They are not banned from talking to staff. They are banned from running staff.

Under Topeka’s council-manager charter, the governing body is legislative and policy-making. It has no administrative powers. The city manager is the administrative head. That line is in the charter itself.

The current Governing Body Rules (effective August 11, 2026) spell out what that means in practice:

What councilmembers may not do

• Interfere directly with the conduct of any municipal department.
• Give instructions or directions to department heads or other city employees (except the assistant to the Council).
• Give individual orders to the city manager. Direction to the manager has to come from the governing body after a majority (six) approves it. The manager is supposed to ignore one-off instructions and send them back to the body as a whole.

What they may do

• Ask the city manager, department heads, or their designees for routine information.
• Ask the city manager for lengthy or detailed reports (those requests go through the manager, not around him).
• Talk directly with a staff member when the manager has assigned that person to a specific task — including staffing a council committee.
• Provide input to the manager on the assistant to the Council / assistant to the Mayor.

So a councilmember calling Public Works for a status on a pothole, drainage question, or a constituent complaint is generally allowed as a request for information. A councilmember calling Public Works and telling them which project to do first, who to hire, or how to run the shop is the part the rules treat as improper.

The practical rule of thumb in a council-manager city: ask questions and gather facts; do not supervise. Meetings with staff for briefings, committee work, or constituent follow-up are normal. Meetings that turn into management are what the charter and Rule 2.6 are written to stop.

Frito-Lay PepsiCo / Frito-Lay — public, global, and priced every day

Frito-Lay has been in Topeka 70 years, not since the big plant on I-470. The current factory is the second Topeka home, built after a tornado. The tax breaks that show up in the public record are almost all on later expansions, not a documented 1971 “welcome package” with a dollar figure attached.

When they came

1956 — first plant.
Frito-Lay opened at S.E. 6th and Kansas Avenue. That is the same east-side industrial corridor where Reser’s later sat. Employment when a longtime worker started in 1970 was only about 43 people.

June 8, 1966 — tornado.
The 1966 Topeka tornado destroyed that building. The company ran a temporary plant in Pauline (south of the city, near what is now the Forbes / Topeka Regional Airport area) while it rebuilt.

August 30, 1971 — current plant opens.
The south Topeka factory at 4236 S.W. Kirklawn (just south of I-470, west of Topeka Boulevard; same campus often listed as 1303 S.W. 41st) opened that day. PepsiCo’s own 1971 annual report lists “a new Topeka, Kansas, plant” for Cheetos, Doritos, Funyuns, and Munchos. It started around 100 workers. The site was chosen for turnpike / I-470 truck access and a Kansas workforce, not because Topeka was a potato district — potatoes and corn still roll in from Nebraska.

So: in Topeka since 1956; at the plant everyone drives past since August 30, 1971. That is the date the company itself used for the 40-year party in 2011.

What they were given (what is actually in the record)

Kansas does not publish one tidy “Frito-Lay incentive file” from 1956. What is public is ordinance-level and newspaper-level, plus later county exemption hearings. Here is what holds up.

1956 and 1971 — original location and rebuild

I did not find a digitized City of Topeka or Shawnee County packet that lists IRBs, a cash grant, or a named property-tax abatement for the 1956 shop or the 1971 Kirklawn plant. Kansas already had industrial revenue bond authority (K.S.A. 12-1740 et seq., 1961), so a 1971 bond deal is possible. It is not in the online archives the way 2009 and 2018 are.

What the company and state later said about why Topeka: interstate access, labor, and a “business-friendly” state. After the tornado they already had people and a market; they rebuilt here instead of leaving. That is a location decision, not a published subsidy spreadsheet.

Treat 1971 incentives as not documented in the sources below, not as “they got nothing.”

2007–2011 — the era that is documented

From 2007 on the plant was in almost continuous expansion: about 75,000 sq. ft. in 2007, 125,000 in 2009, a $53 million high-rise automated warehouse around 2010, biomass boiler, SunChips / Tostitos lines. Roof area was described in that period as heading toward 800,000 sq. ft. on roughly 188 acres.

