Columbia business leaders will be choosing one of two major college towns for their leadership visit this fall.
This will be the Columbia Chamber of Commerce’s tenth trip. They visited College Station, Texas in October. Chamber president Matt McCormick tells 939 the Eagle they’re looking at two Big Ten college towns for this year’s trip.
“We actually have two cities on our docket that we’ve looked at. One is Madison, Wisconsin. The other is Lincoln, Nebraska. We always go to a university town, because there’s something special about a university town,” Mr. McCormick says.
The University of Wisconsin is located in Madison, and the University of Nebraska’s main campus is in Lincoln. Previous visits have included Ann Arbor, Tuscaloosa and Athens, Georgia.
“Homelessness is one of those issues that we know Madison has addressed a great deal, and so we’d like to learn from them what they’ve worked on,” says McCormick.
Columbia’s city council voted in February to approve a permit that allows for the construction and operation of a proposed 120-bed homeless shelter near Columbia’s power plant and former VFW post.
