts itself, while giving non-profits a pass. Think highly-regulated, short and long-term, for-profit rentals versus non-regulated, short and long-term, non-profit shelters.

Without regulations to protect them, neighbors are left with "suggested changes" and "community input" that has no weight and is easy to ignore. Pressing for on-site security, stricter rules, or better communication can prompt self-righteous belligerence from non-profit and city leaders, who consider their exemptions an entitlement.

Non-profit shelters that DO work, like St. Francis House and the Lois Bryant Home, approach their programs with a more cooperative attitude. Their live-in, 24-7 staff and the people they serve integrate well with neighbors.

In every place and every case, an AFFORDABLE, unsafe, stressed out neighborhood is an oxymoron. Unless city government tackles basics like safety and infrastructure, all the reports, land trusts. and policy forums won't mean a thing to affordable housing.

(This Columbia Heart Beat editorial and Missourian story in comments were published shortly before the 2020 pandemic.)

12/29/2025

Evening edition

It's awful news for city leaders when one of few serious journalists left in calls them out like CoMoBuz publisher Mike Murphy does in this Monday editorial. He reiterated his detailed points on Sunday's Columbia Buzz radio show, linked in comments. This is such devastating but well-supported stuff, it's overdue for the public to say, ENOUGH!

EXCERPTS:

President Mun Choi’s intervention in 's municipal business has exposed the city’s unaccountable and ineffective leadership.

Choi’s public call-to-action on crime after the downtown shooting and death of a Stephens College student in September was more than just rhetoric. It was a checklist of ordinances, budgets, enforcement posture, and political messaging. It was concrete, political and expensive.

Months later, city government still hasn’t answered him in the only way meaningful - as a governing body, in public, and on the record. This isn’t a messaging problem. It’s a total failure of governance.

This is an emergent issue Mayor Barbara Buffaloe and city manager De'Carlon Seewood are attempting to ignore, and the reason the council must call a meeting for two reasons that cannot be separated.

First, to address Choi’s demands.

Second, to address City Manager De’Carlon Seewood’s failure of leadership.





READ ALL ABOUT IT!

University of Missouri President Mun Choi’s intervention into Columbia’s municipal business has exposed the city’s unaccountable and ineffective leadership operating illegitimately on relationships and optics instead of lawful authority.