Vince Hernandez called it a “windshield tour” of Manteca.
But it was more like a victory lap.
The 54-year-old Manteca native turned on the ignition to his Prius — his family has three hybrids — and pulled out of the Manteca Veterans Center parking lot on Moffat Bualevard. The veterans’ center was one of a long list of amenities that weren’t in Manteca when Hernandez was elected 14 years ago in 2002.
Back then Manteca politics were a bit different. Strike that. They were combative. Hernandez rode into office with the strongest margin of the election. He had no political experience prior to the campaign that shattered all records for campaign spending, proliferation of signs, and animosity.
At the end of it all the then 40-year-old father of three and husband of Sequoia School teacher Risa Hernandez counted on his strong community ties in endeavors such as the Manteca Youth Soccer League, St. Anthony’s Catholic parish, and an array of other family-orientated associations to ride to his election on the simple campaign slogan of “Heal Our City.”
As he heads south on Moffat Boulevard past the Powers Tract neighborhood where he grew up in the shadows of the 15-story silos of Spreckels Sugar on Cowell Street — named in honor of Joshua Cowell who founded Manteca — it is clear that the soft spoken Hernandez helped build Manteca as much as he helped heal its political acrimony.
He’s driving down Moffat corridor that 14 years ago looked like it fit better in South Stockton than in Manteca. Moffat’s deterioration had stymied the city for years.
Hernandez knew where to start.
“I told them (the city staff) we had to get rid of the overnight truck parking on city property,” Hernandez recalled.
It was a start that Hernandez and his fellow councilmen turned into a snowball.
Today the corridor boasts sidewalks, curbs, and gutters, a tree-lined Tidewater bikeway, a BMX park Hernandez credits to the drive of John Anderson and a transit center complete with a community room.
As he passes Powers Avenue he recalled how staff wanted to end the Tidewater bike path at Powers Avenue.
“The council told them it had to go to Spreckels Avenue so it could eventually connect with other bike paths,” Hernandez noted.
The council was connecting the dots when staff was getting lost in the day-to-day forest.
Turning right at the Spreckels Avenue/Industrial Park Drive, Hernandez notes how the extension of Industrial Park Drive to Spreckels Avenue “created a new travel corridor” in central Manteca that took pressures off Main Street.

Constantly pushing
for the human touch
As he heads under the 120 Bypass via Van Ryn Drive, Hernandez points to the landscaping ahead along sound walls with a generous setback and meandering sidewalks. He was among the council members pushing to give Manteca a more human touch instead of the Manteca canyons of yesteryear with four lanes of asphalt curb-to-curb, concrete from curb to sound wall with stick trees jammed into cutouts in the sidewalk.
Hernandez spent much of his 14 years advocating for little things designed to make Manteca livable. An example are the sound walls along the southbound Highway 99 exit at Yosemite Avenue as well as the concrete under the overpass that have oak trees and other designs etched into them.
“I always insisted on doing it right the first time so we wouldn’t have to come back later and do it over and spend even more money,” Hernandez said.
The councilman heads down Atherton past Juniper Apartments — a workforce housing complex made possible with Redevelopment Agency funds on his watch.
“Critics say the city hasn’t done anything with low income affordable housing,” Hernandez said. “That’s not the case.” During the past 14 years city funds have helped put in place subsidized senior apartments at Almond Terrace north of East Union High as well as Magnolia Court behind Bank of Stockton. They also made the rebirth of the once troubled Union Court Apartments on Wawona Street possible as a low-income complex. Earlier this year, they cleared the path for another subsidized senior complex on Cottage Avenue next to the Highway 99 overpass.
Prior to turning right on Woodward Avenue, Hernandez points to the massive water tank completed a year ago noting how it has helped bring surface water to south of the 120 Bypass to greatly reduce hard water flowing through taps as well as boost water pressure.
He notes the “stuff you don’t see” from water to wastewater that people take for granted is one of Manteca’s saving graces when it comes to planning for the future and staying on the cutting edge of best practices.

