City Commission - workshop
The Manhattan City Commission held a work session to discuss snow removal operations, a proposed private construction lane closure policy, and the engineer on-call policy.
About this meeting
- Government Body
- City Commission
- Meeting Type
- City Commission
- Location
- Manhattan, KS
- Meeting Date
- October 13, 2026
Published excerpts
Only published remarks appear here. The full transcript is not published.
46 sections (from 51 segments)
We do share with the county various roads.
A couple of questions on the site, Brian. Yeah. The one on West Anderson out by Blueville seems like way out there and we don't own it. I'm curious about sites like the old fire station at Anderson and Reith. that we don't seem to use for anything. Perhaps part of the Amherst Fire Station site or the land behind that, that someday will be a practice site.
And also I know we have several what are considered park lands out on the west side that Some people don't even know their parks, their land the city owns, but probably aren't used much. Are any of those sites possibly?
So if we're doing 250,000 for each 50-foot square pad?
We're back to the issues that Mr. Fox raised. We own land. So why are we trying to acquire land and not use what we got? For example, you're already out east. I assume most of your trucks are stored there, repaired there, maintenance there. So it's not out of the way for them to learn the way to get to the salt bin. It's just convenience issues.
But if it costs... $250,000, we can buy a whole lot of diesel at $6 a gallon to accommodate what we have and not have aesthetic issues. I mean, we don't need the Taj Mahal for a salt dump.
I understand, but as the city manager mentions, the aesthetics. Most people want a functionability and accountability for the equipment. I guess I'm just saying, you know, Dealing with the university that's not going to be a reasonable price probably for land and then spend 250,000 to upgrade it I Just think we ought to be using the fire station Site there off Amherst. We have enough land there even for the Fire tower and the other steps are wanting to put out there. Don't we?
But once we own it, we've not had a history of selling anything.
Yeah. I have some best use of land as well our taxpayers can afford and meets your needs for function, it seems to me.
So you're not banking on global warming, solving our problem, and having a beachfront property for sale?
Brian, my only concern is, you know, you've got all that salt, and it is covered, of course. Yes. So you're going to have it leached into the surrounding areas. And, you know, if the horticulture, I mean, you know, you wouldn't want to get into land where they are planting trees and all that kind of stuff. Yes.
I think the other thing is, as far as getting to more efficient, getting to the dome and getting back, is we do hear complaints from people that say they went right by my house. Yeah, you know, and they don't understand that they're probably on their way to, yeah.
I think often we forget to note that the fact that you lost workers doing other things for 24 days, picking up all the limbs, you know, I mean, we just don't figure that in to the equations.
Maybe it'd be best if you just put the sites up and rank them and just gave them one to five and say, you know, ability to distance, that kind of thing, and then the commission could see which were the more valuable.
Yeah, well, I just, you know, I'm sure there are issues that we haven't even thought about. We're not, other than shoveling my sidewalk, I'm not into snow removal. So, yeah, just give us a, you know. A matrix. Yeah.
I hope El Nino isn't as bad as it's supposed to be.
Does that, do you do alleys too? Because in the old part of Manhattan, it is a royal pain. Because Evergy and some of those people just park in the alley and you can't get to your garage.
I have one other thing. I've talked to Danielle and everything, the post office. It's impossible to get to the post office. I mean, is there any way you can facilitate? The only way you can get there is on 5th Street from Osage, and then you really have to go down an alley. Yeah, we'll look at it. Yeah, I mean, it's.
Because I go there frequently, and I see lots of people sending a line, and all the people with post office boxes. Yeah. Okay.
Well, I have a laundry list, and when we get done with the meeting, I will give a copy of it. You can then digest it. Propose an effective date?
Okay. Since we really haven't seen anything other than this concept Is it anticipated that the city will have authority to file a criminal complaint municipal court for violation?
Well, it seems to me We're playing patty cake on something that will never get resolved if they're in some enforcement ability. And the only way we have enforcement ability is having some violation that we file a complaint, have them go to the court, and then they can be held accountable.
But if you have a stop order issue, then there's always going to be the issue if it's not clearly done, notice. Substantiability of proof of what it is and you're gonna have to get an injunction if they don't adhere to it. And that's even, so I think it's more direct to have a crime or offense that we can go to the court and say, here's the three things we've done and they're scallywags.
I'm trying to get us to a point where it isn't a point because it will be clear apparently on the application that the statement was the owner's liable. So I assume the owner's going to have to sign the application, not the contractor, not the general, not a corporation. I mean, so, you know, if they're the landowner, I believe we can go after them. Pardon me. Do I have others?
