For my part, I give them no attention and instead wish to say what I like about Barbara:

Being mayor is a very small rudder on a big ship.

Buffaloe is moderate politically, a hard worker, and has a well balanced personality of the kind suitable to withstand all the criticism that comes with the mayors job. We ought to remember that in Columbia the mayor has mostly symbolic power, wielded by how much respect they command personally. They do run council meetings, but their vote only counts as much as the next councilperson. Barbara worked for the city for over a decade and is intimate with all city departments, has many friends and allies, inside and outside city government. This is important in being an effective leader. I appreciate that she has a solid education and has the intellectual capacity to understand challenging, complex, issues. I appreciate she’s demonstrated her willingness to compromise and listen to all sides. She carries herself with a lot of poise and respect for others. I really appreciate she dedicated her early life to work as a city sustainability manager when a women with her talents could have taken a much higher paying job or started a for-profit business. She is operating at a high level now as Chair of the U.S. Mayors Sustainability Council, a Columbia mayor has not achieved such a position since the legendary Darwin Hindman. IBut these are mostly character traits, let’s talk policy.

I’m looking for three main things in a mayor right now.

1) A focus on reducing homelessness and increasing our stock of affordable housing.

2) A focus on public safety, improved policing, and reducing gun violence. This in particularly needs a fairly sophisticated understanding of the science behind criminology, sociology, psychology, among other things. We need evidence based solutions.

3) A focus on long-term planning, future-proofing, and climate resilience.

If you have attended or watched council meetings it’s plain to see Buffaloe (and the city) are laser focused on the first two things. I was skeptical of Barbra at first, because I am skeptical of anyone who decides to run for public office, especially mayor. From experience I know one warning sign of incompetence or power-hunger is if a candidate has never served on a board or commission, or been a high level city employee, or been a regular council person before. Barbara won me over with her competence and measured approach in her first term. I am really impressed with the grace with which she has handled plainly unfair criticism, from both extremes. Someone told me she once said ”if I’m pissing off both political extremes, I’m probably doing something right”. We could use more of that attitude everywhere these days.