Gary Singh may have made the most profound fashion statement for a Manteca City Council member in at least 25 years.
Singh donned a cream colored sports jacket at Tuesday’s meeting with appropriately matching slacks — a sharp departure from standard dress that tends to be dark colors when council members wear sport jackets. It is why the light colored jacket stuck out.
That said it wouldn’t have been nearly as big as an eye catcher back in the days when Jack Snyder was first on the council. That’s when elected officials opted for the “Manteca look” — deep yet bright red blazers with the city logo sewn on the pocket.
Some likened them to the red jackets Red Carpet Real Estate agents of the day wore. Others recalled how the council members decked with the blazers and “official” City of Manteca neckties made them resemble a barbershop quartet. The ties, by the way, were dark blue with the city seal embroidered on them. The seal wasn’t neutered meaning that art work that looks like a McMansion next to a smaller house on the city seal you see today had a cross on the roof as the illustration was supposed to represent a house of worship.
During the past decade city staff quietly lost the cross so as not to wave red meat in front of sue happy individuals or groups that might interpret it as the city endorsing religion.
Examples of the “Red Carpet” council jacket and official city tie are on display at the Manteca museum.

Silverman “potholes
now have potholes”
Manteca Councilman Richard Silverman didn’t look overly happy Tuesday when staff responded to his inquiry about when the long promised rehab work for Main Street from Yosemite Avenue to Woodward Avenue as well as Yosemite Avenue from Main Street to Cottage Avenue would take place.
Public Works Director Mark Houghton responded “still hoping for this year.”
That prompted Silverman to comment the section of South Main Street in front of Wal-Mart is so bad that “the potholes have now got potholes.”
What could bump the road work into another year was a snafu at the state level involving a temporary federal approval for them to clear the environmental report aspect of the project and not Washington, D.C. That approval lapsed Dec. 31, 2016.
Houghton reported Caltrans was hopeful they’ll be re-granted permission to handle that aspect of the project. If not, the approval for the project that involves federal funds could be pushed back two to three months. Such a delay could push the work into the rainy season.
City staff has previously indicated they have no stomach for tearing up a main corridor and run the risk of rain stretching out the work for months.

Realtors come through
again for community
The Central Valley Association of Realtors were on hand at Tuesday’s Manteca City Council meeting to present the city with a $500 check for dog play apparatus for the new dog park at the Manteca Civic Center along Eucalyptus Avenue that opened for public use Tuesday.
It comes on the heels of the association’s $2,600 donation to the For Kids’ Sake Christmas undertaking coordinated by the Manteca Park and Recreation Department.
Realtor Wendy Benavides noted that the CVAR donated $35,000 to non-profit endeavors during 2016.
“We like to give back to the community because we live in the community,” Benavides said.
The For Kids’ Sake effort though community donations provided Christmas gifts and clothes for 1,300 needy youngsters throughout the Manteca Unified School District. They also served dinner for 300 kids and their families to mark Christmas at the Manteca Senior Center.
The Parks & Rec Angel Tree project provided 300 low-income senior citizen shut-ins with Christmas gifts as well.

Christmas at Library
Park was a success
The City of Manteca — working with the Manteca Chamber of Commerce — was able to turn the dud that was the Fourth of July aerial fireworks show into a spectacular success albeit five months later.
The show was stopped a third of the way through when a mortar misfired injuring one of the person’s launching them from the wastewater treatment plant. The city used the refund for the unfired fireworks to allow the chamber to secure an ice rink for Library Park the weekend of the annual twilight parade. The fireworks funds were raised originally from the safe and sane fireworks booth the Manteca Police Officers Association mans.
Chamber Executive Director Joanne Beattie told the council Tuesday that some 618 people turned out to skate over two days while nearly another 1,000 youngsters rode the “reindeer” that were ponies decked out to look like those that pull Santa’s sleigh.
There were also 50 vendors at the Christmas in the Park event.
Beattie has said earlier that the chamber intends to repeat Christmas in the Park during the upcoming holidays.

To contact Dennis Wyatt, email dwyatt@mantecabulletin.com