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Volume 16Issue 21
May 15, 2010
www.columbiabusinesstimes.com $150
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PRST STDU.S. Postage
PAIDPermit #353Columbia, MO
6Business ProfileServicenoodle.com eliminates the middleman and connects customers with service providers, modernizes the Yellow Pages
Undergraduate InventorJournalism student Tony Brown invented the iPhone apps and caused MU to change compensation rules11
22DIY DessertAt Yogoluv, customers create their own combinations from more than 10 flavors and 30 toppings.
See Page 15
SPECIAL SECTION
Law
Skip Walther's Amazing Year
Attorney reaches pinnacle of two passions, one professional, one playful Story on Page 17
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5Katy Trail Turns 20 Celebrating the trail’s milestone birthday with a bike ride, fanfare and a touch of nostalgia.
People You Should KnowTodd Culley, CEO and general manager of Boone Electric Cooperative
Air Masters Corporation .......................................... 15
Boone County National Bank .................................. 24
Bukaty Companies .................................................... 7
City Of Columbia Water & Light ................................ 3
Delta Systems ......................................................... 16
Hot Box Cookies ..........................................……….11
Huber And Associates ............................................ 21
Information Management Systems ......................... 18
John Utley Golf School............................................ 14
KeLani Hair And Day Spa ....................................... 15
Landmark Bank ......................................................... 2
Magic Service .......................................................... 11
MO Business Women’s Conference .......................... 6
Peace Of Mind Salon & Spa ................................... 11
Sandler Training ....................................................... 20
The Insurance Group ................................................. 4
West Bend Mutual Insurance .................................... 0
Whiskey Wild ........................................................... 19
Wine Cellar & Bistro ............................................... 22
The Add Sheet! ........................................................ 11Advance America ...................................................... 9Boone County National Bank .................................... 4Boone Electric Cooperative................................... 2, 5Boone Hospital ........................................................ 11Boone Tavern ...................................................... 3, 19Bucket Media .......................................................... 11Central Bancompany ................................................. 4Central Bank .............................................................. 4Central Missouri Humane Society ............................. 4College Coupons ..................................................... 23Columbia Art League ................................................. 4Columbia College ...................................................... 4Columbia Surgical Associates ................................. 19Courtyard by Marriot ............................................... 11Datamax .................................................................. 19Designer Landscape................................................ 11Diamond Pet Foods................................................... 4Eagle Stop Gas Station ........................................... 20Frank Fletcher Honda .............................................. 19Gallaher Insurance Group ......................................... 7Habitat for Humanity ............................................... 21Magic Services ........................................................ 19Midway Electric ......................................................... 7Midway CSI ............................................................... 7Midwest Computech ............................................... 11Miss Lou’s Catering ................................................. 19Missouri Innovation Center ..................................... 10Missouri Theatre Center for the Arts ....................... 22N. H. Scheppers Distributing Company .................... 4NanoTechnology Enterprise Consortium ................. 15Newsy.com .............................................................. 10Okii Mama ............................................................... 22Peachtree Catering and Banquet Center .................. 3Pop’s Authentic Meat Snacks ................................... 4River City Construction ........................................... 20Servicenoodle.com ............................................ 1, 6, 7Shakespeare’s Pizza ................................................ 12Shelter Insurance....................................................... 9ShowMe Better Courts ............................................ 15Stephens College ...................................................... 4Stoney Creek Inn ....................................................... 3TimeLine Recruiting ................................................... 4Trabue, Hansen & Hinshaw Inc. .............................. 11True Media ................................................................. 4University of Missouri Health Care ...................... 4, 20U.S. Bank .................................................................. 4Visionworks Marketing & Communications ............... 4Walther, Antel, Stamper & Fischer ........................... 17Westway Feeds Inc. .................................................. 4Woodruff Sweitzer ..................................................... 4Yogoluv .......................................................... 1, 22, 23YouZeum ................................................................... 3
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The Columbia Business Times is published every other Saturday by The Business Times Co. 2001 Corporate Place, Suite 100, Columbia, Mo 65202.
Copyright The Business Times Co., 2008. All rights reserved. Reproduction or use of any editorial or graphic content without the express written permission of the publisher is prohibited. Third-class postage paid at Columbia, Mo. The annual subscription rate is $39.95 for 26 issues.
OUR MISSION STATEMENT:The Columbia Business Times strives to be Columbia’s leading source for timely and comprehensive news coverage of the local business community. This publication is dedicated to being the most relevant and useful vehicle for the exchange of information and ideas among Columbia’s business professionals.
Writers in this issue: Jacob Barker, Sean Spence, Robert Thomas, Tom Uhlenbrock, Paul Weber Columnists in this issue: Leigh Britt, Kevin Carlson, Al Germond
Chris Harrison | General Manager | Ext.1010David Reed | Group Editor | Ext.1013Alisha Moreland | Art DirectorSarah Handelman | Graphic DesignerBetsy Bell | Creative Marketing DirectorJennifer Kettler | Photo Editor | 573-529-1789Cindy Sheridan | Operations ManagerAnnie Jarrett | Marketing RepresentativeJoe Schmitter | Marketing RepresentativeAshley Meyer | Creative Services
(573) 499-1830 | (573) 499-1831 [email protected] information: [email protected]
CBT BUSINESS CALENDAR — MAY
17City Council Meeting7 p.m. in the Council Chambers, 701 E. BroadwayPre-council meeting at 6 p.m. to interview candidates for two openings on the Planning and Zoning Commission.
18Columbia Volunteer Appreciation Reception6 - 7:30 p.m. at the Stoney Creek InnThe city hosts a reception to honor its many volunteers. Stop by to show your appreciation, and socialize with other involved community members.
20Women’s Network Luncheon: Managing Up11:30 a.m. - 1 p.m. at Peachtree Catering and Banquet Center Learn how to read your boss's cues, build improved trust and communication with your boss, avoid mistakes that can damage your relationship, and help your boss help you move forward. The cost is $15 for members and $18 for guests. Contact Liz Glockhoff at 819-9119 or [email protected].
Chamber of Commerce Twilight Cruise6 - 9 p.m. in the Robert M. Lemone Tiger Lounge at Faurot FieldJoin other Columbians to network and socialize at a cruise-themed mixer on the MU campus. The cost is $35. Call 874-1132 for more information.
25East Area Plan Public Meeting5:30 - 7:30 p.m. at the Elk’s Lodge, 4747 Elk Park Drive E.The Columbia and Boone County Planning and Zoning
commissions will host a meeting to describe the contents of
the East Area Plan (formerly known as the East Columbia Area
Plan) and solicit public comments. The plan is meant to serve
as a guide for development on Columbia’s eastern edge, where
many planners expect the next robust phase of growth to occur.
27Women’s Network Spring Mixer5 - 7 p.m. at the YouZeum, 608 Cherry St.
Join other Women’s Network members for food and
refreshments at the YouZeum. Children are also welcome. The
cost is $5. For more information, contact Liz Glockhoff at
817-9119.
28USS Columbia Submarine Crew Visits Namesake City5 - 6:30 p.m. at Boone Tavern, Eighth Street and Walnut
Commander Craig Blakely and the crew of the submarine
named after Columbia will be in the city for Memorial Day
events. For more information contact Renee Graham, 874-7316.
CLARIFICATIONIn the May 1 CBT on Page 12, the chart showing Broadband
Speed Comparisons should have included a speed measured in
the DSL category, which was 512 kilobits per second. The chart
also did not include the higher speeds offered by CenturyLink,
up to 10 megabits per second, about 20 times faster than the
DSL speed listed.
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Allert
Putnam
Philips
HiringsThe Central Missouri Humane Society announced this month that it is
hiring Alan Allert as executive director. Allert has served as the interim executive director since November.
Visionworks Marketing & Communications hired Robert Putnam to be its manager of business development. Putnam has more than 25 years experience in business ownership, management and new market devel-opment. He previously served as director of the Missouri Purchasing Resource Center, a program of the Missouri School Boards Association. He also was executive director of business development for TimeLine Recruiting.
Darrell Mantle has joined Central Bank as the community bank president for the Holts Summit office. He will serve the real estate, con-sumer and construction loan needs for the Holts Summit market. Darrell has more than 19 years of banking experience, including 12 years with Central Bank.
PromotionsJoseph Priesmeyer has been named president of N.H. Scheppers
Distributing Company and replaced Joseph Scheppers, who will remain the company’s chairman. Priesmeyer, who lives in Columbia, previously worked as vice president of sales and marketing at the beverage company.
Central Bancompany's board of directors announced the following promotions during the annual board meeting in April: Sam B. Cook was promoted to senior chairman of the board. Bob Robuck was named chairman of the board. Ken Littlefield was named vice chairman and chief administrative officer. Michael Ittner became senior executive vice president, treasurer and chief financial officer. Don Perdue was named senior executive vice president of investments. Chuck Weber was promoted to senior executive vice president, corporate secretary and general counsel. Richard Popp became executive vice president of risk administration. Jim Shinn became executive vice president of retail banking. Nancy Justice was promoted to senior vice president of compliance. John Hofmeister became vice president and director of marketing. Kelly Loring was named vice president of retail banking. Twilla Duvall became second vice president of commercial banking services. Matt Tollerton was promoted to second vice president of com-mercial banking services. Pete Langston was named manager of loan review. Carey Schoeneberg was named manager of loan review. Greta Heckman became marketing officer.
U.S. Bank announced the promotion of Jason M. Philips to assis-tant vice president. Philips has been with U.S. Bank since 2004 and cur-rently works in the commercial banking department. In his position, he is responsible for implementing relationship strategies to effectively manage and grow a portfolio of commercial clients.
Woodruff Sweitzer promoted Kyle Pusateri to account executive. Pusateri joined the agency two years ago and has served numerous roles with the agency including co-director of the Roots ’N Blues ’N BBQ Festival and account coordinator. While at Woodruff Sweitzer, Pusateri has worked on Diamond Pet Foods, Westway Feeds Inc., True Media and Pop’s Authentic Meat Snacks.
