The City Council of Columbia met on February 4, 2026, to discuss, amend, and vote on pedestrian safety legislation and receive reports on homelessness, police reviews, and historic preservation. The meeting featured extensive amendments to Bill 26525, aimed at restricting standing on medians, following a contentious public comment period where positions ranged from strong support for safety to concerns over impacts on homelessness, disability rights, and free speech. The council also voted to authorize a new strategic planning process for homelessness services.
Position: Full Support for Ordinance
Position: Opposition to Ordinance
Position: Mixed/Contextual
I'm just giving everybody a note that the live stream appears to not be working. We are broadcasting, but the live stream, so in case any of your friends at home are texting you, they're trying to get it fixed, and we will put up the full video afterwards. So with that. Might take a couple days, but it'll get there. Yes. All right. Well, I'm gonna go ahead and call the Monday, February 2nd, 2026, uh regular city council meeting to order. And by all those who are able to please rise and join me in the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the fly. One issue under God with liberty regime justice for all. I finally stopped. All right, Sheila, will you please call roll? Miss Carroll. Here. Miss Elwood. Here, Miss Sample. Here. Mr. Foster. Mr. Waterman. Here. Miss Peters. Here. Miss Buffalo. Here. All right. Well, good evening. Um, so I I like to I've started doing a little overview of our agenda just to explain for if this is your first meeting, as well as talking about opportunities for public comment at city council meetings. So up first, if you're looking at the agenda in front of you, items listed under the consent agenda do not normally have a staff presentation on them, and we don't normally have public comment on it. Um then for items listed under introduction and first reading, if they have an asterisk, that means they would go on the consent agenda at the next meeting. Um items under intro that do not have an asterisk would be on old business at our next council meeting, and they would have the opportunity for public comment. I say that to also say anyone can request something to come off of the consent agenda and put it on to the old or new business. Um then you would have public comment. Uh and then the public have multiple opportunities uh to speak at our council meetings under public hearing, old business and new business portions of the agenda. I do remind people to give keep their remarks to the legislation that we are discussing. At the end of the meeting, you can talk about whatever you want to talk about for three minutes, but usually when we're talking about legislation, please keep the comments to the legislation we're discussing. Uh individuals are allotted three minutes. Representatives of organizations that are affected by the legislation being discussed may request an additional two minutes. I ask that you let me acknowledge that so that our timekeepers can also do that for us as well. I also be mindful over things that have a lot of public comment to be mindful. You don't have to take your full three minutes if you don't want to, or your full five if you don't want to as well. But I do ask people that they respect the time limits so that it's fair and everyone has an opportunity to speak. We want to give every single person who wants to talk at our Columbia Council meeting an opportunity to speak. Um I do ask that we not try to be here until Tuesday, but if you want to keep your comments from I appreciate that. I also ask that we don't do any sort of demonstrations that intimidate a neighbor from speaking. We want to hear from every voice. We also want to make sure that we are addressing issues, not individuals, and please refrain from personal attacks on one another, and that includes city staff. So disruptions would be addressed with a warning and if necessary removal and recess, which we have not had to do yet, so thank you. All right, moving on to the regular part of our agenda.