KFRU Business Spotlight 0 July 11th and 12th, 2026. This week we talk about the Columbia Chamber of Commerce with VP of External Affairs, Lily Boyd White. Lily bring sus up to date on the new President/CEO of the Chamber Abdul-Kaba Abdullah. The new leader is in a transition period finishing up his work in the St. Louis area to working in Columbia to get set to go. His official first day will be August 3rd. Lily also helped us look back at the Chamber activities through the end of the fiscal year on June 3oth. We also hear this week from Eric Kopinsky, who is the Director of the I-70 Improvement Program for MODOT. Eric brought us up to date on many parts of the massive project, telling us some segment s that are completed, while other parts are getting underway, quickly moving the project forward.

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KFRU Business Spotlight -- June 27th & 28th, 2026. Columbia Police Chief Jill Schlude and Columbia Fire Chief Brain Schaffer join me this week to discuss the upcoming vote on a 1 cent sales tax increase for citizens of Columbia, that will appear on the August 4th ballot. The approximately 38 million dollars that would be collected each year would be put into a special separate fund to be used only for additional personnel, equipment and infrastructure for these to public safety entities, allowing them to reach specific standards of service not met because of underfunding for a number of years. Both Chiefs have been presenting educational presentations to many local groups over th past few weeks.

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KFRU Business Spotlight -- June 13th & 14th, 2026. Mayor Barbara Buffaloe joins us to talk about the Public Safety One Cent tax that will be on the ballot for the August Election. We go back to the beginnings of the conversations about the need for additional funds to support both the Columbia Fire Department and the Columbia Police Department that started unofficially nearly 10 years ago. The specific official conversations and the vote by the city council to place it on the August ballot came in the last year of so. The council voted to put the question on the August ballot in May. We talk about the needs of both the fire and police departments. We also talked about push back from some groups in Columbia that seem to have made the tax vote a referendum on the abilities and shortcomings of the Mayor, City Council and City Manager, instead of a solution to a problem identified by community conversations recently.

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