AppointmentsJuni Muhota, manager of medical staff affairs at University of
Missouri Health Care, has been selected as a member of the 2010 board of examiners for the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award. Each year, the Baldrige National Quality Program appoints a board of experts who evaluate organizations eligible for the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award. Board members provide advice and guidance to the panel of judges in selecting annual award recipients and serve as representatives of the award program. The Baldrige Award is given by the president of the United States to businesses judged to be outstanding.
AwardsThe Columbia Police Department recognized some of its top
employees in an April awards ceremony. Officer Jill Wieneke received the Molly Thomas Bowden Officer of the Year Award. She is the first officer to memorialize Officer Bowden by accepting the award. Officer Andy Meyer was recognized as the “rookie” of the year. Sergeant John Worden accepted the Supervisor of the Year Award. Debra Austeel was named the civilian employee of the year.
Several Stephens College employees received awards at the annual honors convocation. Sara Linde, instructor of equestrian studies, was named the 2010 Distinguished Teacher of the Year. The Distinguished Teaching Award is the highest honor awarded to a faculty member and is selected by the student body. Greg Hutchinson, financial aid coun-selor, received the H.E. Wilkerson Award for Outstanding Service to Admission. Dan Schultz, assistant professor of theater, received the Century Candle Award for Outstanding Contributions to Student Life.
Summit International Awards has awarded Visionworks Marketing & Communications a silver award in the category of Consumer Product/Services Brochure. The Summit Creative Awards recognize and celebrate the creative accomplishments of small- and medium-sized advertising agencies and other creative groups with annual bill-ings of $30 million or less. This year’s competition judged thousands of submissions from 24 countries. The award-winning brochure is titled “Narratives from the Kiln.” It is a display booklet commissioned by the Columbia Art League that showcases a glass exhibit curated by glass artist Susan Taylor Glasgow.
Community ServiceBoone County National Bank has pledged $100,000 to Columbia
College for the school’s science initiative. Columbia College has raised $2.5 million for the campaign so far. One of its major initiatives, a new 45,000-square-foot science building, is projected to cost between $13 million and $15 million.
N.H. Scheppers Distributing Company, the mid-Missouri Anheuser-Busch products distributor, announced it has raised $1,196 for the food bank for central and northeast Missouri. The donations were raised in conjunction with distributing Budweiser/St. Louis Cardinals calendars.
We want to hear from you. Please e-mail your submissions to [email protected]
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PEOPLE YOU SHOULD KNOW
Todd CulleyCEO and General Manager, Boone Electric Cooperative
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AGE: 42 YEARS LIVED IN MID-MISSOURI: 3 HOMETOWN: Thorntown, Ind.
JOB DESCRIPTION: Oversee operations of our member-owned, not-for-profit electric utility and subsidiary.
EDUCATION: Bachelor’s degree in marketing from Indiana University, master’s degree in management from Oakland City University.
COMMUNITY INVOLVEMENT: Director, Columbia Chamber of Commerce Board and Executive Committee member; director, Regional Economic Development Inc. and chair of High-Speed Internet Task Force; director, Central Electric Power Cooperative of Jefferson City; delegate, Association of Missouri Electric Cooperatives of Jefferson City; member, Metro Rotary Club of Columbia.
PROFESSIONAL BACKGROUND: Served as deputy county assessor in Boone County, Ind., and sold motorcycles in Indianapolis, all prior to beginning utility work in 1992 for Cinergy, an investor-owned utility in Indiana, Ohio and Kentucky. Served as district manager in Bedford, Mitchell and French Lick (Indiana) until 2000, when I jumped at an opportunity to work for a local electric cooperative in Bloomfield, Ind. In 2002, I became executive vice president and general manager of Chariton Valley Electric Cooperative in Albia, Iowa. In 2007, I accepted the position of CEO and general manager of Boone Electric Cooperative in Columbia.
A COLUMBIA BUSINESSPERSON I ADMIRE AND WHY: Al Lynch, assistant general manager of Boone Electric Cooperative, who is retiring June 1. Al was instrumental in my transition here and has continually demonstrated an exceptionally high sense of integrity, commitment and a bias to action in his dealings with our members. He has carried many burdens (in a positive way) even though he hasn’t always been in the spotlight.
WHY I’M PASSIONATE ABOUT MY JOB: I see how the service our employees and organization provides directly improves the quality of lives of the members we serve. Providing electricity allows teachers to teach, hospitals to save lives, traffic to flow smoothly — basically, allowing the world to operate more safely and efficiently.
IF I WEREN’T DOING THIS FOR A LIVING, I WOULD: Serve the public as a physician.
BIGGEST CAREER OBSTACLE I’VE OVERCOME AND HOW: Tackling the job of district manager for Cinergy. The district was served by one of the company’s largest switchyards/substations in the state, as it served a large military base, a General Motors foundry, a Ford/Visteon manufacturing facility, U.S. Gypsum Co., National Gypsum Co. and Paoli Inc. (furniture), among other industrial consumers and cities. I visited with other managers to see what worked (and what didn’t), acquired all the on-the-job training I could get and went back to school for a master’s degree. It took a full year to get my feet under me — and another to get real traction. I wasn’t long on patience; it’s definitely a virtue.
FAMILY: Tonya is from Lexington, Ky. We’ve been married nearly 14 years. We have two boys: Zachary, 12; and Nicholas, 9. Tonya is a licensed mental health counselor with a master’s in counseling; she’s finishing a master’s in education at Stephen’s College this summer, with hopes to work in the educational arena.
A FAVORITE RECENT PROJECT: Building a fort in the woods for our two boys. The fort now doubles as a hunting blind — and a second home for me, should I forget to ask my wife how her day went.
WHAT PEOPLE SHOULD KNOW ABOUT THIS PROFESSION: The complexities involved in balancing affordable and reliable power with environmental sensitivity are many and varied; it is difficult to elaborate in writing or within a few-minute conversation. This industry is full of environmentally conscious employees, and that gives me comfort over the long run.
WHAT I DO FOR FUN: Visit friends and family, travel and help our two boys with preparation for sports activities.
FAVORITE PLACE IN COLUMBIA: We like to walk downtown during summer evenings and on weekend mornings (with coffee!).
ACCOMPLISHMENT I’M MOST PROUD OF: My family; I feel fortunate to have a great wife and two boys.
MOST PEOPLE DON’T KNOW THAT I… took a year off between high school and college and lived in a truck camper for seven months during a record-setting cold Colorado winter without electricity. I worked at a marble shop and beat unused cultured hardened marble out of five-gallon buckets with a hammer so the buckets could be re-used — all at minimum wage. This provided me the opportunity to earn and save money to go to college (using a friend’s address to establish residency and qualify for in-state tuition). v
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BUSINESS PROFILE
New online service modernizes Yellow Pages
The Missouri Women’s Business Conference
Keeping Good CompanyJune 1-2, 2010Courtyard by Marriot Hotel in Columbia
Primary Event Sponsors: Missouri Women’s Council, Missouri Small Business & Technology Development Center, Lincoln University, Commerce Bank, AARP
Media Sponsors:102.3 BXR, KFRU, KLIK, Jeff 104.1, The Columbia Business Times
To register for attendance or to be an exhibitor, visit www.missouribusiness.net. Registration includes lunch.
Exhibitors still being accepted!
Event begins with a networking “Business One-on-One” social sponsored by the AARP and designed to provide a one-stop infor-mation venue for women business owners to meet individually with professional local, state, and federal government representatives as well as business industry professionals.
Women can receive advice and instruction on all facets of growing their business.
Main event on Wed., June 2, features break-out sessions, a panel of women business owners, a guest speaker, exhibitor booths, attendance prizes, and plenty of networking.
Keynote speaker is M.B. Izard, author of BoomerPreneurs: How Baby Boomers Can Start Their Own Business, Make Money and Enjoy Life. She owned a number of business-es and has more than 30 years experience working with entrepreneurs.
By Robert E. Thomas
The next time you need a plumber or roofer, Rusty Brett wants your fingers to do the walking — just not through the Yellow Pages. He’d rather you use your keyboard to log onto his new website.
Brett is president and founder of servicenoodle.com, a web-site launched this month. The company’s physical location: 302 Campus View Drive.
“While sites like EBay or Amazon offer tangible goods, we offer a site strictly for services,” Brett said. “If you need an electri-cian, a babysitter or a roofer, we try to have a solution for you on our website.”
On the home page, type in a service you need and your home-town, and you’ll come up with a directory of nearby providers. After creating an account, you can send a message to any or all of the companies that describes exactly what service you need, how quickly you need it done and whether you want the work done during or after normal business hours. You also can choose the range of prices you are willing to pay.
Providers can then respond, or “noodle,” directly to you as to their interest and availability by using your preferred communi-cation method: e-mail, phone or private “noodle” page.
Brett said the idea came to him a few years ago. “It seemed like many times my to-do list was compiled in the evenings and on weekends without a way to get it accomplished,” he said. “I wanted to create a site that answered the question, ‘Who can meet my specific service request on my schedule?’ And I wanted to (be able to ask the question) any time, day or night.”
What makes servicenoodle.com different from the Yellow Pages, he said, is its interactivity.
Servicenoodle.com does not get involved in prices or other negotiations for ser-vices. It acts only as an interactive middleman getting people together, Brett said. “We want customers to be able to talk to service suppliers.”
Matt Donnelly is the sales manager, Mark Nienheuser is the sales trainer, and Kate Holman is the accounting manager. The company also employs two program-mers and a search engine optimizer, along with 23 sales representatives who work primarily on commission.
From left, Travis Smith, Rusty Brett and Kate Holman review interface improvements that need to be made to the servicenoodle.com website with lead computer programmer Jamie Stephens.
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BUSINESS PROFILE
For consumers, the service is free. “No obligation, which is one thing we harp on,” Brett said. “Customers don’t have to do business with anyone.”
Service providers pay an annual, upfront fee. “Advertising can be expensive,” he said. “We offer a very competitive entry to advertise their service.” The annual fee starts at $275.
The service providers set up and maintain their own profiles on the website. They can edit them at any time and post up to 20 photographs.
“We have some big names like Hy-Vee all the way down to small shoe repair and clock shops,” Brett said. “People are thanking us for the opportunity to tell customers who they are. They now have an affordable option.”
