City Commission - Regular Meeting

Good evening. Welcome to the July 21st, 2026 meeting of the Manhattan City Commission. Chelsea, will you please call the roll?

Mayor Adam Chak.

Here.

Commissioner McCullough. Yes. Commissioner Fox.

Here.

Commissioner Morrison.

Here.

Commissioner Von Lintel.

Here.

Mayor, we have five commissioners present. The quorum of three is met.

Thank you. Will you please rise and join me in the Pledge of Allegiance? I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. We have one proclamation this evening. Will those representing the Discovery Center please come forward? Whereas pioneering men and women known as cowboys helped establish the practice of cattle ranching along America's frontier in the 19th century, and whereas the cowboy embodies honesty, integrity, courage, compassion, and determination, and whereas the cowboy is an excellent steward of the land and its resources and its creatures, Whereas cowboy traditions have long been part of the American landscape, and the legend of the cowboy comes to life on the Kansas prairie during the era of the great cattle drives. And whereas the cowboy is an enduring symbol of the United States, as we celebrate the 250th anniversary of our nation. And whereas the work of the modern cowboy is honored by the Flint Hills Discovery Center, and a local celebration of the National Day of the Cowboy will be held in the Manhattan area during 2026. And whereas a National Day of the Cowboy has been designated by the United States Congress and the Governor of Kansas to be celebrated on the fourth Saturday of July, now therefore I, Susan E. Adamczak, Mayor of the City of Manhattan, do hereby proclaim July 25th as the National Day of the Cowboy in Manhattan. And I encourage all citizens to observe the day with appropriate ceremonies and activities, preferably at the Discovery Center. In witness thereof, I hereunto set my hand and cause the seal of the City of Manhattan, Kansas to be affixed this 21st day of July, 2026. Congratulations.

Thank you, Mayor. We'd like to invite everyone to join us this Saturday at National Day of the Cowboy. It's from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the Flint Hills Discovery Center. It's our regular admission, but for those of you with kids, their Sunflower Summer will work for admission that day if you haven't used it yet. We're going to have some great activities, and everything's included with admission. We have wagon rides. We'll have rope making. We'll have roping, branding, and also the first 300 youth receive these complimentary caps, which also celebrate America's 250th anniversary, and they're for the youth. So please come and join us and have a great time. We'll see you all there. Oh yes, so Friday evening, this is hosted by Ron Wilson, who I know many of you know, is a cowboy poetry contest at the Flint Hills Discovery Center. It starts at seven, is that correct? Okay, I'm glad I'm not the only one not sure. Yeah, check our website. But it's really a great cultural experience. If you aren't familiar with it, cowboys have a long history of writing poetry. And it's really fun and interesting. But then the next day, a couple of the cowboys will be doing their poetry. We'll have the proclamation read at 10 a.m. when we open. And then we will have a couple of cowboys reading their poetry at 10.30 a.m. in our atrium so please join us for that also.

At this time we will open the floor for public comments for any item not included on tonight's agenda. Is there anyone who would like to make any comments.

My name is Sarah Nondorf. I am a Manhattan resident. I live over by the cranial crest area. I've been hearing about a potential budget discussion. I was told yesterday it was for today, but I don't see it on the agenda.

It's not on the agenda tonight, Sarah, but if you'd like to make a remark about it, you're permitted to do that.

Okay.

Or if you'd prefer to come back in three weeks when we are discussing the budget, you can choose to do that.

I will do that. Thank you.

Is there anyone else who would like to approach for public comments? Seeing no one coming forward, we'll close public comments. Commissioners, any comments among us?

Flint Hills Metropolitan Organization update. The Fort Riley Safe Passage Program is continuing. Soldiers ranked captain and below are eligible for two $30 vouchers per month. Many of the riders are choosing to be dropped off and picked up in Aggieville. So there's an economic impact to that. The money's coming from the feds and the states and some grants and also some just philanthropic, so that's good. The Flint Hills Area Transportation Board meeting went well. The budget was passed using the proposed Manhattan contribution. So what we're proposing is what they're expecting. Ridership remains strong for the K-18 connector. Most routes are drawing more riders. The board remains interested in unlocking more of the match dollars that would be available if local partners like Manhattan could contribute more. They're having a real pickle with Junction City right now over just getting the match and funding and their bus routes over there. But right now, we're in good spot. And other than that, go K-State tonight.

