Creating "Santa’s lap has gone to the dogs"

At the start of the reporting semester I volunteered to help a reporting student create a multimedia piece for the Missourian. As photo major, it was not required that I make one.

We agreed then that she’d choose the topic and I’d assist her with everything audio/video.

On Sunday, Allison Seibel and I went the Lizzi and Rocco’s Natural Pet Shop to photograph a fundraiser at the store. For about the past two years the owners have invited pet owners to bring in their animals for photographs on Holidays. Thus, on Sunday, Santa’s lap was for dogs too.

The photo sales, which many people used for greeting cards, benefited the Central Humane Society and Columbia Second Chance.

Allison and I met around 11 a.m. that morning and checkout the proper equipment. I gave Allison a quick lesson on the marantz, and we decided that, photo being sequence, I would be in charge of making pictures.

The event was fun to cover. We met many different animals including some cats and a parrot. People were very enthusiastic about talking to us about telling us about their animals.

Also, the event itself being photo opportunity, there were a lot of great images for me capture, Allison did a good job collecting sounds.

I would say that collecting audio and video is usually the fun and easy part. Editing is where the tough work is.

We started by looking pictures find selects while also gaining a sense of the narrative of the event. We then did the same for our audio. While listening the nearly 30 minutes we collected, we took notes on where to find good quotes and sound.

We then sliced and arranged those audio gems for about four hours Sunday evening. I’ve found that voices provide the narrative to audio slide shows. Each person acts as a chapter in the story. Once we had assembled a logical order of quotes. We use ambient sounds fill in gaps or spice up moments with great photos.

By about 9 p.m. on Sunday we had a slide show ready.

So on Monday afternoon, with Allison home bound with a cold, all I had left was writing a caption and submitting the piece. When I write video captions, I use them to introduce the piece or fill in any gaps. Words do a good job of describing the setting and saying tedious details like how much was raised for charity.

So, it was fun project to work on, and a fellow reporting student knows a little bit more about multimedia.

Here's a link to the story at TomNagelPhoto.blogspot.com

Amnesty program encourages rental property registration

Wednesday, December 8, 2010 | 6:16 p.m. CST

BY Thomas Nagel

COLUMBIA — An autumn amnesty program prompted landlords to add 225 previously unregistered Columbia rental units to the city's records. It brought the total number of registered rental units to 22,940.

The exact total will remain unknown as more rental units are out there, but Leigh Britt, manager of the Office of Neighborhood Services, is happy with the results of its Rental Registry Amnesty Program. Between Oct. 1 and Nov. 15, Columbia landlords were able to register rental units to the office without fear of prosecution for noncompliance.

“The bottom line is this: There are many new units that are in compliance,” Britt said. “We believe that those came from awareness of the amnesty program.”

The Missourian reported on the program in September.

The city requires all rental units to be registered with the Office of Neighborhood Services, which is responsible for inspecting and enforcing maintenance in accordance with the city’s Rental Unit Conservation Law. The office issues a certificate of compliance to rental units that pass inspection.

During the amnesty period, the office received 209 new applications for buildings with rental units. Britt said the city accepted another 15 applications with amnesty after Nov. 15 because they probably came in response to the program.

Those new applications added 225 new units to the registry and will generate $9,408 in fees for the city, according to a report to City Manager Bill Watkins by Britt. A new application is $35 per building and $7 per inspection per unit. A single-family home is $42, a duplex $49 and a fourplex $63.

“A lot of them were single-family houses. There were some duplexes in there,” Britt said. “There were several trailer homes that applied as well.”

Britt said the type of applications likely reflects that the newly registered property owners are not professionally organized and didn’t know that the registration law existed when they began renting their property.

In her report, Britt recognized her colleagues Julie Giboney and Rose Wibbenmeyer, assistant city counselor, for their work on the program.

“This is something they had discussed and come up with,” Britt said. “Julie is our administrative support assistant, so she entered all that data into our system.”

Britt said the office might consider another amnesty period.