Midway Electric and its affiliated company, Midway CSI, joined servicenoodle.com, which President Michelle Spry called an important and inexpensive decision.
“What I like about it is that I have the flexibility to change on a daily basis to accommodate either one of our businesses,” she said. “I think it is great tool for people to go to one site and find whatever it is they are looking for.”
The company and each service provider know how often the providers' websites are searched, how many times the profile is viewed and how many “noodle” requests are received, Brett said.
“We can tell all these things, and at the pricing point we are talking about, for most services one job for a provider (that comes through servicenoodle.com), and it has paid for itself,” he said.
The site also offers what Brett calls obscure listings, such as a laborer for a day, tennis lessons, gutter cleaning, farm hand for a day and tutoring.
“Everyone wants an immediate satisfaction; they want an immediate answer,” Brett said. “This is the way to do it. It can be 10 o’clock or midnight, and you can’t call them. Their doors are closed, but you certainly can send them a request.”
The software program for servicenoodle.com was built from scratch, Brett said. “We are still building our site. We want to make it as simple as possible to use.”
A second feature on the website is servicenoodle.com25. It is aimed at college students who want to start their own sites and create profiles. The annual cost is $25.
“This is where we get the listings for assembly assistance, babysitting, bartending, errand runner, housecleaning, part-time college-kid type help,” Brett said. “This is more what you might call the amateur section.”
Brett, a native of Mexico, Mo., does not have a technical background. He is an MU graduate in general studies who worked at the Gallaher Insurance Group from 1996 until this year.
“I realized then just how expensive it was to showcase who we were,” he said. “I wanted an affordable option and figured if I was interested in that, then other businessmen would also be interested.”
Brett hopes to expand the company statewide by July and eventually go national. He said his site is the only one he has found that has such interaction between customer and service provider. “We are a one-stop shop for customer service needs,” he said. v
Servicenoodle.com is an online search engine where customers can specify their service needs. "My mission was to create a website to find answers to my service needs during and after business hours," said servicenoodle.com President Rusty Brett.
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Britt directs the city’s Office of Neighborhood
Services. 817-5050 or neighborhood@
GoColumbiaMo.com.
Leigh Britt
The Columbia area couldn't have been blessed with finer weather for the recently concluded Bike, Walk and Wheel Week events. Several days with blue skies, perfect tempera-tures and low humidity allowed many of us to renew contact with the area's streets and trails after having slogged through a rather dreary winter.
I cycled more than 200 miles during five weekdays and spent only a fraction of it on any of the city's dedicated trails. Not daring enough to navigate Providence Road or West Broadway, my itinerary adhered mainly to less-traveled streets. Wherever I went, the con-clusion was the same: The streets are not in the best of shape and even dangerous in some places. Any motorist dreads the usual litany of spring potholes, pavement cracks and gutters strewn with debris, but a commuter astride a two-wheeler faces significantly greater conse-quences: a blowout, a wipeout and a trip to the hospital or even the morgue.
For me, the week of biking was the brutal reminder that the community still has a very long way to go in terms of integrating cycling into the overall fabric of the area's transportation network. Although others continue the worn-out debate over the deployment of millions of dollars of federal grant money to develop and encourage non-motorized transportation, I'm beyond that. I’m ready to say thanks for many of the small steps already taken, and I’m looking forward to others.
How ironic that Columbia was anointed one of four cities nationwide to receive a bazil-lion dollars to promote non-motorized use of its streets and sidewalks. A low seven-figure amount has already been committed for promo-tion. Millions more are still to be spent on proj-ects and improvements. Yet, apparently, we’re on our own when it comes to fixing various fissures on the area's streets and sidewalks that would make them more inviting to bicyclists and walkers.
After a week of cycling, I wondered about the effectiveness of all this preaching about non-motorized transportation given the condition of streets and sidewalks. The administrators of this laudable project have been spending money on marketing, road striping and reconfiguring and trail construction as they try to recruit two-wheeled com-muters, some of them novices who haven’t jumped on a bike in years. They probably aren’t thinking about the probability of some unfortunate cyclist's dip into a nasty pothole, and an accident shouldn’t be the cata-lyst for changing the federal government’s rules regarding non-motorized transportation. But those rules should have been written to allow some spending
to repair roadside bike paths because the poor conditions likely are causing many people who participated in Bike, Walk and Wheel Week to get back in their cars for the trips to work once it was over.
Obviously mindful of other vehicles while observing the rules of the road, the vigilant cyclist is also forced to pay close attention to the pavement itself for all of its flaws and imper-fections. Aside from saving about 10 gallons of precious motor fuel, the close examination I paid to the pavement in front of me brought another dividend: 47 cents in odd change care-lessly discarded. v
Al Germond
Al Germond is the host of the "Sunday Morning
Roundtable" every Sunday at 8:15 a.m. on
KFRU. [email protected]
From the Roundtable
Bike, Walk and Wheel — potholes, cracks and trash
VOICES
City View
A primer in Columbia’s rental housing regulationsLast week I received a phone call from
an out-of-state landlord. His rental property did not meet city codes, and he called after receiving a notice to apply for a Certificate of Compliance.
He asked: "When did Columbia come up with this law? Why are you making me do this? Why do I need to get my gas heating unit inspected? Do I need to go through this process each year? Do you also conduct this type of inspection for owner-occupied homes?"
Clearly, he was not aware of Columbia’s regulation of rental housing. Our conversation brought forth many questions that you might have, too.
Columbia’s Office of Neighborhood Services was established last year with the FY 2010 budget. The office, which I head, is charged with code enforcement in Columbia’s residential areas, assisting our neighborhoods and connecting volunteers to service opportu-nities in local government. One of our largest responsibilities is enforcing the city’s Rental Conservation Law.
Adopted in 1978, the Rental Conservation Law applies to all housing that is leased or rented for residential purposes. The reason for the law is simple: to guard the health and safety of those who rent and to protect prop-erty values for the benefit of everyone in our city. Currently, more than 22,000 rental units are in compliance.
To comply, property owners are asked to complete an application, have the heating and ventilation system inspected if a gas system is used, submit the proper fee and allow a city of Columbia building inspector to visit the unit. The HVAC inspection is done as a safety mea-sure, and none is needed if the unit has electric heat.
During the inspection, city staff will review the property both inside and out for any viola-tions in the International Property Maintenance Code that Columbia adopted, along with some local amendments. Generally, inspectors want to make sure the property is being maintained and also look for details such as smoke detec-tors and deadbolt locks on exterior doors.
Certificates of Compliance are issued for a three-year period and may be renewed for another three years. If there are no complaints against the property, the certificate can be renewed without an inspection, which means the longest any rental property can go without a city inspection is six years.
Although the city does not conduct regular interior inspections of owner-occupied housing, the International Property Maintenance Code is enforced on all residential properties in the city. Building inspectors can issue a Notice of Violation asking property owners to make cor-rections to be in compliance with the code in an effort to protect property values throughout the city. The city may prosecute property owners who rent but do not comply.
Zoning violationsA common issue in rental property is
too many people living in the same unit. In Columbia’s R-1 zoning, no more than three unrelated people may live together. The limit generally is four people in all other zoning dis-tricts. Violations of this rule can affect neigh-borhoods through increased traffic, noise and trash. Too many people living in the same unit might also cause a safety hazard.
Who’s interested in our rental law?Property owners are responsible for com-
plying with Columbia’s rental law, but many others play a role in its success. Real estate sales people and lenders can make sure those who purchase rental property are knowledge-able about this law. Renters can ask their land-lords to see a current Certificate of Compliance or contact the Office of Neighborhood Services to verify. Neighbors are welcome to contact us if there is a property in question nearby.
How can I find out more?The Office of Neighborhood Services
has more information on rental compliance and other enforcement efforts posted at www.GoColumbiaMo.com. Our staff also enjoys meeting with residents or talking with community groups.
Please contact us at 817-5050 or at [email protected]. v
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Early in my job as a center manager for Advance America, I began noticing the sharp double edge of my work.
Customers walked through the doors to solve a short-term problem, only to walk out with a long-term dilemma. Taking out a
payday advance is easy; paying it back is another beast altogether.
A young woman came in one day with her boyfriend and borrowed $500. She said it was to pay for a car repair but later admitted that her beau talked her into taking out the money for him. She was com-mitted to paying it off, even after he skipped town and left her with a mountain of debt. But she found that making minimum payments on each of her four accounts was getting her nowhere.
After paying more than $500 in interest at one store alone during the span of 10 weeks, she filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy. She was 22.
This was three years ago. I had left a job as a sports editor at a daily newspaper in south Florida to start a family in Columbia but ended up unemployed. So I took a job with the largest payday loan company in the nation. Advance America owns two of the 21 payday lending offices in Columbia.
Members of the Columbia City Council deemed these businesses problematic enough in November 2009 to pass a six-month moratorium on the opening of any new payday loan stores. The moratorium was introduced by former 4th Ward Councilman Jerry Wade to “look at options and see what is best for the community.” Wade lost his race for mayor, and on May 4 the ban expired without mention.
Also this month, legislation drafted by State Rep. Mary Still of Columbia to cap interest rates on payday loans silently expired in the Missouri General Assembly.
There was a committee hearing on payday lending, but it was chaired by Rep. Don Wells of Cabool, who happens to own a payday loan office and invited only proponents of the businesses to testify.
“What people fail to consider is the social cost to the community that these loans inflict,” Still told me. “These companies are tempting people to make bad financial decisions. It is too easy and too tempting for those who are financially unsophisticated. This is a flawed product, and it is siphoning an incredible amount of money from our state.”
Noble idea, ignoble in practiceThe payday loan industry is a noble one in theory:
It helps consumers avoid costly overdraft fees imposed
by banks; it provides a short-term solution in a dreadful economy; it doesn’t solicit new business.
The customer walks into the store and borrows money of his or her own volition.
One of them who came in the door while I was working was a middle-aged auto claims processor at Shelter Insurance. She was subjected to daily overdraft fees at U.S. Bank and decided one afternoon to inquire about an advance. She took out $500 to get her checking account back in the black but soon found the cycle of borrowing hard to break. Anytime her funds got low, she would head back to the store where I worked to borrow another $500, even though she knew she would fork over double that to eventually pay it off.
