Columbia Police Department will be hosting a town hall style forum on the growing drug trafficking and addiction problems facing our community .
The department has been in talks of holding these events for several months. We have had several requests from citizens of the City of Columbia as well as requests from many communities out in the county to initiate these meetings in a hope to form a more unified front to meet this challenge. As recently as last week we heard a request for a forum from our local economic development board . The board indicated that this is, or could become, an issue in industry recruitment which is vital to our area as we strive to make positive progress in growth.
With these requests in mind CPD Chief Cross would like to announce that we will be hosting our first meeting on Tuesday March 7, 2017 at City Hall located at 116 Campbellsville street . The time will be 6pm cst.
The purpose of this forum will be to discuss the issues the Law Enforcement community faces, economic impact , health impact, safety issues , rise in secondary crime resulting from drug use such as theft, and problems we may expect to face in the future . Most of all, we want to hear from you . What are you seeing in your communities? What ideals you may have. How you can help? Or maybe you just have some questions that we may be able to help clear up .
This forum will be the first of several . We have plans to conduct additional meetings out in our communities at a later date. For now we are going to start with these organizations and churches who have graciously pledged their facilities for these meetings in their communities including :
Breeding Fire Department (Chief Terry Harvey)
Knifley Fire Department. (Chief C. R. Drake)
Living by Faith Church (Pastor Bobby Withers )
Bethany Baptist Church (Pastor Jimmy Dale Cox )
We hope these meetings will be successful and we will add additional locations and dates at a later date . Please come out and join us Tuesday March 7, 2017 at 6pm .
By, Ofc. Josh Brockman PIO
Columbia Police Department
Chief, Jason Cross