A member of the Riley City Council is running for the District 2 seat of the Riley County commission.
Council Member Greg McKinley is taking on incumbent commissioner Marvin Rodriguez and Candidate Phil Mattox in the upcoming primary. Candidate Fanny Fang is running unopposed in the democratic primary.
McKinley has been serving on the Riley City Council for 10 years and decided to run for the commission last year. When asked about what makes him different from the other candidates, he says he is a resident of north county.
“I’ve planned for a long time to do this because I thought this is something we needed,” says McKinley.
The reason for McKinley’s candidacy is he doesn’t believe there isn’t an effective representation of the northern county on the commission. Initially, McKinley was going to go door to door with a petition, but then the COVID-19 pandemic hit.
McKinley has been an advocate for an ambulance station up in the northern part of the county, even offering building space at the Riley City Hall. He criticized the commission back in 2018 for the long response times saying they cared more about money than the people.
“It’s called Riley County ambulance service, but it’s really Manhattan ambulance. They moved one station to the public works shop, but even the director said they will be spending most of their time in Manhattan anyway,” says McKinley.
The ambulance station was set up in that area to help reduce response times to the towns in the northern part of the county. However, McKinley says this only reduced times by five minutes on an already 40 minute response time. McKinley’s solution to reducing response times is have a station in Leonardville.
“When this has been brought up, they say well financially this doesn’t work, it doesn’t pay for us because there are not enough calls up there. I try to explain to them that it isn’t a business, it’s a service and we pay taxes up here for that service,” says McKinley.
McKinley says residents in the northern county have had their neighbors drive them into Manhattan because it’s faster. When it comes to paying for this new station, McKinley does not yet know if it will require a tax increase.
In terms of the county’s COVID pandemic response, McKinley says the commission needs to lean on the health department for direction. McKinley has been wearing a mask when he goes to public places. While he doesn’t like the mask mandate in Manhattan, he understands it is something to help stop the spread of the virus.
Another topic McKinley would like to explore is the half cent sales tax continuation for the county. Commissioners recently voted to delay putting the question on the ballot due to the pandemic. McKinley says he has seen the positive effect the sales tax has had on the roads in the county.
“The worst ones in the county have really been brought up to date and there’s still more to be done. They’ve really used it effectively to improve the roads,” says McKinley.
McKinley says even the small roads in the county are still used by large farm equipment, which can deal great damage to a road.
You can listen to the full interview with McKinley right here:
