COLUMBIA SPY

This week's photos from around Columbia  An ET visited Columbia, and - you guessed it - no intelligent life here.  What, already? (Burning Bridge Antiques)  The still-troubled and still-troublesome 300 block of Avenue G  That's right. Fido might not be able to tolerate the THC.  At work on the 300 block of Cherry  At work on the 500 block of Walnut  Doing burnouts! Not really - It's just steam from water on the roller.  And back again  Nekkid lady pondering an ibis (100 block of Walnut)  Depth of field This church recently celebrated an anniversary of some sort.  Here's its datestone.  And here's the church building.  Back on Walnut Street - a compact steamroller  Dueling steamrollers!  Big men casting long shadows  Keeping an eye on things  Spreading the asphalt  Evening it out Reaching...

Council continues to dissect the 2019 budget, which Council President Kelly Murphy describes as already having been "ground up like hamburger." For a while there, it seemed like Columbia had a new property inspector - and that still might be the case - but we won't know for sure until this coming Wednesday. As Columbia Spy previously reported , Jay Frerichs was promised the job at the October borough council meeting, and for all intents and purposes had it in the bag until Thursday's budget meeting when things went a little . . . haywire. At the meeting, the purpose of which was to plan the 2019 budget, council realized it might not have the funds to pay Frerichs a promised $50,000 salary plus benefits. The item is not in the 2019 budget. In the weeks preceding, Frerichs had been given the runaround over whether or not he even had the job. According to Frerichs, he was elated and ready to go after he was unanimously voted in at the October council meeting....