June 2009 — 10-year county property-tax break on the addition.
Shawnee County agreed to a 10-year exemption from property tax on the new work: biomass boiler, Tostitos Scoops line, and a 30,000-square-foot warehouse. Go Topeka’s Steve Jenkins announced it. Important detail from the Capital-Journal: Go Topeka did not put countywide economic-development sales-tax cash into the deal. The incentive was the county tax exemption on the new property, framed as job retention for 800-plus workers, not a big new hiring pledge.

Frito-Lay’s own plant engineer, Allen Moore, later told Site Selection the state helped with “standard tax abatements and other incentives” and that “GO Topeka, the city and county were all very good to work with.” That is the company describing the 2007–2011 wave, not a 1971 ordinance.

Federal piece on the boiler: DOE put about $1.66 million into a ~$13 million biomass energy project at the Topeka plant (wood waste, including city yard waste from I-70 and MacVicar). That is a federal cost-share, not a city check.

Stacked exemptions. In January 2018 the county commission’s agenda included renewing year 8 and year 9 of separate Frito-Lay projects. That means at least two 10-year economic-development exemptions were running at once, consistent with a 2009 deal and a follow-on ~2010 warehouse deal.

August 13, 2018 — warehouse EDX

County commission approved an economic development property-tax exemption for an 86,000-square-foot hi-tech warehouse on land west of the plant (bought from the Graeme W. Henderson Trust; city rezoned/platted it as Frito-Lay Subdivision No. 3 / PUD so they could go taller than the old 70-foot I-1 cap, up to 125 feet).

What the hearing actually said:

• Exemption is on new value, not the existing factory. County counselor Jim Crowl: existing plant stays on the tax roll.
• Jobs pledged: 7 new, 6 retained on that project — small next to an 800–1,000 person plant.
• Staff cost-benefit: about $1.03 million to the city and $166,000 to the county over 10 years, “net benefit” ~$1.2 million. That is their model, not an audited check.
• Context numbers in the packet: land/buildings around the site appraised about $9.3 million; 2018 tax on that existing property about $380,471. That was the old tax, not the abated amount.
• Public objection: resident Marge Ahrens said Auburn-Washburn USD 437 had already lost on the order of $2.5 million county / $2 million city from exemption subsidies in 2017. Commissioner Kevin Cook called the Frito deal “an investment now, to have a much larger investment in the future.”

The 2018 file also allowed a payment in lieu of taxes if the county wanted one. The published stories do not print the PILOT schedule.

What they generally did not get (in the clips)

• No JEDO cash grant on the scale of Reser’s later $1 million (2025) or Reser’s huge EDX face amount. Frito-Lay’s public deals are property-tax exemptions on increments, plus state “standard” abatements, plus a DOE boiler grant.
• No evidence in these sources of a free water rate or a special industrial water contract. They sit on the city’s published Industrial / Industrial II class like everyone else in that class.
• Go Topeka cash from the countywide ED sales tax: specifically declined in 2009.

Predictable class discount is just a plain-English label for how Topeka prices water. It is two ideas stuck together: class, and predictable.

1. What a “class” is

Topeka does not charge every gallon the same price. The city puts each account into a customer class and publishes a different volume rate for each class.

2026 inside-city water, per 1,000 gallons:

• Single-family: $7.75
• Multifamily: $6.28
• Commercial: $5.99
• Industrial: $5.35
• Industrial II: $5.04
• Irrigation: $9.31

Once Frito-Lay, Mars, or Reser’s is coded Industrial or Industrial II, every thousand gallons that month is billed at that one rate. Ten thousand gallons or ten million gallons — same cents per thousand.

That cheaper industrial number, compared with the house rate, is the class discount. A house pays $7.75. Industrial II pays $5.04. The plant is getting $2.71 off per thousand gallons versus a single-family account. That is not a secret rebate. It is printed in the ordinance.

