Fayette is a small, rural town that’s been around since the early 1800s. It’s the seat of Howard County, a county that was organized in 1816 as one of the original five counties that made up the Missouri Territory.
At the center of town sits Central Methodist University, the town’s largest employer and a fixture of culture in the area since it was founded in 1854 as Central College.
Today, Fayette is home to roughly 2,800 people who come from all walks of life — blue-collar workers, academics, business owners and more.
Like most rural areas of Missouri, Howard County is considered politically red, but the residents of Fayette represent a wide range of views and opinions.
One thing that everyone agrees upon is that they don’t want their city to be defined by the December 2023 incident when Fayette police disposed of drug evidence in a dumpster.
Since then, a new policy was written for the department - saying drug evidence must be disposed of by incineration - but without access to an incinerator, it remains unclear whether they can follow it.
Joe Jefferies, a certified peer support specialist, said Fayette is often left out of the mainstream news cycle until major scandals happen in town.
“We have these things that then bubble up to the top of the headlines, and then we kind of trickle back down. And that is frustrating because … we are a community that is strong and vibrant,” Jefferies said.
The practice of amplifying “bad news” is known as negativity bias in media, and Jefferies said he’s concerned it happens by default in Fayette due to a lack of statewide coverage around “positive” events in the city or things like community events.
“I think about our Juneteenth Celebration, I think about our Fayette Festival of the Arts, I think about the fact that we have a beautiful new building opening up on our downtown square, I think of all the recent businesses that have been able to open up on our square and are thriving,” Jefferies said. “We are so much more than these incidents.”
But Jefferies also believes that it’s important to shed light on incidents like the December 2023 dumpster discovery to create “meaningful change” in the community.
“Let's let that be the headline. Let's make that change and make that choice to do that for ourselves, for our neighbors and for every single person that we love and care for,” Jefferies said.
Many residents agree that Fayette could benefit from more well-rounded media coverage, including Jeff Parks, a local business owner in Fayette. But Parks believes that some of the things he considers issues in town aren’t given enough attention, including Fayette police matters.
Parks expressed concern about the growth in the Fayette Police Department and an increase in its expenditures.
In fiscal year 2020, the Fayette Police Department budget was $446,867, and in fiscal year 2024, the Fayette Police budget was $702,400.
The Police Department has grown significantly since 2020, adding several new officers and upgrading the department’s fleet of patrol vehicles.
The city and the department have also looked at purchasing an incinerator to destroy drugs, but city attorney Nathan Nickolaus said the funds aren’t available in the current budget to purchase one.
Parks believes the spending isn’t justified and is skeptical that the city truly needs more money to purchase an incinerator – an expense he considers to be unnecessary.
“All options need to be carefully considered. I don't think another $5,000–$6,000 purchase (is needed) for something that Fayette has been getting along without for decades,” Parks said. “I know other departments in the area have to be doing something, and it doesn't seem like what other local departments are doing has really been considered either.”
Parks said that he believes the city could cut personnel and operations costs by contracting with the Howard County Sheriff’s Department, which is just a few blocks away from the Fayette police station in downtown.
“There's a lot of existing redundancy with public safety infrastructure here,” Parks said. “It just seems like we got extra officers when it seems like the sheriff's department in particular is doing a lot of the heavy lifting here in Fayette.”
Fayette Mayor Greg Stidham, who took office a few months after the dumpster incident, said that he’s been made aware of Parks’ concerns — but said he doesn’t believe there are any budgetary issues.
“You know, salary is the biggest part of the budget and ... I believe there’s eight police officers, the city provides police coverage 24 hours a day, seven days a week. So, I don’t believe there’s anything out of the ordinary,” Stidham said.
Stidham said he also doesn’t see the need for the city to purchase its own incinerator, and said his initial thought was to find out how the Howard County Sheriff’s Office, located just a few blocks away from the Fayette police station, was disposing of their evidence.
“Why can't we just take our stuff and have it disposed of the same way the sheriff's department does? And I don't know how they do it. And you would think we could do it the same way the police department in Boonville does — so I'm not sure if there's a need to buy an incinerator just for us. It seems like it can be disposed of some other way,” Stidham said. “But I really wasn't involved in that, and I don’t know the details of what happened, what occurred.”
Stidham said that since he was elected mayor, there haven’t been any further discussions within the city council or city administration about purchasing an incinerator or contracting with the Howard County Sheriff’s Department or other agencies.
For now, Fayette residents must use the resources currently available. At Sam’s Pharmacy downtown, a medication drop box is available for residents wanting to drop off their leftover prescription and over-the-counter medications.
However, the drop box is not meant to be used for disposing of illicit drugs, such as heroin or cocaine.
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The pharmacy is also home to peer support services offered through the Health Resources and Services Administration’s Rural Communities Opioid Response Program and Randolph County Caring Community Partnership.
Peer support services are an option available for people hoping to recover from substance use disorder, and pairs individuals who have been successful in their recovery with people who need support.
But Jefferies, a peer support specialist who is in recovery himself, said that treatment options such as rehabilitation are still few and far between in Fayette.
“We need programs in place that pipeline people into treatment when they're ready, not when it's ready. And until we've done that, I think we've got a lot of work to do to keep our communities moving forward and addressing this crisis we're facing,” Jefferies said.
Jefferies said that for him, ensuring seized drugs stay out of the community is especially important in an area where recovery services are often not accessible to those battling substance use disorder.
“We should have access to resources in our communities for things like safe needle exchanges, safe drug disposal sites, ready access and transportation to treatment,” Jefferies said. “I have a very different vision than the one where folks are taken to jail and their evidence is possessed and then thrown in a dumpster.”