After more than four years of borrowing, she found herself unequipped to deal with the slightest of finan-cial emergencies. A car accident did not harm her physically but started a domino effect that resulted in her and her 11-year-old daughter moving back home with her mother. She paid thou-sands of dollars in interest in those four years, with absolutely nothing to show for it.
On average, the Advance America on the east side of town where I worked had about 200 active customers at any given time — 160 of whom were in good standing and maybe 40 who were in NSF (insufficient funds) status, which means their checks had been deposited and returned unpaid. After 90 days without payment, NSF customers became write-off customers. The company expects a 20 per-cent write-off. It will recoup the investment with the remaining 80 percent customer base in good standing. In 2009, Advance America reported profits of $162.1 million. (That’s money that would otherwise be spent, in large measure, for local goods and services such as groceries and car payments.)
Applying for a payday loan couldn’t be simpler for anyone with a job, a checking account and 15 minutes: You fill out an application and provide copies of pay stubs, bank statements and two photo IDs.
As an employee, I would enter the information into a database, determine what amount of loan the applicant was eligible for (up to $500) and match the payment schedule to his or her pay frequency. (Customers who are paid bi-weekly would have two weeks to repay their loans; monthly customers had up to 31 days, etc.) All customers were extended a series of
buy-downs, or min-imum payments (companies allow anywhere from three to six), before the full amount of the loan was due.
Let’s say I approved a cus-tomer for a $500 loan on a bi-weekly basis. The customer would write me a check for $595 (the extra $95 is an interest sur-charge; at Advance America, the annual percentage rate is 495 percent) and post-date it
two weeks to the customer’s next payday. When that date arrives, the customer could pay the $595 in cash and be done with the loan or could make a minimum payment of $120 (the $95 in interest, plus an addi-tional $25 toward the principal), re-borrow $475 and write a new post-dated check for $565.25.
Next time around, it’s the same scenario: Pay the $565 in cash, and be done; or extend it again with a payment of $115, and re-borrow $450. If the customer borrowed $500, he or she would spend $851 to repay that loan by exhausting the three minimum payments and paying the loan off in the fourth visit. If the cus-tomer neglected to return and pay on the loan, the post-dated check was deposited and collection efforts ensued.
“The one thing you need to remember is that you’re dealing with financially stupid people,” the former regional director of operations at Advance America told me early in my two-year spell with the company. “You need to take advantage of that. That’s the problem with America, right? Everybody wants what they want now, and they don’t care how they’ll pay for it. That’s where we come in.”
One (book) smart customerOne woman in particular might
have been “financially stupid,” but her Ph.D. begged otherwise. A sociology professor at a local college, this customer was one of the few who admonished herself openly each and every time she
borrowed. She always took out $500 for unknown reasons, scolded herself when she cut the check and slapped the counter in disgust after handing over a crisp $100 bill to pay the interest and roll over the loan. Most customers who need and take out these advances are teachers, nurses, construction workers and admin-istrative assistants. Surprisingly, there are quite a few doctors, professors and business owners in the mix as well.
“This is ridiculous,” she would say without fail during each visit. “I know better than this. I should not be in here. And neither should you.” She simply could not shed her dependence on payday loans. Never did she see her life taking such a drastic turn.
According to some estimates, the average payday customer has four concurrent loans. If that person pays back the loans based on the three-minimums-then-full approach, he or she has spent $3,406 to borrow $2,000. Where would that net loss of $1,406 have been spent otherwise? How much money has been channeled away from local shops, restaurants and businesses? Multiply that $1,406 by how many hundreds of cus-tomers are stuck in this predicament, and you’re approaching millions of dollars lost per year within Columbia’s city limits alone.
I would estimate that 90 percent of customers who take out a payday loan cannot afford to pay off their loans when they become due, which causes most to pay off and re-borrow, a statistic the payday loan industry uses to claim that those 90 percent pay off their advances on or before their next payday.
In the example of a $500 loan, the customer pays $95 in interest to keep the $500 for another two weeks. That cycle can continue for years and engages borrowers in a seemingly interminable game of catch-up. The loan never gets paid, even though during the course of a year that customer will have given $2,470 to a com-pany such as Advance America — nearly five times the amount of the original advance.
Guest ColumnAn insider’s view of payday lending in Columbia
Carlson is a former manager of an Advance America store who now works for MU. carlson.
Kevin Carlson
VOICES
A middle-aged auto
claims processor …
took out $500 to get her
checking account back in
the black but soon found
the cycle of borrowing
hard to break.
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Undergrad inventors prompt revamp of MU’s IP rulesp
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Two years ago, MU journalism student Tony Brown was “multitasking” in class; he was trying to find an apartment for the following semester while dutifully following his professor’s every word.
“It kind of dawned on me that there had to be an easier way to (find an apartment) than trolling through Craigslist and the Internet,” Brown said.
In less than a year, his divided attention paid off as he presented NearBuy, a real estate application for the iPhone, in San Francisco for Apple’s 2009 Worldwide Developer Conference. Brown and engineering graduate students Zhenhua Ma, Dan Wang and Peng Zhuang won the Reynolds Journalism Institute’s iPhone application contest last year and a trip to the conference.
NearBuy, the winning app they developed, maps local real estate or apartment listings from online data-bases, and real estate agents can use it to manage their own listings.
“We’ve been approached by a lot of people who have said it’s a very marketable app,” Brown said.
The idea was so well received that Brown and his team had partnership offers for the app from multiple companies by last summer. The problem: The univer-sity’s intellectual property guidelines for undergrad-uates hadn’t been updated in decades.
“It just hadn’t been done before,” Brown said. “Most things that are produced on campus aren’t produced by undergraduates.”
RJI Technology Testing Center Manager Keith Politte said the university’s guidelines for undergrad-uate intellectual property rights were not completely clear. “The lawyers we kept pounding up against were kind of stuck,” he said.
Brown and the other students entered into negotia-tions with the university over the rights to the appli-cation last summer, without attorneys and while still juggling classes. But with support from Politte and RJI Futures Lab Director Mike McKean, they came out with full rights to the application in July, Brown said.
In a video statement at the RJI Student Developer Showcase on May 5, Michael Nichols, the UM System’s vice president for research and economic development, explained new rules proposed for stu-dent intellectual property rights and said he hopes to have them finalized by the June meeting of the board of curators.
The university maintains substantial rights over intellectual property developed by employees of the university, but the rules for students are less clear. The proposed rules that Nichols described would allow students to keep their intellectual property if they
do not use more campus resources than what is avail-able to every stu-dent. The proposed rules would also define prize money to be distinct from compensation by the university. In an earlier RJI-sponsored student competition, prize money was applied to the winning stu-dents’ school loans rather than given to them directly, Politte said.
“Various depart-ments on campus have recognized this
and been responsive in addressing these concerns,” Politte said.
Although there have been other issues relating to intellectual prop-erty, Brown and his team were instru-mental in catalyzing the university’s effort to update its guidelines, Politte said.
“Students want to create,” he said. “There’s a deep entrepreneurial pool we can tap more effectively.”
The university’s move is part of a broader culture shift toward commer-cializing intellectual property rather than just doing research for research’s sake, said Quinten Messbarger, vice president of the Missouri Innovation Center. Paying for the marketing and development necessary to turn a new technology into a viable product often requires staff and resources the university does not have, Messbager said. In such cases, the intellectual property should go back to the creator rather than sitting on the shelf.”
“Most of the frustration now is there’s a lot of intel-lectual property out there, but not enough is being done with it quickly enough,” Messbarger said.
NearBuy, on the other hand, has been put to use right away. It’s free for iPhone owners, and it boasts more than 150,000 downloads, Brown said.
The app has landed Zhuang a job with Google and Brown a gig with Columbia-based Newsy. He helps develop and market the news analysis company’s video apps for smart phones, and he just finished one for the new iPad.
“I’m excited to be working for a company that is serious about pushing the envelope for what we can do with mobile space,” Brown said.
But even with all the success and good job pros-pects in a booming industry, Brown said he is most proud of prompting the university to give more intel-lectual property rights to its students.
“I certainly enjoy the idea of leaving a legacy others can build upon,” he said. v
Using his iPad, Tony Brown works on an application he developed for Newsy.com that allows users to create playlists of their favorite videos from the online news organization. Brown also created the application NearBuy, which gets 10,000 downloads a month and is rated one of the most popular real estate applications.
Brown pulls videos into his playlist for an application he created for Newsy.com.
The NearBuy iPhone application gets more than 10,000 downloads a month. Brown, an MU undergraduate journalism student, said he got the idea for the application when he was bored in class one day and looking for a place to live on his iPhone.
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BUSINESS OF THE YEAR
Trabue, Hansen & Hinshaw Inc., an engineering consulting firm, was named the Columbia Chamber of Commerce's 2010 Small Business of the Year.
Other finalists for the award were The Add Sheet!, Bucket Media, Designer Landscape and Midwest Computech. The award ceremony on May 7 at the Courtyard by Marriott, which 125 people attended, was part of the Chamber's 2010 Small Business Week.
"It's a fantastic honor," Gene Hinshaw said."It's tremendous, the amount of work the Chamber throws into this program," Tom Trabue
added.THHinc (pronounced "think") was also nominated for Small Business of the Year in 2009. The
company started operating in April 1996 with 12 employees working in a 1,000-square-foot office and now has 35 employees and a 10,000-square-foot office.
Hinshaw said one reason for their success is that eight of the original 12 employees are still working for the company.
THHinc's major projects include Mizzou Arena, MU's Discovery Ridge research park, Boone Hospital's expansion, the Missouri Department of Conservation offices and, more recently, two new city fire stations. v
Engineering firm wins Chamber Business of Year
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Brown pulls videos into his playlist for an application he created for Newsy.com.
Kat Cunningham, center, enjoys the video presentation at the award luncheon after her speech to the group.
David Nivens stands in recognition of Midwest Computech's nomination for Small Business of the Year Award.
