BHC trustee enters race for mayor
McDavid, 62, grew up in De Soto, Mo., about 65 miles southwest of St. Louis.
“My dad worked in a freight car factory, Missouri-Pacific, and my mother worked in a grocery store,” McDavid said. “And I grew up bagging groceries in a little family-owned grocery store called Dall’s. The De Soto Public Library’s in that now, so it’s kind of fun to go back.”
Gov. Jay Nixon attended the same high school in De Soto, but McDavid didn’t know him because he is seven years older than the governor. “Now, he did play basketball, as I did,” McDavid said, adding with a smile: “I’m confident my basketball team would have beaten his basketball team.”
The University of Missouri drew him to Columbia. He arrived in 1966, graduated from the MU School of Medicine and opened his practice affiliated with Boone Hospital Center in 1976. McDavid has been married for nearly 40 years to Suzanne, a school nurse, and they have two grown children. He retired in 2003, largely because of the rising cost of malpractice insurance.
McDavid, now chairman of the Boone Hospital Board of Trustees, is best known in the community for leading the effort to improve the terms of the hospital’s lease with BJC Health Care.
McDavid told the CBT in 2006 during the tense negotiations with BJC that he was somewhat uncomfortable being at the forefront of an issue with such high stakes.
“I don’t consider myself a politician,” McDavid said back then. “This has a lot of political overtones, which I am not accustomed to.”
During an interview with CBT a few days after his announcement, McDavid said the toughest part of his decision to run for mayor was knowing that a victory will cost him his seat on the hospital board. It’s a critical period for the health care industry, when hospitals, health care providers and insurance companies are facing an overhaul of the system, and BHC is undergoing a huge expansion. But McDavid said he would be leaving the hospital in good hands and good shape.
“It’s interesting to me the enthusiasm I’ve been getting from the people I know at Boone Hospital, which means to me they either want me to be mayor or they want me away from them,” he said with a wry smile.
Why is being mayor more important to you than being head of the hospital?
“Being mayor takes you to a broader area of interest and engagement. You know, I love this town because I’ve been here ever since I went to college. It offers so much to its citizens, and this is an opportunity for me to contribute to that.”
What issues do you want to raise during the campaign?
“No. 1 is public safety. No. 2 is preserving the character and identity of Columbia. People love that people don’t want that to change. And in my opinion, the Imagine Columbia’s Future statement is the handbook for Columbia leaders, put together by a lot of people who care about Columbia. And I think we need to follow that. Third, it’s about the economic challenges. Revenues are declining. If we’re not smart about this, it will lead to decreased services. But I’m optimistic this town’s going to get over that.”
There’s a perception among some business leaders that the City Council has gotten too progressive and too tied into Smart Growth Coalition principles. Do you think the Council in the past year or so has reflected the mood of the public in terms of what development it allows?
“The mayor sets the tone for the Council. The mayor must be a good listener. The mayor must be engaged in the community. And the interests that are pro-business need to believe they have someone who is engaged and is listening to them. The Smart Growth people who would prefer less development need to similarly feel that someone is engaged listening to them. That’s going to be the theme of what I do as mayor. … Columbia looks different from when I came here in 1966. Columbia’s going to look different 30 years from now. I respect what it felt like in the 1980s to go down to the City Council to argue against zoning changes in my neighborhood. I’m a homeowner (in Woodridge) and was concerned about the integrity, identity and character of my neighborhood. As it so happens, on both of the occasions my position was not held up, but the city government has made wise decisions along those lines, and the development in that area, particularly the medical development, has stood through it well. We’ve got to maintain the character of Columbia; we’ve got to maintain the identity of neighborhoods, but there will be development. This can’t be a no-development community.”
Fourth Ward Councilman Jerry Wade is the only one of your opponents in the mayoral race with a voting record, and he’s come out against the city spending thousands of dollars installing surveillance cameras downtown and says the opportunity cost of the expenditure deserves more study. Put in the context of the city’s crime-fighting efforts, I understand you disagree with Jerry on this issue. Why?
“I think people are concerned about the crime, and when people see random crime, that comes close because it could happen to us. … When you look at surveillance cameras, I appreciate the right-to-privacy argument, and I respect people who make that argument. But when I look at surveillance cameras, I look at the new elementary school, Alpha Hart Lewis. My wife’s a nurse there. She’s got two security cameras within 15 feet of the school nurse’s office. There are surveillance cameras on Columbia Public School buses. There are surveillance cameras that are very obvious on the roofline of the Columbia Daily Tribune, which were not there when Kent Heitholt was brutally murdered nine years ago. There are security cameras on the new city-county office building, and in my opinion, the (City Council’s) vote against security cameras downtown is a disconnect with what the people of Columbia want.
“At some level, we all want downtown Columbia to be safe. We want vital restaurants, entertainment, shopping. Do some people feel safer when there are security cameras around? I am told that some people do. The debate about where crimes occur and proof about whether surveillance cameras deter crime is a very interesting debate, but it’s very difficult to prove a negative.”
At least one member of the city’s energy task force believes Columbia can generate the majority of its electricity through renewable sources after two coal-fired turbines are retired in a few years and the city must increase supply sources. The city manager and others disagree. Do you think the city should strive to surpass the renewable energy requirement approved by voters?
“The city is having difficulty meeting its benchmarks because the energy environment has changed. Unfortunately wind energy has proven to be still too expensive. … I applaud the city for its renewable energy efforts. I applaud the city for its interest in reducing carbon fuel.
“There is a practicality here that must be appreciated. I want to look at energy through the eyes of a low-income Columbian. We increased utility bills $8 a month this year in a deflationary environment, and as we look to the energy challenges that we have ahead of us, I’m going to look at how this impacts the Columbian living at the 50-percentile income level and the Columbian living at the 10-percentile income level. They’re going to guide me in how I view the direction to go with energy.
“As of right now, the renewable energy program the voters voted for is the template to follow, and we’ll have to look at the realities of energy costs in the future to see if we can meet that mandate or if in fact we need to change it.”
Do you think that the mayor and Council members should get at least a stipend?
“We need to listen to what people want, and if they’re not getting the quality of applicant that they feel like they deserve, then the citizens are going to vote to add pay to get that level of competence.
“As we study it, it gets down to the issue of ‘Does the lack of pay exclude highly competent, engaged people who would make Columbia a better place?’ I’m not in a position to make that judgment. If the answer is yes, then I’m sure the city in the future will decide to pay Council members. Right now, there are some highly engaged, highly qualified people on the City Council.”