CoMoBUZ Insider Briefing, April 10, 2026

Mike's quick, weekly no-nonsense look at civic affairs in Columbia and Boone County, Missouri. This week it's another look at the break up at Boone Health between the hospital and its cardiologists with new documents and details, a review of the race for the Ward 5 seat on the Columbia city council and a conversation with the winning candidate, Christina Hartman, Boone County returning $1 million in marijuana sales tax to the state, the Columbia City Council’s move to crack down on problem landlords, the planned new safety ambassadors downtown, and the chaos about to ensue  as MoDOT starts ramping up I-70 construction this weekend.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:05

Boone Health is trying to stop a cardiology group from leaving and opening a competing practice. New court filings showed the group was far more deeply built into Boone's operation than a typical contractor, and that Boone's financial condition helped drive the split. I'm Mike Murphy. Later in today's episode, Columbia gets its first real hit from the improved I-70 rebuild with the St. Charles Road Lake of the Woods overpass coming down this weekend. And in the receipts, Boone County is sending back marijuana tax money that never should have been collected in the first place. But the refund stream is reaching dispensaries, not the customers who actually paid the tax. The biggest story again this week is Boone Health and the Missouri Heart Center. Court filings make clear that this was not a simple staffing deal. Boone Health is asking a judge to stop Missouri cardiovascular specialists doing business as the Missouri Heart Center from leaving the hospital system and opening a competing practice in Columbia. Boone wants noncompete provisions enforced through May of 2027. Boone's operating entities engaged the group to provide management services, billing and collection services, and facility usage for Boone's cardiology business across Columbia and several regional clinics. The business included Boone Hospital Center and clinics in Boonville, Brookfield, Columbia, Jefferson City, Macon, Marshall, and Moberly. The agreement shows Missouri Hart handled a large share of the operation. The group maintained the accounting system, retained the billing personnel, kept records, delivered monthly and quarterly financial and operational reports, prepared draft annual operating and capital budgets, supplied materials and supplies, provided cleaning and linens, and furnished an administrator along with clinical and support staff. Those workers were employees or contractors of the physician group, not Boone Health. The contract also made Missouri Hart the billing and collections agent for CHAS Physician Services, that's Boone's hospital's operating group. Missouri Heart was authorized to submit claims in Chaz's name and under Chaz's provider number, coordinate revenues and accounts receivable, handle deposits, and manage refund and overpayment matters. The agreement also covered office space and equipment, including space at 1605 East Broadway and other clinic sites. So while Boone retained ultimate administrative and legal authority on paper, the day-to-day operating picture was much more intertwined. That's why this breakup matters. Boone is not just replacing a physician group. It's trying to unwind a private practice that had become deeply embedded in the staffing, billing, management, and infrastructure of one of its core service lines. The timeline starts with a November 7, 2025 letter from Missouri Heart President Trung Tran. In that letter, the group notifies Boone that it was terminating both the professional services agreement and the management services agreement without cause effective May 6th, 2026. Tran said the group wanted to once again operate as an independent medical group. Even then, Missouri Heart did not frame the move as a total break. The group said it wanted to remain aligned with Boone, continue as the primary provider of professional and administrative cardiology service, and work toward a new partnership. It proposed meetings to work through issues including on-call coverage, medical directorships, peer review, committee participation, continuity of care, outreach facilities, and transition planning. Boone answered with a January 22nd, 2026 letter that shows the hospital saw the situation much differently. Boone agreed the contracts would end May 6th, but it said the unwinding would be complex and laid out issues involving clinic