Commercial Realtor Paul Land, who wil become the Chamber chairman this summer, congratulates Trabue.
THHinc principals, from left: Kris Bezenek, Tom Wooten, John Huss, Tom Trabue and Gene Hinshaw
Katy Trail
20Boone County-born
Katy Trail Turns
By Tom Uhlenbrock, Division of State ParksMissouri Department of Natural Resources Photos by Scott Myers and Tom Uhlenbrock
Here’s a vote for the 16 miles between McKittrick, just north of Hermann, and Treloar, where much of the trail squeezes between the base of white limestone bluffs and the muddy Missouri River. In spring, Canada geese nesting on the rocky ledges crane their long necks to watch the riders below.
This year, the Katy Trail celebrates its 20th anniversary, which kicked off May 8 in Rocheport. The Katy Trail is not only the longest rail-to-trail conversion in the nation, but it also draws more than 300,000 visitors annually. It has a place in Missourians’ hearts. The trail was only five miles long in April 1990 when its first section opened from Huntsdale to Rocheport.
Missouri-Kansas-Texas Railroad abandoned the flood-prone corridor in 1986, and the Missouri Department of Natural Resources began acquiring the property under the National Trail System Act, which allowed railroad lines to be “banked’ for possible future use. In the interim, they could be converted to recreational trails.
Sparked by a $2.2 million donation from the late Ted Jones and his wife, Pat, the state developed a 100-foot-wide park along the rail corridor that stretched from the historic town of St. Charles on the east to Clinton on the west.
The May 8 celebration at Rocheport honored the trail’s pioneer backers and the volunteers who keep it running. The event featured a giant birthday cake, a short walk to the memorial honoring the Joneses and a ride 8.5 miles to McBaine.
“The anniversary is truly a milestone, not only for our state but also the nation,” said Gov. Jay Nixon, an early supporter as attorney general. “As the longest rail-trail in the nation, the Katy Trail attracts bicyclists from all over the United States and the world.”
News of the 20th anniversary has increased interest in the annual Katy Trail Ride, which covers the whole route across Missouri’s mid-section and is marking its own 10th anniversary. The event, on June 21 to 25, is limited to 300 registered riders. Participants cover some 50 miles a day, which is more than enough for a weekend biker.
A slice of AmericanaThe charm of the Katy Trail is its leisurely backdoor look into the bucolic
Missouri countryside. The trail of packed chat rolls by fields of corn and soybeans and pastures dotted with black cattle. It crosses lazy creeks over rusty iron bridges and heads into bottomland forests that are noisy with bird songs.
Most of the towns along the way seem caught in a time warp since the last locomotive pulled out.
The general store at Mokane has a yellowed newspaper clip taped to it: The town’s population had hit 700 residents. Now, the population is down to 188 residents, not including the yellow Labrador snoozing the spring afternoon away in front of the Post Office.
The trail provides a slice of Americana, far from the fast food joints and billboards of the interstates. Each of the 25 trailhead towns has a Katy Depot that explains the local history and describes the features of the section ahead. Markers point out stops made by the Lewis and Clark Expedition on its voyage up and down the Missouri.
The depots are welcome stops for those on the trail — and provide a peek into a different time in the Katy Trail’s life.
A park for all levelsI had ridden the trail from Sedalia to St. Charles after that 187-mile stretch
opened 12 years ago. To celebrate the 20th anniversary, a return ride in late spring when the redbuds were still blooming covered some of my favorite sections.
But first I made a pit stop at Katy Trail Bike Rental in Defiance, the east end of the popular Defiance-to-Dutzow stretch through Missouri Wine Country. The shop has some 40 hybrid bikes for rent at $20 a day.
Almost any type of bicycle can be used on the trail, but on the hybrids, a rider sits more upright than on a regular mountain bike. That, and the padded wide seat with a shock absorber, makes for a comfortable cruise.
Picking a favorite section of the Katy Trail presents a pleasant problem. With 225 miles of hiking and biking trail to choose from, where does one start?
(continued on Page 14)
Left: former Columbia Mayor Darwin Hindman rides with a pack of bikers along the Katy trail just outside of Rocheport during the 20th anniversary celebration. Above: Pat Jones, flanked by Gov. Jay Nixon, rides a Shakespeare’s Pizza cart along the Katy trail during the celebration. She and her late husband, ted Jones, were early backers of the trail and donated $2.2 million to purchase the right-of-way from the railroad. RiGHt: boonville recently won a battle to save its old Katy bridge and is raising funds to develop it as a pedestrian link to the trail. fAR RiGHt: the only railroad tunnel on the Katy trail is in Rocheport.
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A slice of AmericanaThe charm of the Katy Trail is its leisurely backdoor look into the bucolic
Missouri countryside. The trail of packed chat rolls by fields of corn and soybeans and pastures dotted with black cattle. It crosses lazy creeks over rusty iron bridges and heads into bottomland forests that are noisy with bird songs.
Most of the towns along the way seem caught in a time warp since the last locomotive pulled out.
The general store at Mokane has a yellowed newspaper clip taped to it: The town’s population had hit 700 residents. Now, the population is down to 188 residents, not including the yellow Labrador snoozing the spring afternoon away in front of the Post Office.
The trail provides a slice of Americana, far from the fast food joints and billboards of the interstates. Each of the 25 trailhead towns has a Katy Depot that explains the local history and describes the features of the section ahead. Markers point out stops made by the Lewis and Clark Expedition on its voyage up and down the Missouri.
The depots are welcome stops for those on the trail — and provide a peek into a different time in the Katy Trail’s life.
A park for all levelsI had ridden the trail from Sedalia to St. Charles after that 187-mile stretch
opened 12 years ago. To celebrate the 20th anniversary, a return ride in late spring when the redbuds were still blooming covered some of my favorite sections.
But first I made a pit stop at Katy Trail Bike Rental in Defiance, the east end of the popular Defiance-to-Dutzow stretch through Missouri Wine Country. The shop has some 40 hybrid bikes for rent at $20 a day.
Almost any type of bicycle can be used on the trail, but on the hybrids, a rider sits more upright than on a regular mountain bike. That, and the padded wide seat with a shock absorber, makes for a comfortable cruise.
Picking a favorite section of the Katy Trail presents a pleasant problem. With 225 miles of hiking and biking trail to choose from, where does one start?
(continued on Page 14)
Left: former Columbia Mayor Darwin Hindman rides with a pack of bikers along the Katy trail just outside of Rocheport during the 20th anniversary celebration. Above: Pat Jones, flanked by Gov. Jay Nixon, rides a Shakespeare’s Pizza cart along the Katy trail during the celebration. She and her late husband, ted Jones, were early backers of the trail and donated $2.2 million to purchase the right-of-way from the railroad. RiGHt: boonville recently won a battle to save its old Katy bridge and is raising funds to develop it as a pedestrian link to the trail. fAR RiGHt: the only railroad tunnel on the Katy trail is in Rocheport.
Former Columbia Mayor Darwin Hindman was pedaling his one-speed bicycle back to Columbia from the Katy Trail’s 20th anniversary celebration in Rocheport when he recalled the early days of the trail development campaign.
The first stretch of the trail linked Rocheport and Huntsdale, and Hindman, a key advocate in the area’s rails-to-trails movement, was trying to persuade business owners in Rocheport to cater to trail bikers and hikers. But none thought it would be worth the effort. Finally, Hindman said, a church set up a trail-side refreshment stand and demonstrated the business potential.
Now, Rocheport bills itself as “the scenic gateway to the Katy Trail State Park.” Businesses that try to convert trail users to customers include the Trailside Café & Bike Shop, the Rocheport General Store, Abigails restaurant, the Les Bourgeois Winery and Bistro, seven inns and more than a dozen galleries and shops. Huntsdale’s main business on the trail is Katfish Katy’s, a general store and campground.
Columbia businesses also cater to bicyclists who use the MKT Trail, a spur of the Katy Trail that starts in McBain at Hindman Junction. Hindman, the namesake, was riding a fat-tired bike lent to him by the Rocheport bike shop.
Here are excerpts of the MKT Trail’s history from the city’s website:
The Hinkson and Flat Branch creeks contained the right-of-way of the 8.5 mile Missouri-Kansas-Texas railroad line from Columbia to McBaine.
In 1977, MKT railroad abandoned the right of way. The following year, Columbia Parks and Recreation Department applied for and received a grant for $240,000 from the Railroad Revitalization and Regulatory Reform Act from the U.S. Department of Interior. The estimated cost to purchase and develop the land was $275,000. Columbia was one of the first 10 pilot projects in the United States.
Between 1979 and 1982, the city agreed to purchase the quit-claim deed from the railroad for $17,725, but the railroad only owned about 25 percent of the right of way. So, the city began the arduous task of buying the remaining right of way from individual landowners. This process was much more time-consuming and expensive than planned. Several landowners were opposed to the project and filed suit to stop it.
The grant was renegotiated to include only the 4.3 mile section from Stewart Road to Scott's Boulevard. The rest of the trail to McBaine was developed in three phases. The first, which opened in 1982, was the 3.3 mile section from Stadium Boulevard to Scott's Boulevard. 4
MKT Trail a Katy forerunner
By David Reedthe abandoned MKt railway before trail construction
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The bikes are not for serious off-roading but are perfect for gravel trails such as the Katy.
Defiance has received federal funds to build a quarter-mile bike loop through town that will give riders better access to the two taverns, winery, B&Bs and other attractions, said the shop’s owner, Robin White.
“Business is good; more people are staying close to home,” White said of her bike shop. “People are getting creative with using the trail for family vacations. It’s a state park, great for people of all levels.”
A test ride on the hybrid included a meeting with a red fox with a bushy tail that didn’t seem anxious to give up its spot on the trail. A later wildlife sighting was a tiny snapping turtle crossing to get to the farm pond on the other side.
Greasing the railsMy first day on the trail began in Clifton City,
and I noticed a welcome change from my last time through here: Heading east through Pilot Grove to Boonville, the trees had grown to form a graceful arch over much of the trail and created a canopy that provided sun-dappled shade.