Topeka staff have said this out loud: historically the city has used a declining rate structure — the more you use (or the class you sit in), the less you pay per gallon.

2. Why “discount”

Three things are being discounted at once.

Versus residential. The plant’s gallon is cheaper than the household gallon on purpose. The political story is usually “large users help pay for the treatment plant and the 900 miles of pipe, so they get a bulk price.” The other story is “we want factories.” Both can be true. The tariff does the same thing either way.

Versus commercial. Industrial and Industrial II sit below commercial. A storefront and a chip plant are not priced the same.

Versus what a “cost of one gallon” story would look like. In a pure cost-of-service world you might still give big meters a break on the fixed charge (a 6-inch meter costs more to read and to size the main for), but you would not automatically make the commodity cheaper just because the customer is labeled industrial. Topeka does both: bigger base charge on a big meter, and a lower volume rate if you qualify for the industrial class.

Industrial II is the extra notch — the city’s cheapest published retail gallon. That is the class a truly large process user wants to be in.

3. Why “predictable”

Predictable means the plant controller can forecast the water line item without a weather model or a winter-average formula.

On the first of the month they know:

• meter size → base charge (fixed)
• class → dollars per thousand gallons (fixed)
• estimated production → gallons

Bill ≈ base + (gallons ÷ 1,000 × class rate)

If they fry 10 percent more potatoes, water cost goes up about 10 percent. If they cut a shift, it goes down about 10 percent. No surprise block. No “you used more than last February, so this thousand gallons just tripled.”

That is what a CFO means by predictable input cost. Electricity has time-of-use and demand charges. Natural gas has index plus transport. Topeka industrial water, as written today, is closer to a catalog price.

4. What it is not

It is not a declining block inside the month.

Some cities say: first 2 million gallons at $X, next 5 million at $Y, over 7 million at $Z. Emporia works that way. Your last gallon is cheaper than your first gallon in that billing period.

Topeka’s discount is by who you are, not by how far you are into this month’s meter. Industrial II at 500,000 gallons pays $5.04. Industrial II at 10,000,000 gallons still pays $5.04. The house next door pays $7.75 on its little meter whether it used 3,000 or 8,000 gallons.

So “the more you use, the cheaper each gallon” is true in Topeka only in this sense: if you can get into a bigger class, your rate is lower. It is not true that a factory’s 10-millionth gallon is cheaper than its first gallon that month.

5. Contrast: the unpredictable structures

This is why the phrase matters when you put Topeka next to Wichita, Hays, Lawrence, or Olathe.

Winter-average / inclining block (Wichita, Hays, parts of Olathe and Lawrence residential).
The city measures what you used in December–February (or a similar window) and calls that your Average Winter Consumption (AWC) or winter quarter average.

• Use up to ~110% of that winter number: cheap block.
• Use 111–310% of winter: middle block (Wichita commercial jumps from $3.83 to $13.36 per thousand).
• Blow past that: third block ($19.55 in Wichita).

For a lawn, that is a conservation tool. Winter use is indoor-only; summer irrigation is the spike; you pay extra for the spike.

For a food plant, winter is not a quiet season. Potatoes, corn, sanitation, and cooling run in January. If the plant runs hard all year, AWC is high, and most months stay in Block 1 — Wichita can look cheaper than Topeka. If they add a line in April, or picnic-season salad volume doubles in June, or a second shift starts, a big slice of the bill can jump from $3.83 to $13.36 overnight. That is not a class discount. That is a usage penalty tied to last winter.

That is the opposite of predictable. The rate on a given gallon depends on a ratio to a past season, not on a published class price.

Inclining residential blocks in Lawrence use the same idea for houses. Their industrial rate is a high flat class rate ($10.33) — predictable, but not a discount versus houses in the same way Topeka’s is. Lawrence industrial is expensive and flat. Topeka industrial is cheap and flat.