Sees water as the
big issue for the future
“That is going to be the big issue in the coming years — protecting our water,” Hernandez said of the state’s efforts to commander South San Joaquin Irrigation District water from the Stanislaus River as well as groundwater management.
Fourteen years ago Woodward Avenue had just been built — at least on the north side from Bridewell to Buena Vista — to a width that would accommodate two lanes of a four-lane road.
Hernandez and his family had just moved back to Manteca.
After they were married, Vince and Risa lived in Park Place Apartments on Crom Street. They looked to buy in Manteca but couldn’t afford to do so. They ended up buying in Salida where they lived for nine years. When they went to sell they made just $1,000 beyond what their mortgage payoff was.
“Our agent felt sorry for us and gave us her commission,” Hernandez recalled.
They moved back into Park Place Apartments and lived there for a year before hearing there were homes being built south of the 120 Bypass.
They stopped by a trailer in the middle of a field where they talked with sales representative Kathy Metcalf of Atherton Homes. They opted to wait for Phase II because they wanted a bigger lot than what was left in Woodward Phase I
“We were the fourth or fifth buyers in Phase II,” Hernandez said.
He recalled how it was financially tight for the family for several years after moving into the home where they still live.
Hernandez turns left on Buena Vista past the large 52 acres of weeds that the developer said one day would be a park. That happened during Hernandez’ tenure.
It was developed with the expressed purpose of creating a home for soccer complete with lighted fields by tapping into bonus bucks paid by developers in return for sewer allocation certainty.

City didn’t want to develop
storm basin at Woodward Park
He notes staff argued they didn’t have the money to develop the 10-acre storm basin when the city was ready to start work on the park. That would mean leaving it in its natural state of weeds.
“We (the council) made it clear that the basin was to be developed,” Hernandez said. “They (staff) found the money.”
He also points out the wrought iron fencing, landscaping, and slump stone used for an irrigation well building. Again, the staff recommended doing the bare basics. Hernandez and other council members wanted the well structure not to stick out like a sore thumb and to not become a magnet for graffiti and such. The council prevailed.
“A lot of people forget that the community helped put in the playground equipment, “Hernandez said as he passed the city’s largest playground apparatus that’s located at Woodward. “About 50 of us (Woodward Park neighbors) assembled it under city crew supervision.”
Hernandez heads to South Main and then turns west again on Woodward Avenue. He points to the Tidewater-style streetlight fixtures in the newer neighborhood noting that he — along with the rest of the council — pushed for them to improve the neighborhood amenities.
“Staff argued against it because they (the light fixtures) were more expensive to replace,” he pointed out.
As he heads farther west, Hernandez notes the median landscaping complete with trees, setback sound walls with extensive landscaping and new homes with circular driveways.
The vision the city had for Woodward Avenue was to make it four lanes, push the road halfway to the front doors of 70 plus homes built when Woodward was narrow, and to have more walled off neighborhoods.
The council didn’t think that made much sense given when Atherton Drive’s missing link between Union Road and Airport Way is complete the traffic trying to avoid the treacherous commute slowdown will use Atherton — which was designed to handle high volumes of traffic — instead of Woodward that the council has reverted back to more of a residential feeder status.
Hernandez — who works as a school psychologist for Stockton Unified School District — turns north into Union Road and then back onto eastbound Atherton before turning into The Promenade Shops at Orchard Valley.

