Electric car owners are doing more than just charging their vehicles at The Promenade Shops at Orchard Valley. They’re charging merchandise and food as well.

Orchard Valley marketing director Linda Abeldt said Tesla has indicated that the seven-vehicle charging stations are one of the heaviest used charging stations in Northern California. It isn’t unusual on the weekends to find all seven stations taken. Two are designed for super fast Tesla vehicle charging — in 10 minutes or less — while the other five typically take 30 minutes to recharge vehicles.

While sometimes drivers stay with their Teslas since it is quick charge, those with other electric vehicles opt instead to shop as Bass Pro Shops, drop by a restaurant or hit the other stores in the center.

“It has really worked out well for the center,” Abeldt said.

Do as city

says & not

as they do

Several readers wanted to know why the Manteca Civic Center is being exempted from time and day restrictions for watering.

Both callers said they understood the rational for exempting city parks and school fields that get extensive use by the community and how it is often impossible to water them either on a Saturday or Sunday — depending upon their address— meaning they’d only get watered two days a week and could go four days without watering.

But they didn’t know what made city hall so special.

On Tuesday night, staff told  the Manteca City Council why — following the watering schedule based on odd and even addresses is simply too inconvenient as it could interfere with maintenance work. They did mention that there was also public use of the Civic Center such as for council meetings. What they didn’t explain was how watering grass or general landscaping was impacted by people gathering for meetings given they aren’t using the grass and that they use sidewalks and not the grass to walk to facilities. Of course, if there is a concern people might get wet then the city isn’t makings sure sprinklers aren’t watering the concrete.

When Councilman Richard Silverman asked about city hall watering and what made it special, he was assured by city staff that even though they won’t follow the rules adopted for everybody else, that they won’t water more than three times a week and will still meet the mandated 32 percent cutback.

That’s fine but why can’t everyone else in Manteca that has a business or a home have the same flexibility as the Civic Center? After all, the water schedule as it is could make it inconvenient for them to do maintenance as well plus they might have people over for a party on a weekend and wouldn’t want to run the risk spraying them with water.

No one on the council had a problem with the exception for City Hall watering as they unanimously agreed to exempt the Civic Center from the rules the council put in place for everyone else.