Riley County commissioners continued discussions Monday morning on negotiations with the City of Manhattan that could see the county’s emergency management services potentially sharing space with the Manhattan Fire Department headquarters on Kimball and Denison. This kind of lease agreement differs from residential agreements, and so require different scrutiny.
The county would like to move emergency management services to the building with infrastructure improvements.
The proposed 50-year lease agreement would require the county to make rent payments to the city for 15 years. The county would then be rent-free for the rest of the lease. The property is on the K-State campus and county counselor Clancy Holeman cautioned commissioners to consider a contingency plan in case KSU decides to use the building for other purposes.
“For whatever reason some new administration at K-State says we don’t need this, and if that happens, and there’s four, five, six, 10 – however ever many years are left on those bond payments – the City takes those over, rather than the county, and making bond payments on a building we’re no longer occupying,” Holeman suggested to the commission. “I can’t imagine that (the City) would assume those bond payments, but what I’d like to find out if there’s some interim position that you would accept.”
Commissioner Robert Boyd took a liking to Holeman’s suggestion of splitting payments or at least renegotiating them.
“That’s where I was going to go,” Boyd said.
Holeman said current drafts of the agreement are optimistic none of the above worries will be an issue.
“There’s a certain amount of good faith we have going on,” he said. “And while I’m a big fan of good faith…the way this is structured, for 15 years the county is on the hook for those bond payments.”
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