It's Resolved I'll have no more observation. I'll give you my information. Thank you. You can do with it as you please. Thank you.
I Personally, I think this kind of problem is going to become more and more prevalent because of our zoning changes where we have allowed a smaller corner to corner setbacks or lot line to lot line construction so the only place they can go is out into the street to build these things yes you're spot on big difference from just running a water line out to the street takes a few days they're obstructing the street the entire time of the project so we've got to figure out something to
Well, it is a tough situation, I understand. They need the space. We're trying to speed them up as much as possible, but yet we don't want to add a bunch of cost to the project that's already cost a lot to do. So hopefully we can figure out
I think there is a lane closure You can call it the lane shift, but we lost lane on the south side and or we're encroaching towards not safe The concrete barrier is at least 18 inches to two feet into the normal travel lane, or at least it was the last time I went down points. I tried not to go down, but I think that is not a fair statement. And that was my argument even when we met with them there to get us, it's a massive project, I understand that. And had we had this in place when they started, they might have done things differently. So there may be a need for some softness, but There is
But you got it cramped down to where parking... No doubt. And so to say there's no lane closure is not an accurate statement, in my opinion.
Yeah, I think there are costs borne by other people downtown in Manhattan. I mean, we're all thrilled with the Wareham Hotel procedure but of course there's some parking spaces lost and so that might impact other businesses that kind of thing and quite frankly it's just a hassle to drive down points and it's better now we finally finished the Commerce Bank building but you know you had to change this way and go back to that lane and so and but I am you know I think we as commissioners must recognize that what we're doing on Anderson Avenue, closing lanes, shifting lanes, that we should probabl
We voted for it. I agree. But I do know many people who live in that area. And it's kind of daunting some days.
I think they just expect us to understand their frustrations and explain to them that this is really important and we're going to do it. But on the other hand, if you're going to a dinner invitation on Carla Lane, you find out you can't get to Carla Lane. You have to go back. You can get everywhere you need to go. I'm not saying we shouldn't be doing this. We definitely should be doing this. But I think we also have to realize that there's a lot of public consternation about... When? And driving in one lane when there was that drop-off, that was kind of scary.
But when we come back with the final we can certainly set those rates or whatever you want some I would assume this would not apply to individual say homeowners that... Suddenly have a sewer go bad the sewer lines running out to the street or the water line, so you've got to go out into the street and close it off for a couple of days, or at least one lane.
The lane's out in the middle of the street, so you can't get through one lane. And sometimes that lane is closed for a few days. Sometimes a couple weeks. You wonder why they haven't come back to fill in the holes.
The duration might be the entire length of the project, but the number of days subject to closure might only be a portion of that. That would be designated. You get so many days.
You know, that cost may vary depending on whether it's a major collector street or, you know, 800 Morrow Street or the side streets that doesn't get used as much.
On your face sheet. you know, itemizing your comments and all that you sent out with the document. You say request for qualifications and you list consultants submit their proposals. So is this a design concept? I assume we're looking, when we talk about, we're looking for the engineer who's gonna do the plumbing, the contractor. We're looking for people who are gonna do the work, not looking for consultants to tell you what you need to do.
And then within their design, it's just like a design bid where they have also a builder's going to build it for what their design is?
and currently I've never asked, and I suppose somewhere I could find out if I was smart enough to go through our city channel, and I'm not today, is do we know who those three are in each one of the categories? Yes, yeah. And are they public anywhere?
But the contractor that calls me up or the design guy says, hell, I never get considered. I don't know who's on the list to say, have you gone to the city to get on the list? That's my best result. And I think it's an informational thing. Who are the people we are asking to be kind of exclusive dealers with? And it seems to me there is a risk of saying, these are three things we need to do in one location. If we divide that in three projects, we can get it done with three of these and not- And we do.
or they should be maybe for coordination one project where we have a design, we have construction, we can do a construction bid, competitive bid to do things, but we can design it to make it three, four, or five so we can get through with this process and not a more complete, in my opinion, complete overview of what's going on.
Do we have restrictions? Let's say they have to be located, since this is a city and our city taxpayers pay for it, they have to be business in the city? I understand that. I'm just saying, I'm trying to confirm that we don't do that. So somebody from Huamigo, Topeka can apply to get on this list?
I understand legally we're not supposed to. I'm willing to affirm that's not being done.
Personally I think this is a good idea so time is money yeah I think it's a good idea but I would say we've got a lot more engineering firms in town than we used to have I mean we kind of no actually we're down
These excerpts are remarks by officials whose identity a person confirmed, from a transcript generated automatically from the official public meeting video and presented unedited. Accuracy may vary; view the original recording for reference.