Topeka ? Walking his dog on the grounds of the former Menninger Clinic, Richard Hipps was unaware of political battles being waged over the area’s future.

State Wildlife and Parks Secretary Mike Hayden wants to turn a chunk of the ground on the western edge of the capital city into a first-rate urban park with a canoe ramp, trails, bird-watching spots and fishing ponds.

But Hayden, a one-term governor who served from 1987 to 1991, said he was running into interference from the Legislature on the Menninger deal and other park ventures, including attempts to increase access along the Kansas River and make the 7,000-acre Circle K ranch into a park in southwestern Kansas.

“It’s the rural legislators who continue to fight every other effort for more public land and better parks,” he said.

Told of the situation, Hipps said he agreed with Hayden’s plans, and that more people would use and appreciate the area if it were a park.

“I love this place,” Hipps said. “The more parks, the better.”

‘Unbelievable location’

Hayden loves it, too.

Walking on the banks of the Kansas River with him is like having a personal Google search engine for anything that grows out of the ground, flies in the air or puts a print in the mud.

Richard Hipps and his dog, Blue, walk along an old road in the middle of a proposed park on the grounds of the former Menninger Clinic in western Topeka. Lawmakers have delayed expenditures for planning and engineering studies for the site until at least June 2005, putting some planned amenities such as a boat ramp onto the Kansas River at least three years away.

“This is an unbelievable location,” Hayden said as he identified plants, birds and animal tracks.

The 88 acres of land had been owned by the famed mental health clinic, which moved in 2003 to Houston.

The land now is owned by developers who are building on other parts of the property and hoping to donate the proposed parkland to the state.

Hayden would love to see it happen, and said he hoped it would add more opportunities for hiking, mountain biking and canoeing. His department would add bathrooms, and Hayden has ideas about extending a trails system from Cedar Crest, the governor’s residence, through the adjacent Menninger park area and on to the nearby Kansas Museum of History.

Parks ranking: Last

But while the popular image of Kansas is one of wide-open spaces, those spaces are pretty much posted “No Trespassing.”

Editorial: Park donations (12-23-03) State park planned for available land (12-22-03) Kansas Department of Wildlife and Parks House Bill 2557 (pdf)

Kansas ranks last in the nation in the amount of public lands per capita. There are only 24 state parks and most are under increasing pressure from a growing number of visitors.

Lawmakers who have vexed Hayden’s plans on the former Menninger property deny being anti-park.

They say they are just being cautious.

Kansas Department of Wildlife and Parks Secretary Mike Hayden looks out on the Kansas River where a boat ramp could be built as part of a proposed park on the former Menninger grounds. Kansas ranks last in the nation in the amount of public lands per capita but two current proposals to add parks have hit legislative resistance.

Hayden wanted to spend $100,000 from park fee funds to start planning and engineering studies of the Menninger land, but state Rep. Ray Merrick, R-Stilwell, succeeded in placing an amendment in the state capital improvements bill that would delay the expenditure until after June 2005.

Merrick said he wanted to make sure the state got title to the land before making any expenditures. “I don’t think the state is so flush that we can set out $100,000 for this and for that,” he said.

Anti-parks attitude?

But Hayden said donation of the land was certain, and would be official within a year’s time. Meanwhile, the state could be using the time to plan for the park.

“With this delay, it might be three years before we get a boat ramp,” Hayden said.

Another fight broke out when some lawmakers refused to allow the proposed park to be named Menninger Memorial, as Hayden had proposed. At one point, the bill creating the park was amended to name it Free State State Park; now the park is simply referred to by a number.

“There’s a lot of upset people kind of left in the lurch when Menninger pulled up stakes and went to Texas,” Merrick said of opposition to the continued use of the Menninger name.

State Rep. Becky Hutchins, R-Holton, chairwoman of the House Tourism and Parks Committee, said there also was some question over whether the state could use the Menninger name.

Hayden said there was no problem, and that naming the park after the famed family of mental health physicians that was so well-known in Kansas for so long was appropriate.

The changes by lawmakers are indicative of an anti-parks attitude, he said.

State Sen. Stan Clark, R-Oakley, was one of five senators who voted against the legislation to create the park out of the former Menninger land.

“We have enough of a challenge trying to fund the existing parks; do we need to spread it any tighter?” Clark asked.

Kansas River, Circle K

Hayden has butted heads with lawmakers and residents over park projects before.

He fought against rural legislators who wanted to require that adjacent landowners be given veto rights on neighboring river access projects. Canoeists said the restriction would hinder development of access points on the Kansas River, but rural legislators said nearby landowners should have a say in the matter because they will have to put up with litter problems and trespassers.

And some residents of Edwards County have said the state has run roughshod over agriculture and business interests in attempts to make the 7,000-acre Circle K ranch into a park in southwestern Kansas. In addition, several lawmakers have complained about Wildlife and Parks rangers being too aggressive with park visitors.

“A lot of people out west, he’s rubbed the wrong way,” Merrick said of Hayden. And he said that Hayden, renowned as a straight talker, also rubbed lawmakers the wrong way sometimes. “The secretary needs to be a little kinder and gentler with people who are responsible for making decisions.”

But Hayden, who grew up in the tiny Rawlins County town of Atwood in northwest Kansas, said he couldn’t understand why the Legislature didn’t see the need for more outdoor opportunities for Kansans. And he’s baffled about hesitance on the Menninger park.

“Why lawmakers aren’t fully embracing this, I don’t understand,” he said.