Last night, the Downtown Safety Summit made the following recommendations:
- Maintain geographic policing of The District.
- Install public or private security cameras in areas of high crime, as determined by the police chief.
- Improve lighting in alleys by increasing the brightness of the existing lights or installing additional ones.
- Revise the panhandling ordinance to give businesses more room around their doors and a clearer path for customers entering the business.
- Require bar employees to pass a server training program, such as MU's S.M.A.R.T. Program.
- Designate certain weekends, especially sporting weekends, as "event nights." On such weekends, The District would be managed similar to a festival by adding trash cans, portable toilets and more.
- Improve nightime public transportation options.
- Install emergency call boxes in strategic areas. (Tentative--pending ongoing research).
(Read the full article in the Columbia Missourian at: http://www.columbiamissourian.com/stories/2010/03/25/downtown-stakeholders-discuss-safety-recommendations/)
The Safety Summit is looking for your input. Please send comments to the Chair of the Safety Summit, John Baker, at baker@fbc-columbia.org.