Thank you, Andrew. Jim, any comments?

A couple things I just pointed out. A week ago tonight, after the meeting, I attended the band concert over here in the Shell. with Frank Trace. I think that was the last concert of the season for the Arts in the Park series, but really a great program. I thought lots of people there enjoying the city park and the great band. And then last Thursday I attended the Third Thursday downtown. That was also a nice event, lots of folks down there. enjoying the downtown area and I think even some city folks were down there showing off some equipment and so it was good to see everybody.

Larry, I'm sorry if I may make a slight correction. It's the municipal band that plays on Tuesdays and so it may have been their last concert. Yeah, municipal band, yes. But I believe Arts in the Park has three, two more concerts so this weekend next. Yeah, thank you. That was the municipal band. And I have nothing new to add this evening either. All right. That being said, we will move into our consent agenda. Commissioners, do we have a motion to approve this?

I would ask that we remove E and F for general information.

May I? May I just remind you, Commissioner, that if it's a basic question for information purposes, you can ask it at this point.

I'm also asking that E be removed, so it's more than just a question.

All right. All right, then. Do we have a motion to remove those two items, please?

I think we just need a motion to approve.

absent those two items. Is there anyone who'd like to make public comment on any item of the agenda absent items E or F? All right. Do we have a motion?

Do we have a second?

Can you move?

No, I, no.

I'll second.

No, it's made the motion yet.

I'll move that we approve the consent A, B, C, and D. Yay, second.

Chelsea, would you please call the roll?

I'll get this right. Commissioner McCullough? Yes. Commissioner Fox?

Yes.

Commissioner Morrison?

Yes.

Commissioner Von Lintel?

Yes.

Mayor Adamczak? Yes. Motion carries five to zero.

Thank you. Commissioners Fox and Morrison, would you like to raise your queries about the purchase of an aerial bucket truck?

So I would start. I have a real issue paying $216,000 for a truck that the existing truck Yes, it's 18 years old. I drive a pickup that's 16 years old. It has 83,000 miles. My truck has 80,000. It's still doing very well. It has 3,063 engine hours. Over 18 years, that works out to 14 hours a month that it's been used. I understand old trucks sometimes leak oil. They need new... hydraulic hoses once in a while, they need seals, differential seals, whatnot, but I don't think that truck gets used all that much. And I think we've got a lot of other pressing, more pressing issues to use that $216,000 for.

And my question is going to be, are we going to retain the one we have, and is it maintenance worthy, or are you selling it?

We cannot sell it. We barely got it passed through certification. So just so everybody understands, we put a person up in this vehicle to work on forestry items, and... It's it's no longer going to be certified and we're going to be out of a vehicle and so we'll be down We have two aerial trucks a large one. This is the small one that we're trying to replace Average lifespan is ten years on these this isn't like our personal vehicle. I've run my personal vehicles quite a ways This is a commercial forestry truck that we're utilizing and it does a lot harder labor than say a personal vehicle like my truck even though It's full of sports equipment all the time. So really, there's a risk to health and safety. And what's going to happen is they're not going to certify the hydraulics. It is literally ending up in a shop about every other week at this point. It broke down during our storm response, which is not a great time to where we had to send it to Salina to get a new hydraulic cylinder that we're not sure how long all those things will last. So I recognize that it looks like a big expense for a vehicle. This is actually the one, some of the vehicles that respond during some of the major events. And we do utilize this pretty much every day as long as we've got the full crew. So we've got two crew leaders, a crew of three run the big aerial. and the knuckle that you've seen. We use that a lot during spring cleanup as well. And then if we have the other two, we've got a crew leader and then the mulcher that runs behind it. So these two trucks operate on their own. They are the only forestry division vehicles that we have that can go operate, trim trees, take trees down without contracting.

