ELLY GRIMM
• Leader & Times
There could be some redevelopment for the downtown area of Liberal in the coming future, and citizens from the community had the chance to share their thoughts at the Liberal City Commission’s most recent meeting Tuesday evening.
Up first was local citizen John Smith.
“I do own a business downtown, and I think this has been a long time coming in terms of improvement,” Smith said. “This is a very good opportunity, and I’m very much in favor of things being improved and updated. You can never do anything that won’t inconvenience someone at some point, and a good example of that is the 2nd Street drainage that went on as long as it did, but it was something that had to be addressed. I think the downtown area is similar, and I’m very much in favor of pursuing as much of what was presented as possible, but I know it will take some time and coordination.”
Midtown Pizzeria and Pub and Brickhouse Barbecue and Brew owner Jeff Hall also shared his opinion.
“In the past few years, my wife and I have invested basically $1 million in the downtown area, and I think this is an opportunity for these businesses to grow,” Hall said. “Then, as the success grows, I think it’s a good opportunity for other businesses to come in and start doing work similar to what we’re doing. In the past few years is my wife and I have taken multiple detours through multiple small town, and something we’ve noticed is in the towns with particularly busy downtown areas, there’s the angled parking. Pratt is a great example of that, and so is Kingman. There are a lot of small towns that have this in place that have taken advantage of that. With the Common Consumption Area now in place, I think it’s a great time to strike while the iron’s hot and keep working and making improvements.”
Code Enforcement Director Keith Bridenstine was on hand to share some data.
“There are three types of angled parking – there’s the 30-degree angle, which is pretty aggressive, and then the middle of the road is a 45-degree angle, and the least restrictive is the 60-degree angle,” Bridenstine said. “I did figure out the approximate parking area affected from the railroad tracks all the way to 5th Street. I also worked up multiple scenarios that included the angles and turn lanes, as well as one side featuring angle parking and the other side remaining parallel parking. There are a few options that could work, but as has already been said, there are a lot of factors to consider in terms of safety and all of that, so it’s all going to ultimately be up to city leadership.”
Local citizen Christopher Fosdick also spoke to the commission.
“As far as the angled parking on Kansas Avenue and all of that, I really think it’s going to be a disaster,” Fosdick said. “The reason I think that is, as the vice mayor can attest to ... the street where Lewis Automotive is, there’s front parking there, and there are times when the traffic there gets unruly. And now there’s talk about moving that onto Kansas Avenue, which sees much more traffic, and I think it’s a disaster in the making.”
Up next to speak was local citizen Chris Linenbroker.
“I’m not really for or against angled parking or renovating the downtown area,” Linenbroker said. “I have stopped and watched traffic in town, and if you reduce that traffic down to two lanes at a non-busy time, there would be traffic from 2nd Street almost all the way down to City Hall. And that’s just with regular lights and no trains or any of those obstructions. Traffic could be backed up even worse when a train comes through. That’s definitely something to think about.”
Liberal Fire Chief Kelly Kirk then spoke regarding potential effects for emergency response.
“I had met with Scarlette [Diseker] and Keeley [Young] about this, and I would say what’s best for the Liberal Fire Department is a prosperous Liberal,” Kirk said. “I look at this from two sides – one is the response from the station to the emergency scene, that’s probably our biggest area of liability as a department. There’s also the consideration of, when there’s an event downtown and if there’s a medical emergency or something similar, where would we put our apparatus in order to take care of whatever is going on? When thinking about this from a fire department standpoint, those arterial roads east to west are going to be Pine Street, Pancake Boulevard, 2nd Street, 7th Street, 11th Street, 15th Street and Tucker Road. Going north to south would be Western Avenue, Clay Avenue, Pershing Avenue, Kansas Avenue and the overpass. They all have their issues at times, and there’s a lot of factors to consider with all of those streets. I know there have been concerns expressed about how we would navigate everything from an emergency services standpoint, but I feel like the impact would be pretty negligible.”
