This is what Mayor Barbara Buffaloe is bringing back from a city leadership conference

When Columbia City Manager De'Carlon Seewood announced the 2024 budget July 13, one major aspect included the creation of a new city department, expanding the work staff do in community development to focus on housing and neighborhood services.

The focus of the proposed department is on affordable housing. Hearing that other communities, including those overseas, are putting a focus on affordable housing was reinforcing to the work being undertaken by the city, said Mayor Barbara Buffaloe on Monday.

She attended the Bloomberg Harvard City Leadership Initiative last week in New York, which was attended by 27 U.S. and 13 international mayors as part of its seventh cohort.

"Places like Verona, Italy, Turin, Italy, Iowa City, Iowa, Amsterdam, all are suffering from lack of affordable housing for their community members," Buffaloe said about the path ahead. "The ideas of what we can do from the data and work we are doing here in Columbia with the county, what can we do to increase the available housing here and what unintended consequences do we need to be aware of.

"And how as the mayor can I help inspire for what it is we all want, which is a safe place for people to live and sleep. What can we do to work together to achieve that?"

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She also seeks to apply skills learned through courses to transportation and sustainability to develop actionable strategies on these topics.

Buffaloe can take one of three tracts for her path through the program: innovation, data and collaboration. Buffaloe is focused on innovation with an eye toward finding ways to remove governmental process barriers, where possible.

"What can I do to automate some of these systems, so like if you have filled out a form, it's prepopulated. I don't need you to do it again, or electronic opportunities if paper is hard to access. Can things be done in person or virtually," she said.

This cohort partnership also means Columbia will have access to Harvard research data and case studies for comparisons to Columbia to address the various complex challenges, Buffaloe said.

The City Leadership Initiative is supported by Bloomberg Philanthropies. It invested $150 million in support of the Bloomberg Center for Cities at Harvard University, which was part of the host organizations. Mayors were welcomed by former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

"Mayors face no shortage of urgent challenges right now — from poverty to climate change to public safety. This program is designed to help build their capacity to lead and empower them to act boldly," he said in the announcement about the new mayoral cohort. "We look forward to working closely with this new class throughout the year and to seeing the results they’ll deliver for the millions of residents they serve."

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Buffaloe received a message about applying to join the seventh City Leadership Initiative in the spring.

"I was really interested because this is my first time in politics. I worked for city government, but as far as being mayor, I want to make sure that I have all of the tools available and all of the trainings I can to be the best mayor I can for Columbia," she said.

The first classes were in-person but over the next year, there will be virtual sessions. Since Buffaloe participated, it gives Seewood an opportunity to also participate from a city management perspective.

"Having that opportunity for professional development for our senior staff that are working on implementing some of these innovative ideas, I think is key to making sustainable investment in Columbia," Buffaloe said.

Attendance and participation in the cohort helps elevate what Columbia is doing to a national and slightly international scale, while also allowing Buffaloe to learn some strategies and of programs instituted by other mayors, she said.

"(This) was when we worked with other communities in the midwest to collect data that showed our already changing climate. Other communities had not done something like that," Buffaloe said. "... All of us came together from a place of compassion. Listening to (Los Angeles) mayor Karen Bass talk about how she doesn't want to get to a point where we are penalizing people for poverty. We talked about the need for more housing ... those wraparound services."

Buffaloe was able to interact with mayors from Peoria, Illinois, and Chandler, Arizona. Peoria is close to her original hometown and the mayor from Chandler attended the University of Missouri, she said.

Mayors and those within the Bloomberg organizations also knew of Buffaloe from conference calls with the U.S. Council of Mayors and from even before when she was with the city's sustainability office, she said.

"While this is a huge world, every one of our actions do make ripples that get out and hopefully inspire others to make a difference in their world," Buffaloe said.

Charles Dunlap covers local government, community stories and other general subjects for the Tribune. You can reach him at cdunlap@columbiatribune.com or @CD_CDT on Twitter. Subscribe to support vital local journalism.

This article originally appeared on Columbia Daily Tribune: Mayor Barbara Buffaloe joins international city leadership cohort