To be clear, You're saying it can't be, it won't be certified for using the bucket?

Yeah, I'm saying we are skating by right now, and at any given year when we have to recertify, they could say we won't certify it, and then we'll be out of truck. One of the benefits to this particular one is it can be ready in 30 days. That's the most attractive thing, because normally there's a long wait list to go get a vehicle like this.

And the payment's gonna come from where? Thank you, Commissioner Morrison, for asking that question. Last year, the city commission approved a budget that included $270,000 in the general CIP fund for the purchase and replacement of vehicle and equipment. At that time, we had not necessarily identified which vehicles or equipment needed replaced. This has come to light, and we have deemed this one to be an emergency, and so we would prioritize this over any other vehicles or equipment that needs to be replaced in 2026. So there are budgeted funds for this purchase.

So none of that has been used at this point?

That is correct. That is correct. Thank you.

I would add perhaps that there are a number of trees in the older part of town that you all picked up the limbs from but this trunk is still there and it's the city trunk and so there's gonna have to be quite a bit more tree removal done at you know these are not gonna fall over on anybody but they're not viable anymore so they're gonna have a lot of tree work coming up yeah we're not we're not done with the whole process yet

I would also add that you drive up Points Avenue from 17th to the high school and several trees almost scrape your car. They're hanging pretty low. Through some of the neighborhoods around the cemetery, there are trees, limbs hanging out over the street very low. So if we're gonna get a new truck, let's use it.

Commissioners, any other comments for Director Stewart?

You want to go over the warranty for it?

Yeah. So there's a... Let me pull some of that up. So standard three-year $36,000 warranty on the vehicle itself that comes from the factory. There is a... lifetime warranty on the structure, and then a one-year warranty on the parts and labor.

How many places did we shop? I mean, you made it sound like you had a real struggle finding a truck, period, but

It's in the timeframe that we need it. We definitely checked. Go ahead, Casey. Two of them. Yeah. What's the other one called?

Commissioners Casey Smith and Park Superintendent. We reached out to two firms. Altec has our current large aerial. We've had them before. They had multiple units, but they're in production, but not until at least November of this year. So it's nothing that they had ready at this point in time. one of those did get sold prior to us getting this item here so we were left with only one choice from them as well but we did look at multiple options also through the current company that we're presenting to you and casey are these two options that we looked at are on our pre-approved contract agreements through those Yeah, the current company is not part of a purchasing cooperative. It's a company that actually just has, they keep about 20 units in stock or out of production at all times, primarily obviously to cater to this type of situation when there's a need or emergency need that comes up. So that's just their market. They're also not the you know, they're getting back into the game. They've been a company that's been In production, but then they switched hands a number of years ago and now they're getting back into trying to get into the market of municipalities as well, so The benefit of that is they have them ready to go when emergencies come up Can you can you explain the engine our engine our idea?

I?

And I apologize. There may be a typo there. I don't know if that was theoretically a PTO hour and I misinterpreted what I was given. I can't help you tonight, but I'm going to say I will look into that to see if I just mistyped it or if I misinterpreted what was given to me. Primarily, obviously, that truck's been out every day when we have crew on, so it is operated every day. Seems pretty light. Point taken. I apologize if that's a mistype on my part of it. I will do some look at it and make sure I give that information back to you.

Thank you, Casey. Commissioner, any additional questions?

I move we approve item E on the consent agenda.

Is there anyone who would like to make a comment on this item? All right. Seeing none, we'll close public comment.

I will now make my motion.

And I will re-second. Thank you. Chelsea.

Commissioner Fox?

Yes.

Commissioner Morrison?

Yes.

Commissioner von Lentl?

Yes.

Mayor Adamtschak?

Yes.

Commissioner McCullough? Yes. Motion carries five to zero.

Thank you. And Jim, can you raise your questions with item F, please?

either as a newbie and not confident, or didn't see it and I saw no copy of bylaws from the Park and Rec Advisory Board in my packet. That may be an oversight or my error, or can you just give us a brief idea what you're doing and why?

I believe they were distributed yesterday afternoon.