6. Worked example (same 10 million gallons)

Assume inside city, volume only, one month.

Topeka Industrial II
10,000 × $5.04 = $50,400
Every month that they use 10 million gallons, same math. Year = 12 × $50,400 = $604,800 water volume, plus base, plus sewer.

Wichita commercial, all inside Block 1
10,000 × $3.83 = $38,300
Looks like a $12,000 win that month.

Wichita, same 10 million, but winter average was only 4 million (plant was down for a rebuild in January–February, then roared back).

• Block 1: 4.4 million gal × $3.83 ≈ $16,850
• Block 2: next 8 million (4.4M to 12.4M of the 110–310% band) — they only have 5.6 million left in the month, all in Block 2: 5,600 × $13.36 ≈ $74,800
• Total ≈ $91,650
  Same gallons. Bill more than doubles because last winter was low.

That swing — $38,000 vs $92,000 for identical gallons — is what “not predictable” means. Topeka would have billed $50,400 either way.

7. Who the discount is for, and who pays for it

A class discount is a cross-subsidy argument whether anyone admits it.

If it costs the utility roughly the same to pump, treat, and push the 1,000th gallon to a house or to a plant (the extra cost of a big user is mostly in pipes, pumps, and peak capacity, which show up in the meter base charge), then selling industrial gallons at $5.04 and house gallons at $7.75 means houses are contributing more per gallon toward shared treatment and debt.

That is why Topeka staff, in 2026 rate talks, walked the council through flattening classes — kill Industrial II, then multifamily, then step commercial and industrial up toward the residential commodity rate over several years. They said the current design is the old declining structure: bigger users, bigger discount per gallon.

So “predictable class discount” is also a political object. Industry likes it because the budget line does not jump. Residential advocates dislike it because the plant’s gallon is cheaper than grandma’s. Cost-of-service purists want the discount justified by actual extra cost to serve, not by the label on the account.

8. What the plant actually buys with it

For Frito-Lay, Mars, and Reser’s, the class discount buys three things that matter more than the $2.71 vs. a house:

1. A known unit price they can put in a cost model next to oil, corrugated, and labor.
2. No conservation-block ambush if Halloween candy or picnic-salad season blows past last winter.
3. A published industrial policy. The ordinance says large process users are supposed to pay less per gallon. That is a signal, not just a number.

It does not buy a rate so low that water is free, and it does not make Topeka the cheapest city in Kansas. Emporia’s volume floor and Hutchinson’s large-user block can undercut $5.04. Wichita Block 1 can undercut $5.04. What Topeka sells is cheap enough, and stable.

9. One sentence you can use in the article

Topeka’s industrial rate is a predictable class discount: once the city files you as Industrial or Industrial II, every gallon that month is the same published price, cheaper than a house, with no winter-average trap — unlike Wichita or Hays, where the price of this month’s gallon depends on how much you used last winter.

That is the whole phrase.

Here is the apples-to-apples look at 2026 municipal water volume rates in Kansas for a plant the size of Frito-Lay / Mars / Reser’s — not residential “average bill” comparisons.

Two warnings first, or the table lies:

1. Cities do not price the same way. Topeka gives big users a cheaper class rate. Wichita, Lawrence, Hays, and Olathe often use winter-average / inclining blocks that punish summer spikes. Hutchinson and Emporia discount volume the more you use.
2. This is incoming water only. Food plants usually pay more for sewer than for water (high-strength waste). Sewer is a second ordinance in every city.

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How the structures differ

Topeka — declining by class, not by monthly volume. Industrial and Industrial II pay less per thousand gallons than houses, no matter how much they use. 2026 inside-city volume: Industrial $5.35, Industrial II $5.04, commercial $5.99, single-family $7.75. City staff have talked about flattening that over several years.

