Story by Mikayla Gentine
Manhattan city commissioners tackled three items Tuesday night.
The first was the consideration of a new Flint Hills Area Transit Agency (FHATA) inter-local agreement and cancellation of the current FHRTA inter-local agreement. The second item considered a change to the parking rules in Aggieville’s streets and public lots. The third reviewed the 2019 City/University Special Projects Funds Request and Committee Recommendations.
The Commission adopted the FHATA agreement, meaning the FHATA will be the designated recipient of FTA 5307 (urbanized area) funds. This means the Flint Hills Regional Council will no longer be the fiscal agent for the FHRTA, and would no longer need to be the fiscal agent for the FHATA.
The two main points of this funds realignment would mean the FHATA will administer and manage the funds and audit in-house, as well as change the entities in the FHATA Board. The board will move from six area representatives to four. The old board included Geary County and Junction City, whereas the new board will have representatives from Manhattan, Riley County, Pottawatomie County, and two representatives from Kansas State University. These representatives on the FHATA Board will be the only designated voting members when it came to the use of 5307 funds.
The Commission later motioned to approve proposed modifications to the parking rules in Aggieville, but not without discussion of several other issues in the business district.
Starting on October 1, the city will implement a few changes and enforce ticketing surrounding the changes to parking limits during 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. hours Monday through Friday. The three-hour parking limit will drop to two hours in existing lots. Laramie Street will be included in the map of two-hour restriction between 11th to 14th streets. The city will also hire a new employee to enforce parking and issue tickets. The city administration says more parking fine revenues will offset the cost of a new part-time employee.
Commissioners brought up caution about the friendly atmosphere Aggieville has during the normal business day, treading carefully and mentioning a shorter parking limit may deter people from bringing their business and spending their money in the district. Concerned Manhattan residents also seemed alarmed at the impact tighter parking rules would mean for visitor behavior. Others praised the proposed change, saying that the new implementations would make parking rules more consistent and less confusing for the average Aggieville visitor. Morse mentioned implementing a time limit on Laramie may force more visitors into residential areas.
The third and final item in the commission’s meeting was the City University Projects Fund, created following the annexation of the university in 1994 so that projects mutually beneficial to the city of Manhattan and the university would be funded.
The three projects are the Campus Perimeter Crosswalk Traffic Signal Improvements, Campus Creek Stormwater Box Safety Improvements, and Colbert Hills Special Assessment Support.
The funds requested to support these three projects total $850,000. The commission ultimately moved to accept all three projects into the 2019 city budget
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