space, leases, staffing costs, trailing receivables, call coverage, and restrictive covenants. The hospital also put real numbers on the separation. Boone said it was paying about $853,000 a month under the Management Services Agreement for staff salaries, non-physician benefits, supplies, drugs, and rent. Boone pointed to the retirements of Doctors Baird and Pierce, said it had heard there could be two more departures, and said Missouri Heart had not added a new recruit since 2023. That January 22nd letter also shows Boone staking out its legal position months before the lawsuit. Boone also said that non-compete provisions would remain in effect for one year after termination. According to Boone, those restrictions covered a hundred-mile radius around Boone Hospital Center and a 25-mile radius around each clinic in the agreement. Boone's letter also shows this was not just a doctor issue, it was a systems issue. Because Missouri Hart had been billing and collecting for CHAS physician services, Boone said the parties needed to work through trailing accounts receivable, projected balances, how long billing and collections would continue, and when final payments would occur. Boone assumed at least a 90 to 120-day trail. Then came the March 16th, 2026 letter from Missouri Hart to Boone's board of trustees, board of directors, and CEO Brady Dubois. This is the key development in the new filings. Missouri Hart said Boone Health's current financial realities and the changing healthcare environment had led them to make the strategic decision to transition to financial independence as a practice. That matters because it puts Boone's financial condition directly into the record as part of the cardiologist group's explanation for leaving. At the same time, Missouri Hart did not describe this as a full separation. The group said it wanted Boone to remain its primary inpatient cardiovascular partner in Columbia. It said it intended to continue providing emergency department cardiology coverage, inpatient consultation, diagnostic interpretation, medical directorships, and quality oversight at Boone under a new contract structure. It also said it was evaluating additional outpatient sites and possible inpatient privileges at other regional facilities, but described those moves as complementary, not as a replacement for Boone. So the two sides are telling very different stories. Missouri Heart frames the move as a transition to independence that could still leave Boone as its main inpatient partner. Boone treats it as an unraveling of a highly integrated service line involving leases, staffing, receivables, systems, and contract restrictions. Then there's the governance issue. Dr. Jerry Kennett is both a founding partner of Missouri Cardiovascular Specialists and chairman of Boone Health's elected board of trustees. The filings do not establish what role, if any, Kennet played in negotiating the agreements or handling the separation, but the overlap is unusual on its face. Kennett is a partner in the private group Boone is suing while also chairing the public board of trustees that oversees the hospital's assets. That does not settle the legal dispute, but it does explain why this is no longer just a contract fight. It's also a governance story and a financial stability story. The core takeaway this week is simple. The filings show how much of Boone's cardiology operation depended on Missouri Heart, and they show Missouri Heart itself citing Boone Health's financial realities as part of the reason it wanted out. That makes the stakes clearer. You've been listening to the Como Buzz Insider Briefing from ComoBuzz.com. Now to the briefing board. First, the fifth ward race for the Columbia City Council. Challenger Christina Hartman beat incumbent Don Waterman with 58% of the vote. The result matters because the race exposed a real divide over money, priorities, and how City Hall operates. Waterman argued Columbia needs more resources to move faster on public safety and infrastructure. He supported the proposed additional one cent sales tax for public safety and tied it to police staffing, fire staffing, and major capital needs. So the incumbent had more institutional backing and more money. Hartman still won. That does not decide the next policy fights at City Council, but it does suggest one part of Columbia's electorate was ready to back a message centered on accountability and skepticism about raising more revenue. I talked with Hartman this week after the election. Here's what she had to say about it.