Wichita — commercial volume is inclining, tied to Average Winter Consumption (AWC). 2026 inside commercial: Block 1 (through 110% of AWC) $3.83 / 1,000 gal; Block 2 $13.36; Block 3 $19.55. A year-round chip or salad plant with high winter use can stay mostly in Block 1. A plant that spikes in summer gets crushed. City staff’s own 2026 example for a 10 million gallon/month industrial customer put the combined water + sewer bill around $82,000–$88,000 a month.

Manhattan — basically one inside volume rate. Current code is $3.40 per 100 cubic feet inside (about $4.55 per 1,000 gallons), double outside. Plus a meter minimum and a capacity surcharge that gets large on 6- and 8-inch meters. 2026 budget assumed about a 3% bump. No cheap “Industrial II” class.

Hays — conservation city. Not on a fat river. Rates are winter-average plus penalty tiers. Base tier about $2.71 per 100 cf (~$3.62 / 1,000 gal); conservation tiers jump to ~$7.22 and $10.50+. A steady process plant can live on the base tier. A new water hog would be fighting the city’s whole water ethic, not just the tariff.

Lawrence — industrial inside $10.33 per 1,000 gallons in 2026. That is the high-cost peer. Commercial is $10.44. They are not trying to be the cheap industrial gallon.

Hutchinson — non-residential declining blocks. Above 5,000 HCF (~3.7 million gallons) the inside rate is $3.07 per 100 cf (~$4.10 / 1,000 gal). Big users get a discount.

Emporia — aggressive declining blocks. Over 7 million gallons/month inside is $2.64 / 1,000 gal. A 10-million-gallon month is mostly at that floor. Cheap gallons if you are huge.

Olathe (Johnson County, different water world): 2026 industrial first block $4.01 per 100 cf (~$5.36 / 1,000 gal), higher if you blow past winter use.

Garden City — published commercial inside about $3.26 / 1,000 gallons. Groundwater town. Cheap commodity, different politics (High Plains aquifer).

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Same plant, 10 million gallons in one month (water volume only)

That is the example Topeka and Wichita both use in public meetings. Ignore base/meter charges for a second — on a 6- or 8-inch meter those are hundreds to low thousands, not the story.

City	Structure	Approx. volume rate that would apply	Water volume on 10M gal
Emporia	Declining; floor $2.64/kgal	~$2.64–$2.85	~$26,000–$29,000
Garden City	Flat commercial ~$3.26/kgal	~$3.26	~$32,600
Hays	If usage stays on winter base	~$3.62	~$36,200
Wichita	If usage stays in Block 1	$3.83	~$38,300
Hutchinson	Large-user block	~$4.10	~$41,000
Manhattan	Flat ~$4.55/kgal	~$4.55	~$45,500
Topeka Industrial II	Class rate	$5.04	~$50,400
Topeka Industrial	Class rate	$5.35	~$53,500
Olathe industrial (winter block)	~$5.36/kgal	~$5.36	~$53,600
Lawrence industrial	$10.33/kgal	$10.33	~$103,300
Wichita if they blow AWC	$13–$20/kgal	—	can double or triple

So: Topeka is not the cheapest industrial gallon in Kansas, and it is not the most expensive. It sits in the middle of the pack on commodity water — cheaper than Lawrence, in the same neighborhood as Olathe’s industrial first block, more expensive than Hutchinson, Emporia, Manhattan, and Wichita’s Block 1.

Wichita’s Block 1 looks cheaper than Topeka until the plant exceeds winter average. Then Wichita gets expensive fast. Topeka’s industrial class is predictable: $5.04 or $5.35 all year.

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What this means for “if the plant were in Wichita / Manhattan / Hays”

Wichita. A Frito-Lay-scale plant would not automatically save money. If winter process water is high, Block 1 at $3.83 beats Topeka. If production is seasonal or they add a line mid-year, Blocks 2–3 are punitive. Wichita also just locked in multi-year water/sewer hikes (~7% a year) to pay for a new treatment plant and lost wholesale customers. Staff’s own 10-million-gallon industrial example is already an ~$82k–$88k combined monthly bill.