“We could do it every few years,” she said. “We think it served its purpose. We’re happy with the response.”

Now that the office has received the new applicants, the next step will be inspecting the newly registered properties.

“We will require that they are in compliance with code we enforce,” Britt said. “After those applications are inspected, they’ll receive a certificate of compliance.”

The new properties will be added to the long list of buildings for which the office is responsible.

“We’ve got a large ongoing workload of things,” Britt said. “Nearly 23,000 (rental units) — that’s a lot of work.”

Read this story at the ColumbiaMissourian.com

Writing about rentals

In early September, I wrote a story about the city’s law, which requires all rental property owners to register with the city. It’s an interesting subject because at that time the Office of Neighborhood Services knew of 22,715 rental units in the city. The implied thought there is that in a town with so many college students – over 30,000 of them – the actual number of rental units certainly exceeds that figure.

So, I wrote then of program to be approved by the city council to encourage landlords to register rental units by offering amnesty. The office’s thought was that many long time property owners were in non-compliance by not registering and were concerned that they would be prosecuted if they came forward. The other motive of the program was to raise awareness that the law existed, and the period would be a good time to comply with the law.

This week, months after, the story had fallen away from my mind’s attention, yet it was certainly time for a follow up. The period for amnesty had ended Nov. 15.

When my editor Scott brought to my attention a report by Leigh Britt, the Office of Neighborhood Services manager, I was ready to write a story about it.

The report seemed to show that the program was a success, having brought that number of known units to 22,940. I called Britt Wednesday morning to find out more about it.

I was most concerned with who was registering. I was wondering what the demographics of unregistered landlords were. Britt couldn’t say whom she expected in September. The program over, it was interesting that many of the newly registered properties were single-family homes and some trailers. This would indicate that organized professional landlords were already registered, but those who came into being landlords were not registered. In other words, I’ve read articles and seen books about how people manage when they unexpectantly become landlords.

Britt was very helpful explaining the how the program went. She’s the star of the story one could say.

But there’s a few things missing. In the report she mentioned an office assistant who came up the idea and the city attorney who may responsible for prosecuting non-compliant landlords. They would have made interesting sources, however they were busy with work while I was making phone calls, and I, a student-journalist, had a three-hour class in the middle of business hours.

My next step is the record request I’ll be filing for the landlords who registered. Britt couldn’t recommend a landlord source for me. I’d really like to answer who is an un-registered landlord and did they actually act in response to the city’s program. If there’s any news year here, I’d be interested in what my missing sources think.

Scott has directed to the Attorney General’s sample language for a sunshine request. We’ll see what kind of information come out of it.

Finally, the story is based on a report from Leigh Britt to the City Manager. When I heard the news, I wondered where it had come from besides a press release. Scott kindly showed me a new facet of open information on the city’s website. That means I’m ready to digging into all sorts of news from internal reports.

Homeland Security grant could upgrade Mid MO's bomb squad robot

On Dec. 8, I blogged about the city's potential to upgrade its bomb squad robot via a grant from the Missouri Dept. of Homeland Security.

Documents describe the upgrade and break down its cost.

The post is on the Missourian's civic life blog, The Watchword.

Columbia Transit boosts ridership with new routes

Friday, December 3, 2010 | 6:13 p.m. CST
BY Thomas Nagel

COLUMBIA ­— After adjusting its bus routes in August, Columbia Transit has seen a significant increase in ridership.

Between August and October of this year, the city experienced a dramatic 12 percent rise in public bus use. That statistic dwarfs numbers seen from 2009 to 2010 — when public transit saw a 0.9 percent increase — with total ridership at 2,025,229 as of Sept. 30.

The new figures are cited in a report by the Department of Public Works. The report will be read at Monday’s City Council meeting.

“We’re seeing an increase on a lot of different routes,” department spokeswoman Jill Stedem said. “We are foreseeing that the number will be even higher.”

On Aug. 2, Columbia Transit adjusted its bus routes and schedules after a year of planning.

