Community:

Enhanced Enterprise Zone Board clarifies proposals

Published: Friday, March 9th 2012 in the The Columbia Missourian

...Ensuring impoverished neighborhoods benefit

Per state regulation, a baseline of 50 percent of local tax abatement must be offered to qualifying entities in an enhanced enterprise zone.

But additional abatement can be offered to businesses in order to "incentivize other standards," said Columbia Public Schools representative Jonathan Sessions.

Among the standards discussed Friday were hiring practices. Board members suggested offering additional abatement for employing a certain number of residents from neighborhoods within the zone or members of minority groups....

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School board set to vote on secondary boundaries

Published: Sunday, February 12th 2012 in the The Columbia Daily Tribune

...“My perspective on this is we’ve been doing this for almost a year, and we’ve had a lot of opportunities for community input,” board member Jonathan Sessions said. “We had dozens of forums before the maps were drawn and after the maps were drawn.”

The committee even tweaked the maps after the second round of forums, he pointed out, addressing issues such as students in the Gentry, Lange, or Oakland boundaries that would have walked past one school to get to another.

Even if it’s too late to change the lines, Turner said a more lax transfer policy for the small number of students affected could solve the problem. Sessions, however, said creating exceptions for the policy could lead to unbalanced numbers at the schools.

“While individuals might be very glad they got the exception to go to the school of their choice, they might be frustrated by the fact that they’ll be in crowded classrooms and buildings,” he said....

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