The deals that helped
protect city services
Just eight years ago Bass Pro Shops opened in Orchard Valley in a four-day grand opening weekend that drew 70,000 people to Manteca.
“We (the council) made it clear we didn’t want something that Tracy or Modesto had,” Hernandez said. “We wanted it to be a draw.”
Bass Pro accomplished that. The sales tax sharing deal for 35 years that the city executed with Poag & McEwen — the firm that built Orchard Valley and lured Bass Pro — assuring the outdoors sporting goods giant that generates 96 percent of its sales tax from non-Manteca residents didn’t end up in Modesto.
Hernandez understands how the changing times — the Great Recession and online retail — has altered market dynamics. Still he notes the center is starting to pick up steam as a Mexican restaurant is gearing up to open and a new health club preparing to go into the 30,000 square feet vacated by Best Buy.
Hernandez points out touches such as the tower — reminisce of the tower that once still at Manteca High where he graduated from in 1980 that many still hold dear.
“John (Harris and fellow councilman at the time) and I knew how important that was to a lot of people in Manteca,” Hernandez said. Harris is also a Manteca High graduate.
Hernandez added that he also insisted on water features such as the one in the Orchard Valley roundabout and the manmade lake next to the AMC Showplace 16 theaters.
“We have a drought but people keep forgetting with have a high water table (with non-potable drinking water) where many of the water features get their water from,” Hernandez noted.
Such is the case for the lakes at the age-restrictive Del Webb at Woodbridge — another project the council cleared the way for during the past 14 years.
As Hernandez heads back out to Atherton and turns north on Main Street he talks about another key deal executed by the council that brought Costco to Manteca.
“They weren’t ready to consider Manteca because their Tracy store hadn’t gotten up yet to their expected potential,” Hernandez recalled.
But when the city saw the amount of expenditures and sales taxes that Manteca residents were paying at the Modesto and Tracy stores given Costco records transactions by ZIP codes, making a deal made sense.
It essentially used part of the sales tax Costco generates over 10 years to reimburse them for much of the cost of opting to come to Manteca earlier. In doing so it effectively knocked Lathrop and the south Stockton area near Weston Ranch out of the running for the next Costco store to bring sales tax back into Manteca plus pulling it in from Lathrop, Ripon, and Escalon as well.
The city’s share of that sales tax plus 100 percent of the half cent public safety tax helped Manteca’s revenues to grow into the early part of the recession as it plummeted in other nearby cities allowing Manteca to retain more services during budget cutbacks.
Crossing the 120 Bypass he makes two observations.

Wants to see pedestrian
bridge across 120 built
First, he hopes the new council keeps the separated bike and pedestrian bridge across the freeway at Union Road that he pushed for in the diverging diamond design for the interchange upgrade that starts next year.
“We have to keep in mind the safety of pedestrians and bicyclists,” Hernandez noted.
The other is the 120 Bypass.
It was 2:30 p.m. and already the eastbound traffic was backed up beyond Union Road.
“It’s not just that,” Hernandez said gesturing toward the backup that has triggered a regional cry to reduce an epidemic of serious accident on the eastern stretch of the 120 Bypass. “Manteca needs to make sure congestion is addressed on all three freeways — Highway 99, the Bypass, and Interstate 5.”
He added that the three freeways have a major regional role in moving goods and people.
Hernandez considers it a challenge for future councils on par with protecting water rights.
As he nears downtown Hernandez points to the new animal shelter that he notes is more humane than the cramped older one it replaced.
Hernandez doubted you could find another city that deliberately built an animal shelter on a major street as close to downtown as Manteca did. He believes it helps drive traffic downtown plus gives animal services a much higher visibility.
As he’s stopped in traffic on Main Street at the Yosemite Avenue signal, he looks toward the Manteca Mural Society’s “1918” mural on the side of Century Furniture.
“I’m proud the city has supported the mural project,” he said.
As he continues up Main Street he talks of the importance of protecting and expanding the things that attract families to Manteca.
If the past 14 years are any indication, the council’s strategy is working.
There were 50,000 residents when Hernandez took the oath of office. Now — with just 13 days left until his final council meeting — Manteca has a population of 75,000.
As he nears Lathrop Road, Hernandez said how he feels good that the city was able to help relocate almost all of the businesses displaced by the Lathrop Road interchange work. He also is pleased the city was able to convince Caltrans to drop its first option of replacing the interchange at Lathrop Road with one at Northgate Drive.
“It would have had a horrible impact on people in the country,” Hernandez said.
It also would have sent truck traffic through north Manteca neighborhoods instead of keeping it on the Lathrop Road corridor.
Heading down Highway 99 to Yosemite Avenue Hernandez muses how Police Chief Nick Obligacion has probably gotten tired over the years of getting calls from him.
“Every time I see graffiti, I call it in,” Hernandez said as he passed painted-over spray paint tags on freeway sound walls, quickly adding the police department has always responded promptly.
On Yosemite Avenue he passes within a few blocks of Doctors Hospital. Back when it was Manteca Hospital he was among the first babies to be brought into the world in its then new maternity wing.
The windshield tour left Big League Dreams, the Library Park expansion, innovations in solid waste and a host of other forward moving municipal projects accomplished since 2002 off the itinerary.
“There’s a lot of work still to be done,” Hernandez said pulling back into the Manteca Veterans Center as teens jog by on the Tidewater. “The city is in good hands with the new council.”