Columbia board meetings up for redesign

When Pearl Atkinson-Stewart saw a figure lurking outside in the dark, she circled the neighborhood in her car a few times, then “ran like crazy” to her Owen Brown home.

She was returning at close to 1 a.m. from a grueling five-hour Columbia Association board meeting, which began at 7:30 p.m. The bimonthly meetings have stretched as late as 1:15 a.m. in recent months.