J. J. Overshiner was unanimously elected mayor at the reorganization meeting of the City Council Monday night. This action was taken during the early part of the evening and the new mayor took the chair, thanked the members for thus honoring him and presided over the remainder of the session.

Threatening to resign his office unless other members backed him up in his recommendation for appointment of employees to work in his department, C. W. Forbes walked out of the city council meeting Monday night. Forbes was a city councilman and commissioner of streets and parks.

The council reorganized Tuesday night following last week’s city election, naming Mayor John McFall to another two-year term in that office. New councilmen Ed Dumoulin and Delbert Luck were sworn in.

Delbert Luck will again lead the city as mayor, being elected Tuesday night for a two-year term. Luck has just concluded his first term as mayor. Arnold Malvick was elected as mayor pro-tem.

Manteca’s Library Park will be preserved. During Monday night’s session, the City Council conducted a public hearing and then voted 3-2 to defeat a proposed ordinance that would change the use of the parcel from a park to a county justice facility. Mayor Clifford Parr and Councilmen Robert Behrens and Angelo Bressani cast votes to defeat the ordinance.

There were no fire trucks standing by City Council chambers Monday night to extinguish the inflamed remarks of Powers Tract residents on hand to object to a recent City Council decision to close Fire Station 1 on Powers Avenue. The Council, in a matter of minutes, watered down the citizens’ smoldering sentiments with direction to City Manager Richard Jones to study all options available for keeping three fire stations open.

The Manteca City Council has requested its attorney to further research the possible ramifications of placing multiple growth measures on the November ballot. Councilman Dave Balsinger had suggested the city place its current 3.9 percent growth plan on the ballot. Councilman Wayne Flores had proposed the council place the 3.9 percent plan on the ballot with two other proposed measures designed to even further limit future residential growth.

A downtown development blueprint may appear to some as simply a way to decide what type of lamp posts and unifying architectural theme works best. But it’s actually an economic tool city officials hope will capture up to $100 million in “consumer dollar bleed” that is going to Stockton, Modesto, Tracy and elsewhere from the pockets of Manteca residents. “The leakage factor of (Manteca) consumer dollars being spent outside of the city is at least 25 percent,” said Irwin Kaplan, Community Development Director.