While Erin goes to the podium, I will share that at their regular meeting, the Parks and Rec Board was not able to make a quorum. And so that meeting had to be rescheduled to last night. And so we were holding off on putting those in the packet until they got approval at their meeting this evening. So Erin will be happy to go over that summary. Reader's Digest.

Yeah, it's really two housekeeping items. One of the things that we were doing was electing officers in September, but our board terms ended in June. So it's a realignment of election of officers in July when it resets the board term, so that aligns. And the other piece that's in there is if we do have a vacancy, how we go about notifying for another election of officers. because there are a couple of common times that that could occur if a school board member who serves on their board member term with the school district would come off in end of December, January. And then we would get a new person if they held one of the officer positions. It's really to address that vacancy to finish out their term if they're the chair or vice chair. Or if somebody was like to say if they moved and couldn't finish out their term, something like that. So those are really the only two items. It was really a housekeeping adjustment to the bylaws. And the park board did approve five of them.

approve unanimously last night I just would say I this along with several other things to do with the budget has not really come to us I think in a timely manner it takes a lot of time for a commissioner to receive something particularly things we get on Friday we got we didn't get this till yesterday late I realized the board had to vote on it. The other thing is when I get bylaws and that kind of thing, I like to see what was there and what you changed. Usually you see the things that were there, cross out in red, you see the new things in italics. This didn't give me sort of any information as to what the change would be or where you were going. And a number of people have pointed out to me that there are parking rec boards across the state who have more input and more things in their bylaws and more ways to really be involved. And we're kind of just using this board as a, I don't know what, a board that we have there and they don't really have much say.

I would move we approve item F on the consent agenda.

I'll second that.

Chelsea.

We need to take public comment.

Yes. Sorry. You're too fast for me. Is there anyone who would like to make public comment on this item? All right. We will close public comment and move forward. Thank you with the motion.

Commissioner Morrison.

Yes.

Commissioner von Lintel.

Yes.

Mayor Adam track.

Yes.

Commissioner McCullough. Yes. Commissioner Fox.

Yes.

Motion carries five to zero.

Thank you. Uh, we'll now move on to our general agenda. We have two items this evening. The first is considering approving ordinance number seven, eight, three, two. rezoning attractive land located north of the intersection of East Points Avenue and Sarber Lane from Neighborhood Commercial District to Commercial Planned Unit Development District. And we'll hear from Director Peterson.

Good evening, commissioners. As the mayor just stated, your first item this evening that I have is for the Planet Fitness PUD. The general location is over off of East Points Avenue, US 24, so this is in the area Of Academy it's right here. And then the Goodwill is right here Now you can see there the outline of the the PUD that is being proposed. It is currently zoned neighborhood commercial Because it's a PUD we can talk a little bit more about the proposed use So Planet Fitness is planning to build a facility here in the community. This is one of the elevations of that facility and So they will end up demolishing a portion of the building that kind of makes an L shape right here, and then putting in the standalone Planet Fitness. The Goodwill building will stay. I don't know if that tenant is staying, but the building will be there, as well as the hearing. There's a hearing place right here. That building will also remain. In the ordinance, there is one condition of approval. So with the PUD, we like to base those off of one of our existing zoning districts. So for this PUD, all permitted uses that are within the neighborhood commercial district would be permitted except for a beverage kiosk, which is like a drive-through coffee shop. For your information, I included the permitted uses in the CN just so you could get a sense of what would be allowed there. It is zoned CN today. They wanted to go the PUD route. It gives them a little bit more flexibility by being able to restrict certain uses with the signage that can be placed there along with the landscaping requirements. I don't know what happened there. Well, we have a second PUD, but you can see the brighter line there. That's the one we're going to go off of. So you can see that this PUD is consistent with the surrounding commercial uses in the area. And our future land use map also that you recently adopted, it shows this as a commercial area. This did go to the planning board a couple of weeks ago. They passed it unanimously. The only question that was from the public was something about traffic circulation, but we had no concerns with that. So I'm happy to answer any questions you might have.

