The Flint Hills Regional Council Board of Directors met Friday at the Riley’s Conference center on Fort Riley, and one of the discussions involved preparing for an upcoming Programmatic Environmental Assessment at Fort Riley.

The Department of the Army is looking to draw down it’s size from 540,000 to 490,000 and possibly lower. In doing so they will be holding PEA’s at bases across the country, just like one held last year at Fort Riley.

Maj. Gen. Paul Funk, Fort Riley Commanding General attended the Regional Council’s meeting and weighed in on that discussion.

“It is a competition, we can’t shy away from that. We’re competing against Fort Polk, Louisiana, probably Fort Carson. Fort Carson, at any stretch of the imagination you can compete with that, I’ve been stationed at Fort Carson I know how that goes,” Funk said. “They don’t depend, the city of Colorado Springs and the surrounding communities, don’t depend on the Army like this area does.”

During the PEA community members are encouraged to voice what it is about Fort Riley that makes it important to the region, but also what the region does for Fort Riley that makes it important to the Army.

“They will listen to me, but they’ll really listen to you,” Funk said.

Some of the ideas that the Regional Council came up with that they would like to highlight during the PEA would include the intergovernmental relationships that have been developed between Fort Riley and the surrounding communities.

William ‘Bill’ Clark, Executive Director of the FHRC, explained that that in 2013 Congress passed the National Defense Authorization Act which allows the Department of Defense and installations  to partner financially with communities off of the installation.

“So really Fort Riley and our region is kind of spear heading the Army in how we’re working to form that agreement. We’ve done some training sessions, were Fort Riley will have a training session, members from off the installation will come on to participate free of charge and vice versa,” Clark said.

Clark also said that they are working out how they share equipment and the “pocketbook.”

“We have some more pieces to work through there but for example if we buy salt and sand together, there’s economies of scale when you buy in bulk. Those are things we’re working together closely on.”

Maj. Gen. Funk added that he believes that the partnership that Fort Riley and the Manhattan Regional Airport and the Salina Airport have will be important to mention as well. Both the Manhattan Regional Airport and the Salina Airport offer quick opportunities for Fort Riley to move a large number of Soldiers in a short period of time.

“The deploy-ability aspect of this is that everybody says that ‘Fort Riley is in the center of the country and they can’t get anywhere,’ and I always say ‘Oh yeah, watch us, we’re good at this,’ and we’ve got to keep telling that story,” Funk said.

When the Department of the Army will visit Fort Riley and hold a PEA community meeting is still unknown. The FHRC will continue to develop talking points to prepare for the PEA at their next meeting July 18th in Grandview Plaza.