SPEAKER_02 10:27

I I truly believe it was because I was out there talking to people. People want somebody that's going to be available and is going to reply and uh talk to them in a way that um makes them feel heard. So you put in a lot of work, you went a lot of door-to-door with I would literally go to the neighborhood and I would try to um like when you're literally looking at maps and trying to understand, okay, I think I can hit this many doors in this amount of hours. And so when you're out for your campaign and you're just trying to get it out, and then you know, if people are walking by, you're gonna reach out to them and try to have a conversation if they're open to that as well.

SPEAKER_01 11:08

This feels like really hard work. Are people receptive when you knock on their door?

SPEAKER_02 11:12

Oh yeah, overwhelmingly. People want their government to understand what they want. And they want to be able to voice that.

SPEAKER_01 11:21

So you campaigned as an outsider focused on better execution. What does success look like for you, let's say, one year out?

SPEAKER_02 11:30

Yeah, so I think it will, for me, will be that I'm still continuing to be out there talking to um our neighbors award and understanding that, and then also driving um some of this infrastructure projects more to actually having actual tangible benefits or uh groundbreaking as fast as we can get this going.

SPEAKER_01 11:53

Second, the improved I-70 disruption is no longer something coming later. It's starting now. The demolition of the St. Charles Road Lake of the Woods overpass begins Friday night and continues through the weekend. Improved I-70 program director Eric Kapinski said the demolition starts at 7 p.m. Friday. From 6 p.m. Friday until Monday morning, interstate traffic will be routed up and over the ramps around the demolition zone. He said the worst delays are expected Saturday and Sunday, especially in the morning and early afternoon, with backups reaching 45 minutes to an hour. That is the immediate problem. The longer one is the bridge closure itself. By Monday morning, I-70 is expected to be back to two lanes in each direction, but the St. Charles Lake of the Woods overpass will stay closed for about four months while a new bridge is built. For many local drivers, that closure may matter more than the demolition weekend, and another one is coming. Kopinski said Modot expects to use the same general process about a month later to take down the Providence Road overpass. The agency is trying to fit both bridge replacements between the end of the school year and the return of classes in Mizzou football in August. Modot says full closures are the fastest way to get the work done. Officials considered stage construction, but concluded partial access would stretch the disruption out longer. Here's Kopinsky. So this weekend is not a one-off traffic story. It's the start of a much bigger construction season. You're listening to the Como Buzz Insider Briefing from Como Buzz.com. The receipts this week go to Boone County in the marijuana tax refund process. Here's the issue. Boone County is paying back marijuana tax money that never should have been collected. But the refront stream described in the records is going to dispensaries, not directly to the customers who paid the tax. Boone County has already sent back more than $860,000 to the state. Another $289,000 is now due. That follows the Missouri Supreme Court ruling that counties and cities cannot both impose the local 3% adult use marijuana sales tax on the same sale. If a dispensary is inside an incorporated city, only that city may collect the tax. Counties may collect it only in unincorporated areas. So the legal issue is decided. What remains is the refund process. The Department of Revenue notified Boone County on February 4th that it had received a refund request for previously distributed marijuana sales tax and was seeking repayment of $860,000. Boone County later paid that amount in full. Then on April 3rd, the Department said it had processed additional refund requests and now wanted another $289,000. So Boone County is sending the money back. But who gets it? This is where the Missouri Associations of Counties memo matters. A February 5th memo said refund claims may be filed either by a dispensary or by a purchaser who paid the tax. A purchaser may also seek a refund directly from the dispensary. But the same memo added this to date no purchaser requests have been remitted. That is the accountability problem. The tax was paid by customers on retail marijuana purchases, but the refund mechanism reflected in these records was being used to reimburse dispensaries while no customer refund claims have been processed at that point. Missouri law explains the structure. When tax has been illegally collected or paid more than once, the refund goes to the person legally obligated to remit it. In ordinary sales tax practice, that generally is the seller, not the customer, unless the customer separately pursues a claim. So the process has a legal logic, but it still leaves a practical question. How many customers know they may have to file separately to go back through the dispensary to get their money? The records do not show individual customers driving this process. They show dispensaries being reimbursed, counties being told to return the money, and customers left to a separate route. Boone County Auditor Kyle Riemann pushed back on the process, not on the ruling itself. In a February 13th response, Riemann told the Department of Revenue the County would pay by check rather than allow the state to deduct the amount from future marijuana tax distributions. He said deductions would create an added burden on the county. He also asked for records showing how that $860,000 figure had been calculated, requested taxpayer ID numbers for the dispensaries involved, and asked for documents that would help the county track the refunds through future distribution reports. The department later identified the controlling case as robust Missouri Dispensary 3 LLC versus St. Louis County. And this may not end soon. According to the Missouri Association of Counties memo, sellers and purchasers have 10 years from the due date of payment to request a refund. That means counties could keep seeing repayment demands for years. So the receipts show three things. Dispensaries are using the refund mechanism. And the customers who actually pay the tax are not the ones directly receiving the checks reflected in these records. That's more than a bookkeeping issue. It's a fairness issue. Two things to watch for in the coming week. First, Columbia is moving toward a more targeted rental inspection system. The City Council voted Monday to move ahead with drafting changes to the rental inspection law after staff reported that 61% of respondents supported to a tiered system. That included a slight majority of landlords and property managers who took part. The idea is to inspect problem properties more often instead of treating all rentals the same. Staff said possible triggers could include municipal court convictions tied to housing code issues, life safety violations, repeated return visits because repairs were not completed, and licenses that had lapsed for more than 60 days. The vote was 6-1, with Don Waterman dissenting. That does not change the system yet, but it moves the city closer to a model focused more directly on repeat problem properties. Second, the Downtown Ambassador Program is set to begin May 19th. The City Council approved an agreement with the University of Missouri and the Downtown Community Improvement District to launch the Block-by-Block Ambassador Program, along with about $168,000 for the city's first year share of the half a million dollar a year program. Supporters said the program will put six safety ambassadors and one outreach ambassador downtown during peak hours. The ambassadors are expected to patrol Thursdays through Sundays from 5 p.m. to 3 a.m. Their duties include walking and bicycle patrols, business checks, after hour escorts, homeless outreach, and coordination with police. City officials describe it as supplemental and non-law enforcement, but it's still a policy choice worth watching because it expands a private contractor's role in public-facing downtown safety and outreach. The Boone Health story remains the biggest one this week because the new filings show what was really built behind the scenes. Missouri Heart was not just a doctor group under contract, it was deeply embedded in Boone's cardiology operation, and Missouri Heart itself cited Boone's financial realities as part of the reason it wanted out. This is not just about doctors leaving, it's about control of a core service line, the risks of an intertwined structure coming apart, and the governance and financial questions exposed when it does.