Unopposed Peters sets sights on second term in Sixth Ward

Sixth Ward Councilwoman Betsy Peters can do everything, and she does.

The physician/professor/politician/real estate player is almost done serving her first City Council term, and she’s running unopposed for a second three-year term in Tuesday’s municipal election.

“No one filed against me, so I was like, â€~OK, I guess I’m here another three years,’” Peters said. “Karl Skala says: â€~How did you do that?’ I say, â€~I don’t know.’ He’s always got an opponent.”

Peters either takes pains not to make her life look hard, or she makes it seem miraculously easy. In the case of her re-election, there is no challenge. She denies difficulty at every turn, whether it’s juggling multiple careers, conflicts of interest regarding her real estate holdings and her council role or representing the Sixth Ward for three years with no previous political background.

So why did Peters run for a council seat in the first place?

“I enjoy this city,” Peters said. “Without citizens on the City Council, it’s hard to get anything done. I’m pretty much a middle-of-the-road person, which I think most of the people in Columbia are. You need some development, you need some trails. You need some taxes, you need to not have too many taxes.”

On a practical level, Peters knows Barbara Hoppe, who preceded her as Sixth Ward councilwoman. The search was on for someone a bit more liberal than 2015 candidate Ryan Euliss, and Peters thought: “Surely I can do this, too.”

Peters won that election by a mere 35 votes.

Reflecting on her council service thus far, Peters said the push for community policing is one of the things she takes the most pride in. She said she trusts the city is moving forward with Police Chief Ken Burton’s new bias-free protocol. Her attitude toward Columbia politics is laissez-faire: Some are for, some are against; we’ll know if it was a good decision 30 years from now.

After four years attending Northeast Missouri State University, now Truman State University, Peters earned her medical degree at MU. She spent six years in Indiana training at Riley Children’s Hospital, and she lived in Dallas for 20 years working as a neonatologist. She returned to Columbia in 2010 to be closer to her family and became a neonatologist at MU’s Women’s and Children’s Hospital and an assistant professor at the MU Department of Child Health.

Peters’ describes her involvement in real estate as merely one of many hobbies. Her 23 property holdings are almost all in East Campus. She said she got into the business simply because she could.

“I had some extra money and didn’t know what to do with it,” Peters said. “Rental properties are always a good bet, especially in Columbia.”

Peters’ parents owned rental properties in the early 1960s. She recalls cleaning out the properties after tenants left. Her familial connection to real estate in Columbia continues today.

“My dad says the value of a property is the monthly rent times 120,” Peters said. “That’s an old rule of thumb, but that’s total crap, especially if you’re selling. In East Campus, I usually add 20 percent” to that equation.

Peters said her parents always have talked about real estate in terms of horses. They would ask how much the horse cost, and she would reply: “Well, if it stays lame, it cost too much, otherwise it’s a good deal.”

Zack Becker, a tenant of Peters’ who lives with 13 other Orthodox Protestant men, many of whom are members of The Crossing church, in The Cotton House at 1415 University Ave., had a higher opinion of Peters’ real estate prowess than she has of herself.

“She’s very humble for being a multimillionaire,” Becker said.

Both Becker and Peters are grateful for the existence of The Cotton House, an 8,148-square foot house that was built 90 years ago. Peters appreciates the occupants “don’t have keggers” and are respectful, and the occupants are glad she’s made the space available to them for about a decade now.

“I don’t rent downtown, by the room, where none of these people know each other,” Peters said. “That was The Cotton House before I found The Crossing guys.”

The Cotton House has a parking lot, a garden, a tennis court and surrounding land that don’t generate additional income but Peters believes it “anchors” University Avenue.

“I’m sure Mark Stevenson or Becky Giovanni, who own property on that street, might disagree, but I like the house and enjoy owning it,” Peters said.

The property management company Callahan and Galloway handle Peters’ other properties, but she relies and the residents oversee The Cotton House.

“A bunch of Christian guys approached her and said: â€~Hey, we’ll take over the house,’” Becker said. “The deal was we decide who comes in and out of the house, who lives here and who doesn’t. If we kick someone out, we control that, and she usually backs the house as a whole.”

Peters bought a bungalow on College Avenue several weeks ago, and she plans to buy more, adding to her “handful” of holdings. Her properties are mainly student rentals.

Despite a steady student rental market and her continued membership on the City Council, Peters recently has dealt with two controversial situations.

The first was her request for an exemption from a moratorium on the demolition of older buildings in the central city so she could raze an approximately 60-year-old house she owned in East Campus last year. The house, she said, was rotted and molded and built in the flood plain. The council approved that request. Although Peters abstained from the vote, the appearance of a conflict of interest arose.

“If there’s something specifically East Campus that would affect apartment folks, I probably would not vote for it, but I know Dr. (Tim) Waid has said that I lied ... because I voted for the Unified Development Code, therefore I lied when I said I would not vote for something that’s East Campus,” Peters said. “My perception is that the Unified Development Code is the entire city.”

The development code was a complete overhaul of city zoning ordinances the council approved in 2017 after years of work by consultants and city staff.

Waid, who owns property in East Campus and is the leader of an effort to split the neighborhood association over an ongoing dispute between residents and nonresident landlords, has caused other problems for Peters. He is one of multiple plaintiffs in a lawsuit filed in January 2018 against East Campus Neighborhood Association officers, including Peters.*

The lawsuit alleges that association officers misallocated $100,000 that Beta Theta Pi gave the group in 2011 so it would drop its opposition to the design of its new house, which exceeded city height restrictions. Peters was treasurer of the association at the time.

Waid contended the money was supposed to be spent on the betterment of East Campus as a whole and instead went to “unapproved artwork” and other unknown uses. In an email, Waid alleged a lack of “democracy and transparency” in “the representation of the East Campus Community.”

Peters noted the deadline to file as a candidate for the council was Jan. 9. “And the weekend before there were front-page articles that I was being sued for misappropriation of funds,” Peters said. “We still haven’t seen the lawsuit.”

She was reluctant to talk about the lawsuit, which she views as politically motivated. She said she wouldn’t have known she was being sued if not for the news reports and that she has yet to see the paperwork.

“I don’t think I’m hard to find,” she added.

Betty Wilson, who long has lived and owned property in East Campus and knows Peters well, said the councilwoman handles her many obligations effectively. She had no comment on the lawsuit but had plenty of praise for Peters. She said she takes care of her rental properties as if they were her own home.

“She’s a very even, very approachable person,” Wilson said. “She’s warm and loyal. She answers phone calls and listens, which is important for someone on City Council.”

Becker and his housemates trust Peters, who pops in and out of the house and has the keys to every room, even though they’re seldom locked. They’re constantly surprised by how much she takes on, and they try to make her life easier.

“She’ll come by and rake our leaves, sweep and shovel our sidewalks,” Becker said. “When we were heading into winter, we had a house meeting, and we said: â€~If you ever see an old lady outside shoveling the sidewalk, that’s Betsy. Tell her to stop, and go out there and do it yourself.’”

Becker described Peters as “a millionaire lady that wears sweatpants and old sweaters from Goodwill and white tennis shoes no one’s ever heard of. She is the humble millionaire.”

Peters takes pleasure in her hometown and the environment she’s helped create in East Campus.

“One of the nice things about East Campus is there’s a lot of porches,” Peters said. “You know, it’s 2 on a Saturday afternoon, and stereos are blaring, and everyone’s throwing Frisbees around in the front yard, and people are drinking and sitting on the porch … I don’t mind it, even though some of my neighbors might.”