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Lawn blower season ramps up once again
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Landscape crews blew debris into South Main Street. - photo by Photo by Lanny Langdon

You see them all the time: People armed with leaf blowers pushing grass clippings and other debris into the street and leaving it there.

It gets worse in the fall when leaves start to fall. It isn’t unusual to see lawn care crews and even homeowners blow clippings and leaves into the street and into the front of neighboring homes only for the wind to blow it back a day or so later.

Even so, Manteca resident Lanny  Langdon was a bit taken aback by commercial landscapers who turned South Main Street just north of Mission Ridge Drive into a mess  and left it there for the wind to disperse it.

Langdon wasn’t the only reader taken aback by the brazen trashing of South Main Street.

Another reader that identified herself only as Joan  said it was incredulous to think property owners hire crews to spiff up their landscaping to be more presentable to the public only to have them blow lawn clippings and leaves into the street surrounding their property.

“What ever happened to raking stuff up into a pile and picking it up and putting it in (a green waste) container?” she asked in an email.

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City park sprinkler problem? Use government outreach

Shirley Boyd has joined the list of Manteca residents frustrated with sprinklers at city parks watering the sidewalks and streets.

“Instead of the mayor and city council wanting to see less green, why don’t they go out and adjust the sprinkler heads at all the city parks so they aren’t watering the sidewalks and streets?” she asked “That would save a bunch of water. The water wasted there is a disgrace.”

City Manager Karen McLaughlin said with 54 city parks that are watered primarily when parks workers aren’t working it is difficult to know where sprinklers are not working properly.

She is asking citizens to use the government outreach on their website to notify the city exactly where sprinklers are located that are malfunctioning so crews can be dispatched to fix them. Not having a specific location means crews have to turn on water during the day to figure out where the errant sprinklers are and end up wasting even more water.

To fid the government outreach go to ci.manteca.ca.us and click on public works. At the top of the window click on “report a problem.” The city responds to the government outreach inquiries within 48 days.

It is also an effective way to report street lights that aren’t working. In  such cases there is a number attached to the pole or else you can give a physical description such as the street light along the east side of Main Street to the north of Yosemite Avenue.