COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)
Columbia City Council members support the idea of the city taking a trip to the west.
Columbia Police Department Asst. Chief Mark Fitzgerald told business owners during a meeting on Monday that CPD has been looking into the Lawrence, Kansas police department.
“They seem to be several years down the road on where we’re at, where there’s a college town…they’ve definitely been rich in resources,” Fitzgerald said.
Discussions come as the City of Columbia works to crack down on crime in the downtown area, after receiving complaints from business owners about violent crime and the homeless population. The last shooting that occurred downtown was on June 8. Since then, CPD has taken steps toward ramping up its enforcement of misdemeanors to help curb violence.
CPD is still looking to improve safety, and thinks Lawrence, Kansas, could be the answer.
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, Lawrence, Kansas’ population was 94,934 people in 2024. That’s slightly less than Columbia’s population, which sat at 130,900.
Police Chief Jill Schlude told ABC 17 News via email Tuesday afternoon that the discussions and possibility of visiting Lawrence came after she attended the Benchmark Cities meeting in May 2025 and spoke with a member of Lawrence PD’s Command Staff.
Schlude said that the conversation included what the city had been experiencing and how police were dealing with it.
Lawrence, Kansas, is also home to the University of Kansas. University of Missouri President Mun Choi urged city and university leaders, police and business leaders to take a trip to the city, emphasizing the importance of keeping the downtown area safe.
“We don’t have to reinvent the wheel, but let’s find out what they did so we can improve the situation in Columbia, a city that we all love,” Choi said.
Ward 3 Councilwoman Jacque Sample told ABC 17 News on Tuesday that she hadn’t heard about the idea of the city taking a trip to Lawrence, but supports any research and information the city can get.
“I think it’s a good investment to collaborate with what other cities have found successful and also what they have found to not work, which is equally important,” Sample said.
Ward 5 Councilman Don Waterman had also not heard of the proposed trip.
Waterman has attended one trip during his roughly two years on the council. He said a trip he took to North Carolina made him realize how beneficial trips can be for the city.
“There’s nothing wrong with gathering ideas and then seeing, okay, how can we either implement those or adapt those to Columbia,” Waterman said.
But it wasn’t just that trip that made Waterman see the trips’ benefits. He said a trip city leaders took to Madison, Wisconsin, two years ago for a leadership conference had positive effects. The city spent about $20,000 on the trip.
City leaders also spent more than double what they spent in 2023 during a two-day retreat to Camdenton in May of this year, according to previous reporting. The total cost of the trip to Camdenton was $42,606.85, according to records obtained by ABC 17 News.
Columbia Mayor Barbara Buffaloe told ABC 17 News previously that the city had cut back on some of its travel budgets for the upcoming year. It isn’t clear how the city would pay for the trip if city leaders ultimately decide to go.
ABC 17 News reached out to Schlude for more information about the potential trip.