Manhattan. Volume is a bit cheaper than Topeka (~$4.55 vs $5.04). No Industrial II discount. Capacity surcharges on big meters add up. Fine for a mid-size plant; not a reason to move a $750 million chocolate factory.

Hays. Base rate can look cheap. Supply is not. Hays is the large Kansas city without a sustainable nearby source; conservation is policy, not a slogan. You do not put a potato-chip or salad campus there to save 80 cents a thousand gallons.

Lawrence. Industrial water is roughly double Topeka. Nobody relocates a wet food plant to Lawrence for the water tariff.

Hutchinson / Emporia. On paper, large-user water is cheaper than Topeka. Labor, logistics, and sewer strength still dominate the site decision. Emporia’s $2.64 floor is the bargain-bin rate in this set.

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The number that still does not move Mars or Pepsi

Take Topeka Industrial II at $5.04 × 120 million gallons/year ≈ $605,000 water volume.

Same 120 million gallons:

• Emporia floor ≈ $317,000
• Wichita Block 1 ≈ $460,000
• Manhattan ≈ $546,000
• Lawrence ≈ $1,240,000

The spread across Kansas for that one input is a few hundred thousand a year — not tens of millions. Against PepsiCo’s ~$10.5 billion profit or Mars’ $65 billion sales, the city-to-city difference is still a rounding error. Against Reser’s $2 billion sales it is visible in a plant budget, still not a relocation number.

Sewer plus high-strength surcharges can flip the ranking. A city with cheap water and expensive industrial sewer can cost more all-in than Topeka. That is the next layer if you want it.

The Topeka City Council sets water (and wastewater and stormwater) rates by ordinance.

No. Topeka’s water rates are set locally. Neither the State of Kansas nor the federal government approves or sets them.

Who actually sets the rates

The Topeka City Council sets water (and wastewater and stormwater) rates by ordinance. The current schedule is in Topeka Municipal Code § 13.05.020. The last multi-year package was adopted in 2023 for 2024–2026; they are in another public rate process now for 2027 and beyond.

That is the normal arrangement for a city-owned utility in Kansas.

Kansas Corporation Commission (KCC)

The KCC does not regulate municipal water rates.

It regulates investor-owned (private) utilities — electric companies like Evergy, gas companies, and a handful of small private water systems (Suburban Water, Barton Hills, etc.). KCC’s own jurisdiction materials state that it does not regulate municipalities. Topeka’s water utility is city-owned, so it is outside KCC rate jurisdiction.

State of Kansas — limited statutory overlay, not rate-setting

Kansas statutes give cities the power to set their own rates and require those rates to be reasonable and sufficient to cover operations, maintenance, extensions, and debt service (see K.S.A. 12-860 and related first-class city provisions).

That is a floor and a reasonableness standard, not a state agency review before rates take effect. There is no Kansas Public Service Commission equivalent for city water.

If someone claimed the rates were unreasonable or unjust, they could theoretically ask a district court to review them. That is rare and is after-the-fact litigation, not routine state regulation.

KDHE regulates water quality (Safe Drinking Water Act implementation, permits, testing), not prices. The Kansas Water Office and Division of Water Resources deal with water rights and planning, not retail rates.

If Topeka borrows from the state Drinking Water Revolving Fund, loan documents can impose financial covenants (dedicated revenue, etc.). Those do not dictate the cents-per-thousand-gallon charge on a residential bill.

Federal government

None on rates. EPA rules cover quality, treatment, lead service lines, and reporting. There is no federal water-rate commission for municipal systems.

Practical takeaway

Topeka’s declining-block industrial discounts, higher outside-city rates, base charges by meter size, and the timing of increases are all local policy choices made by the Governing Body. They can be criticized, compared to peer cities, or challenged in court on reasonableness grounds, but they do not go through KCC or a federal rate case.