“We made pretty substantial changes to most of the routes, mostly to fix the timing issues,” transportation supervisor Drew Brooks said. The route adjustments were intended to solve problems of efficiency and timeliness in the transit system.

“The biggest change is getting our routes back on the 40-minute intervals,” Stedem said. “When the Orange Route was delayed, it delayed the whole system. That is one area that has changed for us.”

Comparing ridership from November 2010 to that in November 2009, considerably more people have been riding Columbia Transit’s Gold, Blue and Green routes, according to a report compiled by Brooks. Of those, the Gold Route has seen the largest increase in riders.

“It’s business as usual,” Brooks said of the new data. “Except the Gold Route.”

The Gold Routes, which connect MU to stops along South Providence Road and Old 63, have increased ridership by 46 percent, from 54,113 rides in November 2009 to 78,861 rides in November 2010. Since August this year, ridership has increased by an additional 55 percent.

“Every year we see the Gold Routes increase, and that’s the student population from the Old 63 area,” Stedem said.

“We’d certainly like to expand in that area,” Brooks said. "That kind of growth is really hard to accommodate without putting more buses on the street."

Columbia Transit is still working to accommodate the increase, but Brooks said increases in the bus fleet are limited by funding. At this time, the city can only replace old vehicles, not expand the fleet overall.

Next fall, the city plans to purchase three new buses, two of which will be replacements.

Although the increase in ridership has certainly increased transit revenue, bus fares are only 10 percent of Columbia Transit’s operating budget, Brooks said. The agency relies on federal grants to expand service.

Other routes have felt the boost, though not as profoundly as the Gold Route. The Blue Route, which connects northwest Columbia with downtown, has increased ridership by 19 percent since 2009, to 8,101 rides in November 2010.

The Green Route, which connects northeast Columbia with downtown via Paris Road, gained 17 percent more riders in the same time frame, with 9,539 rides in November 2010.

Columbia Transit also added the Black Route when it made route changes in August, adding 7,158 rides from August to November 2010. The new route connects MU and downtown with areas around East Nifong Boulevard between Old 63 and Providence Road on the city’s south side.

“We’re obviously trying to monitor these routes very closely,” Brooks said. “It is the first step of gradually changing the system.”

Writing about transit ridership

COLUMBIA — Reading a city a council agenda over coffee early in the morning is a great way to find news. That is to say discover news, as opposed to my coffee to the tune of the New York Times – reading news.
Thus did I start my day with six story ideas: a vote on dirt piles, allocating funds for an AIDS program a few days after World AIDS Day, a vote on TIFs, voting to build the pavilion at the famers markets, accepting funds for the city’s robot bomb squad unit, and a research on an incredible increase in bus ridership.
Doing a little researched I pitched three ideas to my editors, and settled on breaking the story of transit ridership before the council hears the report come Monday night.
I began my work with extensive research and source compiling. The report I read from the agenda pointed me to John Glascock, director of Columbia public works dept. Reading a Missourian article on transit brought up the name Drew Brooks who is the transit supervisor.
Trying to reach these two for perspective on the data got me to Jill Stedem. The spokesperson for the public works dept., I speak with her often. Today she was particularly helpful. After getting her knowledge on the case, she was kind enough to e-mail me some data that was more comprehensive and up to date than the original report I read.
Moreover, as I was trying to reach Drew Brooks through out the day, I at one point found my self transferred to her phone line. After I explained whom I was trying to reach, I learned that she generously called Drew Brooks about my questions.
Perhaps this is way he called me at 4:30, which is late for government office on a Friday.
So, Drew Brooks, who wrote most of the research, explained it quite clearly to me. Thus, did I finally feel confident with my stats, and I was able to explain to graphics – after several revisions- what the data was.
Plus, photo got a great picture of bus. It wasn’t of relevant bus line, but the caption is accurate.
Two things helped me get this story to the desk early. The first is I wrote as I came to know my subject. Before I had a lot of quotes, I had date written out. Second, I wrote specifically or rather selectively. Focusing on a few bus routes, as opposed to whole picture, made a concentrated story and probably more interesting story.