Voters decisively ousted the two incumbents in Tuesday\u2019s Manhattan City Commission race and elected candidates who promised to trim the budget and lower taxes.<\/p>\n
Incumbents Jayme Minton and Peter Oppelt came in fifth and seventh, respectively, out of nine candidates running for three positions on the commission, according to unofficial final results from Riley County.<\/p>\n
Taking their seats will be former K-State Foundation employee Larry Fox, who won the race with 3,709 votes, and retired attorney Jim Morrison, who came in second with 3,500. Big Lakes Developmental Services employee Andrew Von Lintel was third with 2,681. However, business owner Amber Starling was close behind with 2,642.<\/p>\n
County officials will have the final results after certification of the election, which can take up to 30 days. It was not immediately clear how many provisional ballots remained to be counted and whether that number could tip the result. State law allows for re-counts in close races if requested by citizens or candidates.<\/p>\n
In the rest of the field, Minton received 2,111 votes; Scott Seel had 2,101; Oppelt had 1,921; Martha Sweeney had 1,547; and Abena Taylor had 611.<\/p>\n
The top three will replace Minton, Oppelt and commissioner John Matta, who did not seek re-election, when their terms expire in January.<\/p>\n
Fox said he expects a shift in the commission\u2019s priorities next year when it comes to spending.<\/p>\n
\u201cOne of our issues was all of the projects that they come up with, the city, that they think we need, that some of us maybe don\u2019t think we need right away,\u201d he said on Wednesday. \u201cI mean, we\u2019ve got to look at what we can afford. And there have been some projects put out there that, you know, like a roundabout on Anderson, that is just, we\u2019re not ready for that. And there have been some other projects that we need to get our budget in order (for) and quit spending millions on projects that can wait.\u201d<\/p>\n
Morrison said he looks forward to working with the city manager, Danielle Dulin, on more conservative spending. Dulin was hired by the city in October 2024.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was disappointed that the commission, basically, in my opinion, overrode the city manager, who recommended no increase (to the city budget), and they did it anyway,\u201d Morrison said. \u201cI have faith that we will form a working relationship with our city manager, and she and us and the staff come up with some solutions, not to spend as much money as we do, and be taking care of our needs. And that\u2019s going to hurt some places.\u201d<\/p>\n
The presumptive third commissioner-elect, Von Lintel, echoed his peers\u2019 focus on city spending and said he values collaboration.<\/p>\n
\u201c(We\u2019ve) got to listen to the commissioners, got to listen to the voters, got to listen to the city manager,\u201d he said. \u201cSometimes got to listen to county. Sometimes it\u2019s school board. Sometimes, you know, it\u2019s a collaborative effort, and you just got to listen, listen, listen. Think about it, try to find a compromise on some of these issues. It\u2019s going to be a challenge, but I\u2019m very optimistic that we\u2019ve got a crew that can that can get this done. So I\u2019m excited.\u201d<\/p>\n
Fox, Morrison and Von Lintel all were endorsed by the conservative political action committee Our Manhattan.<\/p>\n
Oppelt said he was disappointed in the results of the race.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think that I ran a very clean campaign, and I worked my hardest to get out and talk to voters and meet folks, and I have served myself and my community proudly the last two years,\u201d Oppelt said Tuesday night at a watch party at Manhattan Brewing Company. \u201cI did everything I could do, and the folks that participated today chose to go a different direction.\u201d<\/p>\n
Minton was appointed to her position by the other commissioners in May 2024 after Mayor Wynn Butler resigned following a car accident and DUI charge.<\/p>\n
Minton said it was her honor to serve on the commission, and that her and Oppelt\u2019s differing perspectives made them a good team.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe were really wanting to both get re-elected, as well as with Scott Seel,\u201d she said Wednesday morning. \u201cAnd so, of course, you know, disappointed in that outcome.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m proud of the campaign that we ran,\u201d Minton continued. \u201cWe kept it very focused on what our campaign was and talked about growth as a solution to our burden, and we just really focused on our campaign. I can\u2019t say that others running did the same, but we were proud of what we did. But definitely disappointed in the results, worried that our future will not be the focus for the next few years.\u201d<\/p>\n
The top two candidates in voting will receive four-year terms, while the third place in voting will receive a two-year term on the commission. They will join Mayor Karen McCulloh and commissioner Susan Adamchak on the board.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Voters decisively ousted the two incumbents in Tuesday\u2019s Manhattan City Commission race and elected candidates who promised to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":29911,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[1412,7151,416,609,75,84,83,9,24,63,3437],"class_list":{"0":"post-30062","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-manhattan","8":"tag-accountability","9":"tag-democracy","10":"tag-elections","11":"tag-government","12":"tag-manhattan","13":"tag-manhattan-headlines","14":"tag-manhattan-news","15":"tag-new-york","16":"tag-new-york-city","17":"tag-nyc","18":"tag-political-events"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30062","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30062"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30062\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29911"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30062"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30062"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30062"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}