The new Kansas Governor Jeff Colyer wants to see a stable long range funding plan for the Kansas Department of Transportation, wants to rebuild the mental health treatment system, and is supportive of the effort to seek another brigade of troops for Fort Riley.
Those were topics for Colyer during a stop at Bob’s Coffee in Junction City, one of several for him in east central and northeast Kansas communities on Saturday.
On the additional troop issue Colyer told a news conference, “One of the things that would be very helpful is to see more soldiers here.” He feels that would be an important opportunity. ” We have discussed this with the federal legislators and we stand ready to be very helpful on that. I think that’s something that we’re going to work very had on over the next couple of years.”
Colyer noted Kansas highways are among the top five best or top ten highway systems in the United States but there are a lot of challenges, particularly in rural parts of the state. “What I would like to see is more stable financing of this over the next few years. What we’ve proposed is that we have a study that we build on a new sort of T-Works type of program that would look at where we’re going over the next five to ten years and help us prioritize what our spending is and where those are going to be built.”
During the Governor’s session with the public, the Geary County Sheriff Tony Wolf, noted that the mental health system in Kansas is broken with people who need assistance ending up on the streets and eventually in his jail. Wolf said he has had to hire people to help handle those folks but after they’re out of jail there is no support system. The infrastructure exists but no funding to operate those things. Colyer responded by noting a lot of money is now being spent on facilities in Osawatomie and Larned, and officials are looking at opportunities on how this treatment can also be done better in local facilities. “I want to rebuild the system.” He made it clear he wants to go to the root causes of the problems and not just throw money at them.
Colyer stated during his visit with the media that a legislative task force has recommended a number of changes and opportunities. “And we’re going to follow those. We’re going to start immediately on that. Within our own departments we’re looking at a number of options for us where we can really help individual communities that have substance abuse issues and a lot of mental health issues.”
In addition to Junction City, Colyer also visited Manhattan, Leavenworth and Atchison on Saturday.