Well, I know the question about that is kind of a congested area out there, and it's not what I would say 21st century design for parking lots and businesses, but did the Planet folks have any consideration of trying to maintain or improve the traffic flow, not only for themselves, but their neighbors?

Yeah, they are consolidating a driveway down here along the frontage road, so that will certainly help. Because it's an existing parking lot and it's there's existing buildings around there They're a little bit limited and what they can do But they've at least made a few improvements that we liked to see if there's any additional specific questions or if Brian has anything to weigh in on I'll defer to him Commissioners any other questions

May we take public comment on this item? Nobody here from competing fitness centers tonight? All right, seeing no one approach, we will close public comment. Commissioners, do we have a motion for this item?

I move we approve ordinance number 7832. Second. Thank you.

Chelsea, would you call the roll again?

Commissioner von Lintel?

Yes.

Mayor Adamczak?

Yes.

Commissioner McCullough? Yes. Commissioner Fox? Yes. Commissioner Morrison?

Yes.

Motion carries five to zero.

Thank you. Stephanie, you'll present the next item as well. The remaining item on our agenda is to consider approving ordinance 7833 rezoning 930 Yuma Street from low density residential attached district with established neighborhood overlay to business commercial district.

So for you is the 930 Yuma rezoning. This has also been referred to as the Yuma Cultural Center. But I would just remind the commission that we are now going away from a PUD to a straight zoning district. So we cannot rezone a property for an intended use. We have to keep in mind all the potential uses that could be within that zoning district, which we can get into a little bit. Here's location of that property. It's at the corner there on Yuma, so right across from our Douglas Park facilities. Existing zoning here as the mayor mentioned is RLA. It's a low density residential attached district and there is an established Neighborhood overlay that just has certain design requirements for the older part of our community to kind of keep the character intact I would point out that while this is zoned residential this property right here is currently a church and then we have the pi1 which is all of the city's facilities in that Douglas and Park area so this this area these couple of blocks or block and a half they're already a little bit different than the surrounding residential uses when we look at the future land use map there was recognition that the that this area would maybe expand a little bit further to be cultural or public type of facilities which is shown there in purple those those tend to fit really well within an existing residential neighborhood For the uses, so they are requesting to go to BC Business Commercial. It is our most restrictive commercial district. And so you can see the list of permitted uses here. Many of these are already allowed in the RLA. For example, schools can be there. There's some light office use or institutional uses that can occur within our residential districts along with parks and playgrounds, which is everything to the south. This also was unanimously approved by the Planning Board. There were no public comments that were received, and to my knowledge, I don't believe the Planning Board had any concerns on this. Any questions you have for me? Commissioners?

Do we have public comment on this item?

Mayor, commissioners, Garrick Baker, Baker McMillan Architects, the client that we're working with is, of course, asking for this change in zoning. I will also note that this has gone in front of the Historic Resources Board and Board of Zoning Appeals, all of which voted unanimously for the changes that we are proposing here. So there's a lot of goodwill and community investment going in in this area, and we just thank you for your time.

Garrick, would you sign in, please? Would anyone else care to make public comment? Seeing no one approach, we'll close public comment. Do we have a motion?

I would move we approve ordinance number 7833, rezoning 930 Yuma Street from low density residential attached, our LA district with established neighborhood overlay, district two business commercial district.

Second. Thank you. Chelsea. Once more, will you call the roll, please?

Mayor Adamczak?

Yes, with great jubilation.

Commissioner McCullough? Yes. Commissioner Fox? Yes. Commissioner Morrison?

Yes.

Commissioner von Lentl?

Yes.

Motion carries 5 to 0.

Thank you, and congratulations to everyone supporting this project. City Manager Doolin, do you have any comments or information for us?

No, I would just follow up that the Cowboy Poetry Contest does start at 7 p.m. on Friday, and if anyone has never had an opportunity to participate in that, I had an opportunity to judge it last year, and it was incredibly inspiring, and I was moved to tears more than once in joy and in sorrow. So I encourage everyone to go out Thank you for that.

And now, Karen?

I move we adjourn.

All in favor, please say aye.

Aye.

Thank you. We are adjourned.