Superintendents from seven school districts that would be impacted by a charter school provision in Senate Bill 727 sent an opposition letter to Gov. Mike Parson on Friday, calling on him to veto the bill. Superintendents for Columbia Public Schools, Fayette R-III School District, Hallsville R-IV School District, North Callaway R-I School District, Sturgeon R-V School District, Southern Boone School District, and Harrisburg R-VIII School are among those who signed the letter. The superintendents said they have many concerns about the bill, but their letter focuses on the "unconstitutional attempt to expand charter schools into Boone County."
Dozens of LiUNA Local 955 members gathered at Columbia city hall prior to the City Council's regular scheduled meeting Monday night. The union laid out its grievances with the city of Columbia, including the use of personal cell phones for work communication in the Solid Waste department and wage distribution in the Water Utility. The City Council also approved a plan to receive bids for a
proposed remodel at the old service station at Columbia Regional Airport and improvements to the John William "Blind" Boone Home located at 10 N. Fourth St.
Columbia police responded to a shots fired call on Rice Road Monday night. Police cordoned a large area to investigate, but a lieutenant on scene told KOMU 8 there were no injuries. Police also said a juvenile is in custody.
A state examination of the office that handles criminal prosecutions in St. Louis is being delayed because auditors can’t find former Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner, Missouri Auditor, Scott Fitzpatrick said Monday. Fitzpatrick said in a news release that auditors have tried for several months to contact Gardner, including trying to serve her with a subpoena. Her whereabouts remain unknown, he said.
Kiley Lemasters has been interested in business for a long time. She started a business in high school, and she is now a business student at Moberly Area Community College in Columbia with a dream to run a coffee bus. Lemasters also has glioblastoma, an aggressive form of brain cancer, but she has outlived her initially dim prognosis and finished her first semester of college. In her junior year of high school, Lemasters' dad was diagnosed with glioblastoma. In the summer of 2020, Lemasters was diagnosed herself.
Gov. Mike Parson will travel to the southern border of Texas on Wednesday to sign the supplemental appropriations bill that funds the deployment of Missouri troops to the border into law. He will sign the bill at 2:15 p.m. that day and will also receive an update on the Missouri personnel deployed to the border in support of Texas Gov. Greg Abbott's Operation Lone Star. Parson issued an executive order Feb. 20 that activated 200 Missouri National Guard (MONG) members and 22 Missouri State Highway Patrol troopers to the southern border, according to past KOMU 8 reporting.
