Riley County commissioners approved the purchase of the First Christian Church property in the courthouse plaza during their meeting Monday.
Commissioners brought up the purchase last meeting, but put it on hold due to a non-unanimous vote. They want to use the property for additional office space due to expansions to the courthouse. During this meeting, Commissioner Ron Wells says the commission has been working on securing this property since about 2007.
“If you can imagine how short sighted it would have been if our forefathers would have built a 10 room shack over here instead of the courthouse. This is for long term planning,” says Wells.
The county showed interest in this property to keep the county buildings in downtown Manhattan. Wells says they have looked at other properties in the city and could not find any that fit the budget. They even considered moving offices to the county shop, but this proved to be too expensive. The preference to keep the downtown location is due to the majority of the county population being in Manhattan.
“Most important thing to remember is this money has been sitting here to acquire property. We aren’t increasing any taxes or anything, it’s sitting there,” says Wells.
Wells says the county has money set aside for the current pandemic, so they need to move forward with this purchase. The cost of the property is around $850,000.
After approving the purchase, Manhattan Alliance for Peace and Justice Member Kim Zito accused the commission of not doing their due diligence of inspecting the building before purchase . This is due to Commissioner Wells saying he not been in the building yet.
“So why are we purchasing a building that you haven’t even walked into?! It’s common sense before purchasing real estate, that you would walk into the building you’re purchasing!” says Zeato, “That just seems heinous to me.”
Wells told Zeato they are purchasing the land and the building comes with it. They may or may not use the building, depending on their need. County Clerk Rich Vargo clarified to Zeato that county staff has been inspecting the building since early talks back in 2007.
“If you want a copy of it I have quite a few pages from 2007 to 2012, so we aren’t going just going into it blind. I’m talking about currently as far as whether we can use it now or not and that is what we will find out,” says Wells.
Vargo added the commission has been studying meeting minutes from previous commissions dealing with this purchase.
Commissioner John Ford voted against the purchase due to the current pandemic and the long term effects. He had also voted against the purchase during their last meeting.
“In this particular case for me it just came down to the short term. I just think $850,000 dollars right now may be necessary down the road in case of an emergency or something else,” says Ford.
Ford says since the county does not have a specific plan on what to do with the building yet, he feels this specific project does not feel like an immediate necessity. There are current projects Ford believes are more vetted out, fiscal, and necessary.
The purchase was approved 2-1.