A maintenance worker was helping nature a little bit, said Dawn Fredrickson, the Katy coordinator for the Missouri Department of Natural Resources’ Division of State Parks
“He’s an artist with his side-arm mower,” Frederickson said. “People comment all the time, ‘It’s like a boulevard.’”
The trail, because it follows a rail corridor, is mostly flat, but there is a gradual incline toward Boonville until Lard Hill provides a reprieve, and you coast the final mile into town and the Missouri River Valley.
According to local lore, the hill is named for an incident in which a train hit a woman’s pig, and the railroad refused to fully compensate her. She greased the tracks with lard, which caused the locomotives to spin their wheels, until the railroad paid up.
Boonville has a 1912 Mission-style depot with a museum in a bright green caboose and is home to the historic Hotel Frederick, which has been restored to its former elegance and houses Glenn’s Café, a Cajun restaurant.
The town also recently won its battle to save the old Katy bridge that crosses the Missouri River and has begun raising funds to develop it as a pedestrian link to the trail. The bridge was finished
in 1932 and was the first vertical lift bridge that used counterweights.
“It’s an historic engineering site and the most photographed thing in Boonville,” said Paula Shannon, who helped lead the fight to prevent the bridge’s demolition.
Alone with natureMy final ride, from Mokane to Marthsasville,
included an overnight at McKittrick, which is across the river from Hermann, a town that showcases the heritage of the German immigrants who began arriving in the 1830s.
Hermann’s new bridge has a lane for cyclists, and a dedicated lane is being added to the bridge at Jefferson City and will offer Katy riders easier access to the state capitol. Also in the works later
this year is a 13-mile extension from St. Charles to Machens, which makes the longest rail-trail even longer.
McKittrick boasted one of the trail’s newest entrepreneurs and one of its oldest.
Rich Lauer and his girlfriend, sculptor Joey Los, have rehabbed the 1905 mercantile store, which featured a vaudeville theater and dance hall on the second floor.
“We’ll have a B&B upstairs but will leave the stage for entertainment events,” Lauer said. “Downstairs is a café that seats 20 and booths with art for sale. We want to encourage new artists to come out of their shell and give it a shot.”
Overlooking McKittrick is Meyer’s Hilltop Farm, a B&B that is marking its own 20th anniversary.
“We didn’t know the trail was going in when we bought this place; that’s been a bonus,” said Maggie Meyer, who lives on the farm with her husband, Eldon, and a pair of miniature donkeys named Leon and Oscar.
“We get a lot of riders from Colorado — they seem to be more health conscious — and Arizona,” she said. “We had a couple from Florida, but Florida people seem more interested in gold jewelry and dancing.”
I had the trail to myself on my last weekday ride, except for Mark Plumb, 47, a doctor from Milwaukee. Like so many people, Plumb used his trip on
the Katy to decompress. “I came down to spend three days on the trail,”
he said. “I just wanted to get out and be in nature. I’ve been working too much lately.” 4
MKT ... continuedfromPage13
The town also recently won its battle to save the old Katy bridge that
crosses the Missouri River and has begun raising funds to develop it as
a pedestrian link to the trail.
Katy trail takes riders across an old railroad bridge west of Marthasville at Charrette Creek, which is named for a small french settlement established in 1797.
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Bar president urges Chamber to oppose judicial elections
A local attorney and president of the Missouri Bar urged the Columbia Chamber of Commerce to oppose a measure that would change Missouri’s judicial selection process.
ShowMe Better Courts, the nonprofit orga-nization pushing the change, submitted thou-sands of signatures from its initiative petition to the secretary of state’s office last week. If enough signatures are verified, the petition would place a ballot proposal before voters this November to have all Missouri judges run for election and reduce their terms to eight years from the current 12.
The group says that the cur-rent system, in which the gov-ernor selects judges from nom-inees submitted by panels of lawyers and governor-appoin-tees, gives too much power to special interests. Some judges in rural counties are already chosen by voters, but those in urban and suburban areas, as well as those on the Supreme Court and appellate courts, are chosen through the nonparti-san selection process.
Skip Walther, who was elected Missouri Bar president last fall, asked the Columbia Chamber of Commerce on May 6 to formally oppose the proposal to elect judges. The Chamber board of directors recently started advocating positions on political issues and made unprecedented en-dorsements of City Council candidates before the April 6 election.
During a presentation to the Chamber's Government Affairs Committee, Walther said the current merit selection system "minimizes politics as far as it can be minimized. … It's kept politics out of the courtroom for 70 years."
Currently, 50 percent of trial judges in Missouri and all of the appellate judges are cho-sen through the merit selection system, Walther said. Half of the trial judges, including circuit court judges in Boone County, are elected. Last fall residents of Greene County, where Springfield is located, voted to change from elected judges to the merit selection system. Walther pointed out that the Springfield Chamber of Commerce en-dorsed merit selection.
Bob Roper, co-chairman of the committee, said after the presentation that the Chamber will consider whether to take a position on the proposition after Aug. 3, the date that the state is scheduled to determine whether there are a suf-ficient number of valid signatures to place the issue on the November election ballot.
Walther said it's his opinion, and the opin-ion of many lawyers in states that elect appel-late judges, that campaign contributions, which run into the millions of dollars in some state Supreme Court races, have a significant impact on judicial decisions.
Walther also argued that merit selection is better for businesses in Missouri because allow-ing campaign contributions to have an effect on who seeks judgeships, who wins and how they
make decisions once they're seated would make the system more unpredictable.
"It's good for business that we have predictability in the selection of our judges," he said. "The Bar believes (merit selection) is the best system to ensure judges are not subject-ed to political pressures.”
ShowMe Better Courts Executive Director James Harris said after submitting the petition that judges should not be any different from many other public officials.
“We elect our school dis-trict members, our fire district members,” he told Missouri.net. “Judges are no different from anyone else who’s in a position of trust.”
Harris said his group has submitted a quarter-million signatures, about 100,000 more than necessary.
Matt Blunt was critical of the merit selection sys-tem when he was governor and Harris was an aide. Rob Monsees, a Chamber commit-tee member and director of the NanoTechnology Enterprise Consortium in Columbia, was Blunt's deputy chief of staff for policy. Monsees said during the Chamber committee meet-ing that Blunt believed that
the judicial selection commission wasn't doing its job properly and failed to nominate the most highly qualified candidates.
Harris said one of the ShowMe Better Courts petition signers is Boone County’s congressman, U.S. Rep. Blaine Luetkemeyer, R-St. Elizabeth, according to a report in the St. Louis Beacon.
Luetkemeyer called charges from some attor-neys and judges that his group is trying to buy the state judiciary system “ludicrous,” according to a report from the Kansas City Star.
“I think it’s ludicrous, or hilarious, (that) a bunch of robber barons, people who make tens of millions of dollars, some of these folks, to sit there and say some small-business people, farm-ers, doctors, business people want to manipulate whatever,” he told the Star. v
ShowMe Better
Courts, the nonprofit
organization
pushing the change,
submitted thousands
of signatures from
its initiative petition
to the secretary of
state’s office last
week. If enough
signatures are
verified, the petition
would place a
ballot proposal
before voters this
November to have
all Missouri judges
run for election and
reduce their terms to
eight years from the
current 12.
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SPECIAL SECTION | law
Dean defends MU law school’s reputation, affordabilityByPaul Weber
The MU School of Law was hit by a double dose of bad publicity this spring when its na-tional ranking plummeted and tuition increased. However, Dean R. Lawrence Dessem said the law school’s reputation and recruitment abilities remain solid.
U.S. News and World Report dropped MU’s law school from 65th in the nation to the 93rd spot in the magazine’s 2011 rankings. The news came
days before the University of Missouri System raised tuition for law students by 5 percent and for masters of law students by 19 percent.
In an interview with the Columbia Business Times, Dessem addressed the rankings drop and emphasized the school’s strengths and overall af-fordability as well as the challenges facing recent graduates.
Dessem said that because of the recession, “students and law schools need to be more creative and more aggressive” to ensure that graduates find jobs.
To help MU law students find work after graduation, the School of Law will add a career service profession-al. The full-time position, which Dessem plans to fill this summer, will work with students to prepare resumes and build interview skills while trying to open doors for graduates by building relationships with potential employers statewide.
National rankings have gained importance because of their significance to college graduates seeking a reputable school. The lists are easy to access and understand, but Dessem down-played the usefulness of the data.
“I just don’t think you can make those sig-nificant choices based on a computer model or a ranking sheet,” Dessem said.
U.S. News and World Report’s Best Grad School rankings survey more than 1,200 programs and consult more than 12,000 experts to compile the annual list.
Although its ranking has fallen this year, Dessem said affordability is one of MU’s strong suits. The MU law school costs an in-state stu-dent about $16,000 each semester. The University
of Illinois law school, on the other hand, costs about $36,000.
“We couldn’t charge that much while still fulfilling our mission in this state,” Dessem said.
Dessem doesn’t see the rankings drop or tuition hikes as a serious problem for recruiting stu-dents, and he pointed out that more than 1,000 people applied for the law school’s 150 available spots in the fall of 2009, the most since 2004. He thinks that, in part, the school’s reputation for pro-ducing successful graduates will carry it through tough times.
If students can’t or de-sire not to find work in law, which Dessem admitted is a tough national market, their degree is also useful else-where in the professional world.
“The wonderful thing about a law degree is that people can use it in the busi-ness, political and nonprofit arenas,” Dessem said.
He listed Gov. Jay Nixon, Sen. Claire McCaskill and Oregon Gov. Ted Kulongowski as examples of law school graduates becoming political leaders. v
National rankings have gained importance because of their significance
to college graduates seeking a reputable school.
Dessem
Locals on law school award listSkip Walther is one of many lawyers from the Columbia area who have won the MU School of
Law’s distinguished alumni award, the Citation of Merit, which has been given to one or two alumni every year since 1953.
