93.9 The Eagle – The News and Talk of Columbia, MO
A former Columbia mayoral candidate and a citizen plan to testify before the city council Monday evening to call for performance audits of the city manager’s office and the Water and Light Department.
Tanya Heath and John Conway will speak from the podium separately during tonight’s 7 o’clock meeting. Both note the 2015 electric bond and 2018 water bonds have not been fully issued. They’re referring to unfinished 2015 electric bond issue projects and unfinished 2018 water bond issue projects.
Ms. Heath and Mr. Conway says the uncompleted projects put city residents in jeopardy of having future interruptions in electricity and water as the population continues to grow. They suggest using federal American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) dollars to improve water, sewer and broadband infrastructure. They’re also calling for a new deadline to have all bond issue projects bid and under contract.
Columbia has received about $25-million in ARPA money, and has spent about $800,000 of that. City manager De’Carlon Seewood tells 939 the Eagle that about $10-million of the $25-million is committed.