Among the others recipients in recent years:Ellen Roper, retired judge, 2007Michael Middleton, deputy chancellor MU law school, 2004Randa Rawlins, general counsel for Shelter Insurance, 2003Ken Dean, MU deputy provost, 2002Claire McCaskill, U.S. senator, 2000
George Ashley, business executive, 2000Robert C. Smith, former state senator, 1990Nanette Laughrey, federal judge, 1999Ann Covington, former Missouri Supreme Court justice, 1993Keith Birkes, Missouri Bar director, 1995Warren Welliver, former Missouri Supreme Court justice, 1980
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SPECIAL SECTION | law
Skip Walther’s Big Year: Bar president, tennis Hall of FameBySean Spence
Entering his fifth decade of practicing law and playing tennis, Skip Walther has reached the pinnacle of both his passions.
Walther, who was admitted to the Missouri Bar in 1979 and opened a law practice three years later, is well known in Columbia for a range of community involve-ment and his radio commen-tary on the Columbia Business Times' Sunday Morning Roundtable on KFRU.
Over the past eight months, Walther seems to have taken the term high profile to a new level.
Walther ascended to the presidency of the Missouri Bar Association, assumed an increasingly visible role in the campaign to preserve Missouri’s system for choos-ing judges, received the MU law school’s highest honor for a graduate and was inducted into the U.S. Tennis Association Missouri Valley Hall of Fame.
“It’s been a good year,” Walther said.The USTA is the nation’s primary promotional
body for competitive tennis and runs events such as the U.S. Open. The Missouri Valley section covers
Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, Oklahoma and parts of Illinois. The Hall of Fame was created in 1986.
Walther’s experience with tennis began as a high-school student in Kirksville, where he was ranked No. 1 on the varsity team during his senior year. That led to playing tennis for MU, where he lettered in each of his four undergraduate years.
“I stopped playing after college and got back into it around 34 or 35,” Walther said. “I wanted to get back into shape.”
Until just a few years ago — when he had to cut back to tend to his growing leadership duties with the Missouri Bar Association — Walther played frequently at the local, regional and national levels.
Leading up to his December induction into the Hall of Fame, Walther received a wide range of awards and recognitions from the local to national levels. Once he has finished his leadership commitment to the Missouri Bar Association at the end of 2011, Walther said he hopes to re-engage as a tennis player on the national level “… if my body will hold up.”
For now, much of Walther’s focus is on the Missouri Bar Association. He was elected in 2007 to serve as vice president, which put him on the presidential track, a role he assumed in September of last year. Following his one-year term, Walther will serve one year as past president.
“It’s fun to be a part of an effort to administer jus-tice in Missouri,” he said.
Part of Walther’s agenda is to focus on the percep-tion of the professionalism of the practice of law.
“There is a perception that there is a decreas-ing amount of professionalism among attorneys,” Walther said. “Addressing that is a focus of my time as president.”
He also has a particular interest in addressing the need for adequate funding of legal services, the public defender system and the prosecutor system. (Walther was an assistant prosecutor in Boone County for three years and now is a partner in the Walther, Antel, Stamper & Fischer law firm.)
Another issue that will likely continue to absorb a great deal of Walther’s time is combating the effort to change Missouri’s system for choosing most of its judges. The Bar opposes changing the merit-based system, commonly referred to as Missouri’s nonpar-tisan court plan, which is used to seat all appellate judges and about half of the trial judges. If a petition is validated, Missouri voters will decide in November whether to discard the current system and require all judges to be elected.
“As the primary spokesman for the Bar, a big part of my job is representing us in that debate,” Walther said.
Just weeks after becoming the Missouri Bar presi-dent, Walther was awarded the highest honor given by the MU School of Law to a graduate, the Citation of Merit. He was one of two recipients for 2009, along with an attorney from Kansas City. v
Walther
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PUBlIC RECORDDeeds of trust greater than $200,000 issued April 20 through May 3.
$4,175,055TIGER HOSPITALITY SERVICES INCCITY BANK TEXASLT 1 A PATE SUB REPLAT PT LOT 1
$2,200,000GLENNON PROPERTIES LLCLANDMARK BANKLT 101 SOUTHFIELD PLAT 2
$2,000,000STRICKER, WILLIAM E & PAMELA HFIRST STATE COMMUNITY BANKLT 601 BLUFF CREEK OFFICE PARK PLAT 6 FF ALSO CALL
$1,144,661PHOENIX PROPERTY DEVELOPMENT LLCREGIONS BANKLT 1A SLUMBERLAND FURNITURE STORE 2
$1,000,000SPROUSE DIVERSIFIED INVESTMENTS INCCOMMERCE BANKSTR 2-47-12 //SE FF W/EXCEPTIONS
$750,000.00 EAGLE PLAZA LLCHAWTHORN BANKLT 325 COLUMBIA LT322-327&376-381
$571,580THOME, JAMES J JR & RITA CUSAA FEDERAL SAVINGS BANKLT 60 COUNTRY WOODS SUB PLAT 2
$542,228WILSON, MICHAEL F & KATHERINE ASCOTT, CARLOS E & MARY ALT 1 RANGE SUB PLAT 2
$465,000HAMMOUD, GHASSAN & GLORIAREGIONS BANKLT 23 BRISTOL LAKE PLAT 1
$430,761WHEELER, PATRICK R & PATRICIA KFLAT BRANCH MORTGAGE INCLT 26 THORNBROOK PLAT NO 1
$417,000HENDRIX, PHILLIP K & JULIE LFLAGSTAR BANKLT 137 SPRING CREEK PLAT 1
$417,000MOLLMAN, DENNIS & SHARONU S BANKLT 1 WESTWOOD PLAT 2
$415,000VW OF BOONE COUNTY LLCCENTRAL BANK OF MISSOURI- COLUMBIALT 606 MOONGATE SUB PLAT 2 REPLAT OF LOT 6
$400,000MEYER, CHRISTINE ANN & STEVEN CRAIGLANDMARK BANKLT 1404 HIGHLANDS PLAT 14-B THE
$384,750WISDOM-BEHOUNEK, JENNIFER R & BEHOUNEK, JOSHUA JPREMIER BANKLT 110 LAKE WOODRAIL SUB PLAT 10
$376,391JONES, KAROL TRUSTBOONE COUNTY NATIONAL BANKLT 44A COUNTRY CLUB VILLAS LT44
$350,000WORTHLEY, RONALD G & PENNY LCOMMUNITY STATE BANK OF
MISSOURISTR 31-50-11 /SW/NW FF W/EXCEPTIONS
$350,000HILLCREST RESIDENTIAL CARE INCCOMMUNITY STATE BANK OF MISSOURISTR 3-49-12 /SW/NW SUR BK/PG: 360/378
$346,428JOHNSON, QUINN & TABITHABANK OF MISSOURI THELT 151 HERITAGE ESTATES PLAT NO 1
$343,000BROWNING, MICHAEL & STACYMISSOURI CREDIT UNIONLT 308 CASCADES PLAT NO 3 THE
$337,250BROUGHTON, SCOTT & TALITHALANDMARK BANKLT 1051 HIGHLANDS PLAT 10A
$330,000JARRETT, BROOKS T & JEANNE ASIRVA MORTGAGE INCSTR 17-50-11 /E/NW SUR BK/PG: 3447/44 AC 20.000
$325,000NAZERI, MEHDIMISSOURI CREDIT UNIONLT 23 ARROWHEAD LAKE ESTATES
$313,400GUARIGLIA, WAYNE & DONNA TRUST THEDAS ACQUISITION COMPANY LLCLT 17 BRISTOL LAKE PLAT 1
$310,000PATE-JONES CONSTRUCTION INCHAWTHORN BANKLT 107 A MADISON PARK PLAT 5
$306,000BURGER, ROBERT C & PAULA ADAS ACQUISITION COMPANY LLCLT 1053 PT HIGHLANDS PLAT 10A
$300,000SOUTHPARK LIVING LLCPREMIER BANKLT 9 WOODSIDE SUB
$295,000SIMON, KERI & DOUGCOMMERCE BANKLT 145 WOODLANDS THE PLAT 5A
$292,530MRUZIK, JOHN C & NANCY JCENTRAL TRUST BANKSTR 14-48-12 //SE
$283,000LEFEVRE, MICHAEL L & JUDITH LBOONE COUNTY NATIONAL BANKLT 50 COUNTRY CLUB FAIRWAYS PLAT 2
$272,000REDLINGER, ANTHONY W & LARA JWELLS FARGO BANKLT 147 THORNBROOK PLAT #5
$270,542BELL, SCOTT R & KARIN ABANK OF MISSOURI THELT 487 THORNBROOK PLAT NO 13
$268,000WHITE, EDWARD & FLORENCEBOONE COUNTY NATIONAL BANKLT 17 BRADBURY ESTATES
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Miss Lou’s CateringWillie Smith, owner of Magic Services cleaning
company, started a catering company with a cousin who’s been a chef for nine years.
Smith, a former MU basketball star, is handling the sales, and Walter Miller is doing the cooking. Miller’s experience includes work as the banquet chef at Boone Tavern restaurant and the sous chef and buffet chef for three casinos in Las Vegas, where Smith lived before coming to MU. Margaret Hickem, who ran Mama Bessie’s Cleaners, will coordinate the company’s activities.
Hickem and Miller provided the food for the community dinner at the Knights of Columbus that honored Darwin Hindman at the end of March; more than 500 people attended.
They specialize in Cajun cooking, with dishes in-cluding gumbo and jambalaya. “We want to bring a taste of New Orleans to Columbia,” Miller said. They’re renting a kitchen and looking for a space to locate the business. For more information, contact Smith at 573-673-1637.
Frank Fletcher Honda1717 N. Providence RoadArkansas-based Fletcher Auto Group bought Albert Honda in April and plans to move from the
current location at 1717 N. Providence Road to a larger site in the near future. Mike Hodges, the gen-eral manager at a Fletcher Honda dealership in Bentonville, Ark., was hired at the GM, and Albert’s GM, Kevin Towns, is the general sales manager. Don Albert previously transferred the Buick and GMC franchises to Bob McCosh Chevrolet.
Datamax2511 Broadway Bluffs Drive 442-9020Branch Sales Manager Nancy McGee moved from a St. Louis branch of Datamax to open the
Columbia office.
Columbia Surgical Associates 3220 Bluff Creek Drive 443-8773The medical company, founded in Columbia in 1962, moved from East Broadway across from
Boone Hospital Center to the location off Grindstone Parkway in January. v
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Eagle Stop Gas StationWhat: Gier Oil is building a 4,000-square-foot Phillips 66 gas station and car wash on the site of the former BP gas station owned by Gier, a company based in Eldon that operates 10 gas stations in mid-Missouri. Where: 1704 N. Providence between Country Kitchen and MG Auto SalesContractor: Tom Darrough Construction LLCLender: Jefferson BankEstimated completion: Mid-June. Work began early this year.Why: Darrough says BP is pulling out of the mid-Missouri market, so Gier decided to switch to the Phillips 66 franchise. The new station is larger with 12 fueling stations, four more than the BP sta-tion, and has an adjacent car wash. The BP station had 200 square feet of floor space, and the Phillips 66 station will be a true convenience store with 1,600 square feet of space for goods and merchandise and a license to sell beer, wine and alcohol, Darrough said. “It’s a great location for a gas station, and the owners felt it was time to upgrade to a more current model.” v
River City awarded for hospital project
River City Construction won a Project of the Year by a General Contractor award from the Kansas City chapter of the Associated General Contractors of America for the Clinical Support and Education Building at the University of Missouri.
River City, which has its regional offic-es in Ashland, won in the $10 million to $25 million project cate-gory and was one of nine winners hon-ored at a ban-quet May 6.
The seven-story, 102,000-square-foot Clinical Support and Education Building opened in May 2008 to provide additional space for their University Hospital and School of Medicine.
The association of contractors said River City’s partnership with MU “was especially important in light of the fact that the university had not previously used the design/build process for building construction on campus and that the new building was sited in a tight courtyard between existing multi-story and fully occupied buildings.”
Because the new building had a full basement and a con-nector tunnel to University Hospital, an elaborate soil retention system was developed to support the adjacent structures and keep the hospital’s main loading dock and drive open. v
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Construction permits: Issuedbythecity,valuedatmorethan$100,000
City of Columbia1401E.Gans$3,300,000Newpublicworks
Troy and Shirley Miller13Kipling$800,000Newmulti-family,fiveormoreunits
The Kroenke Group505E.Nifong$500,000Commercialalteration
The Kroenke Group505E.Nifong$475,000Commercialalteration
Tompkins Home6205UpperBridleBend$434,288Newsingle-familydetached
C&C Construction1606BrookfieldManor$375,000Newsingle-familydetached
Pate-Jones Construction Inc.1810MadisonPark$375,000Newsingle-familydetached
Muzzy Builders Inc.5307Tiptree$310,000Newsingle-familydetached
Pate-Jones Construction Inc.1807MadisonPark$295,000Newsingle-familydetached
Shinder Homes2205PortTownsend$262,000Newsingle-familydetached
Andy and Wendy Lister1906Princeton$250,000Newsingle-familydetached
John Hansman Construction2614Belfair
$250,000Newsingle-familydetached
Vantage Custom Homes LLC3208GraniteCreek$240,000Newsingle-familydetached
Lewis Construction & Properties LLC5607Astoria$200,000Newsingle-familydetached
Robert Akin Construction & Design LLC3206BallardMill$189,000Newsingle-familydetached
Smith Building Company3211BallardMill$180,000Newsingle-familydetached
McAfee Construction Inc901Richmond$180,000Commercialalteration
Smith Building Company3311Crabapple$180,000Newsingle-familydetached
RKI Custom Homes5001Laredo$175,000Newsingle-familydetached
Smith Building Company3110FunderburgMill$170,000Newsingle-familydetached
Smith Building Company3204BallardMill$170,000Newsingle-familydetached
Westenhaver Construction500Westwood$160,000Residentialaddition
RKI Custom Homes3201BallardMill$160,000Newsingle-familydetached
Pate-Jones Construction Inc.5103Grayling
$159,000Newsingle-familydetached
GLC Construction2608IronGate$155,000Newsingle-familydetached
Horizon Builders Inc.2708Rutherford$152,000Newsingle-familydetached
Nora Stewart Daveare505E.Ash$150,000Commercialalteration
John Hansman Construction2305Redmond$150,000Newsingle-familydetached
Dudley Roth609N.Garth$150,000Commercialalteration
Millbrooke Enterprises Inc.3713Chestnut$146,000Newsingle-familydetached
RKI Custom Homes3501Crabapple$145,000Newsingle-familydetached
Wilcoxson Custom Homes LLC3309SnowLeopard$145,000Newsingle-familydetached
Wilcoxson Custom Homes LLC2605SpanishBay$145,000Newsingle-familydetached
BCI LLC3107CarmelloRock$135,000Newsingle-familydetached
Millbrooke Enterprises Inc.3701Flatwater$120,000Newsingle-familydetached
JQB Construction302Ryefield$120,000Newsingle-familydetached
ConstrUCtIon PERMITS
“Payday loans are nothing but a tax on the poor,” said Shannon Wetzel, resident coordi-nator for the Department of Pathology and Anatomical Sciences at MU and a rare payday loan customer who would speak openly about her experiences taking them out.
“They do not help people at all but instead put them in worse situations than they were to begin with,” she said “These types of loans are addict-ing, and people end up taking them merely for convenience. I would never recommend them to anyone, unless someone didn't have money to put food on the table, their utilities were going to be shut off, something extreme like that.”
Last August, the conservative-leaning Better Business Bureau released a study condemn-ing the allowance of payday lending in nurs-
ing homes statewide (Missouri is the only state in the nation to permit such practices). Former Missouri Republican Sen. Jim Talent helped cap the APR for payday loans to military personnel from nearly 400 percent to 36 percent, a model which Still attempted to replicate with her pro-posed legislation.
Still’s bill was co-signed by 70 lawmak-ers and had the support of the AARP, Habitat for Humanity, BBB and the Silver Haired Legislature.
But in the end, it came down to money, which the legislators, like the payday borrowers, seem to be desperate for.
“Legislators tend to side with industry,” Still said. “Plus the industry is passing out a lot of money to legislators.” v
Voices, Carlson... continuedfromPage9
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Downtown yogurt shop lets customers customize dessertsBySean Spence
After growing up in Columbia, Kerry Chao ventured to Taiwan and Washington, experimented with several occupations and entrepreneurial endeavors and brought home a sweet idea for a business.
Yogoluv, tucked beside the Missouri Theatre building downtown, is a new frozen yogurt shop with a twist as individualistic as Chao’s travels.
“Basically, it’s do-it-yourself frozen yogurt,” Chao said.Yogoluv provides more than 10 flavors of yogurt and more than 30 toppings, which change
slightly from time to time. Customers serve themselves, get their container weighed at the cash register and pay 30-cents per ounce, regardless of which flavors or toppings they choose.
“People ask me all the time if I created the concept, but I want people to know that it’s not something I came up with,” Chao said. “They have these on the coasts, in the larger cities. I just saw what I thought was an opportunity and a niche that could be filled.”
Chao said that letting customers make their own desserts is a competitive advantage because they know they will get exactly what they want.
Yogoluv patron Michelle Crews Spry agreed. “"I love Yogoluv,” she said. “Best invention ever. You get as much or little as you like and fix it the way you like it."
However, patron Jeneva Powell said she’s not a fan of the distinctive yogurt taste. “It all tastes sour,” she said.
Comments from customers more often echoed the sentiments expressed by Scott Wilson: “Love me some Yogoluv. No fat, great flavors and toppings."
Yogoluv opened less than six months ago on Nov. 28. Chao is the majority owner. He was born and raised in Columbia but left after graduating from
MU in 1995. First he went to Taiwan, where he started as an English teacher and found himself working in international marketing for the software company Ulead.
He returned to Columbia and started the Chinese restaurant Okii Mama with his mother, Wan-Tshih H. Chao.
Next, Kerry Chao left Columbia again to help start a nightclub in Washington D.C. In August of 2005, Chao launched the K Street Lounge, named for the street on which it is still located, known for the lobbying firms that populate it.
“I did that for about a year and a half, and it was wildly successful,” Chao said. “We were the first club in the K Street Corridor, and now everyone wants to be there.”
Chao said he left to pursue a career in commercial real estate because he believed it offered greater, more stable opportunities.
“Then the real estate bubble burst,” he said. So he headed back home to Columbia.“I had originally looked at doing a yogurt place back in 2005,” he said. “It’s been something I’ve
thought about for a long time.”Yogoluv is located in a tiny space, just 680 square feet, off to the side of the Missouri Theatre on
the corner of Ninth and Locust streets.“We originally looked at a location further down Ninth Street,” Chao said. “We looked at this
place and thought it was way too small. But it was such a good location that we decided to see if we could make it work.”
Chao said business has been good so far and that very little formal effort has been put into marketing.
“When we first started, I just did flyers here in the store encouraging people to come back and bring their friends,” he said. “We really wanted people to come here through word of mouth, and it seems to be working.”
Columbia residents and students enjoy Yogoluv frozen yogurt on a hot spring day.
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“Later I was approached by College Coupons, and we started advertising with them,” he said. College Coupons is an online service that provides coupons that can be printed from a personal computer. “The last I heard, we came in No. 1. We’re the most downloaded and printed coupon on the site [in Columbia].”
Chao said he finds himself wondering how business will be in the coming months.
“Summer’s great because it’s hot, and everyone wants to get a frozen treat, so we’ve got that going for us,” he said. “But I’m kind of waiting to see what happens without the students. When we opened, it was the dead of winter, and we did pretty well without the customer base that we have now.”
Today, Yogoluv employs eight to 10 employees, all of whom are part time except for the manager, Ben Huang, who is a part owner and Chao’s cousin. Chao said he thinks about expanding to other locations but is not making any definite plans.
He said he’s staying focused and wants to be realistic about his potential for growth. “I don’t kid myself with delusions of grandeur.” v
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toP: A Yogoluv customer fills his cup with raspberry yogurt at the frozen yogurt shop on Ninth Street. Patrons enjoy more than 10 rotating yogurt flavors and 30 toppings to create their unique treats.
Yogoluv owner Kerry Chao
Yogoluv patrons customize their treats with the more than 30 toppings.
