More than a few folks are asking — just what is going on along Louise Avenue between Main Street and Union Road where a temporary pipe has been placed along the gutter on the north side of the street?
It is part of the city’s $2.8 million sewer line rehab effort to avoid a repeat of the sewer lines failure in February 2017 on Union Road near Alameda Street where part of the street started to cave in.
Public Works Director Mark Houghton noted the pipe above ground is temporarily moving wastewater while contractors install a liner in the 30-inch main pipe.
The sewer line has sustained significant corrosion and loss of concrete material due to exposure of hydrogen sulfide within the 30-inch reinforced concrete pipe.
Altogether 1.6 miles pf existing sewer pipe will be lined from a lift station between the golf course and the Morezone Baseball Field that then goes to Union Road in alignment with Eucalyptus Street, then heads north along Union to Louise Avenue, and then heads east along Louise Avenue to Crestwood Avenue.
Traditional pipe replacement using deep excavation was not recommended due to the considerable traffic flow on Union Road and Louise Avenue. Traffic disruption would be limited and immediate reopening of the sewer main can take place once the liner is cured. A cured-in-place liner will provide the city with a reliable pipe with an expected useful life of 50 years. 

Wine bar in
downtown Ripon
Downtown Ripon may get the type of business many argue downtown Manteca needs to strengthen its role as cultural, social, and retail hub — a wine bar.
It is being proposed at 111 Main Street next door to Las Casuelas Mexican Restaurant.
A conditional use permit allowing such a use is before the Ripon Planning Commission when they meet Monday, April 16, at 6 p.m. at the City Council chambers, 259 N. Wilma Ave.
The applicants are Kara Bogetti and Merissa Deming.

Great Wolf paying
for flood protection
The deal Great Wolf negotiated with the City of Manteca to build a 500-room hotel and indoor waterpark resort on 29 acres of municipal land west of Costco is indeed better than what had been offered the last time around when the nation’s largest indoor waterpark firm had previous owners.
The deal that was proposed on former City Manager Karen McLaughlin’s watch did not require a waterpark to pay toward 200-year flood protection mandated under Senate Bill 5.
The final agreement negotiated under the leadership of City Manager Tom Ogden that the council has approved has Great Wolf Lodge paying $557,844 as its fair share toward the cost of the improvement.
City officials said Great Wolf under the leadership of Centerbridge Partners had no issue with paying the fees.
That’s a significant chunk of the $26.9 million that property owners in the impacted area will have to come up with when they go to develop their land. Great Wolf’s contribution based on the 510,000 square feet they will build is roughly 2 percent of the overall amount Manteca property owners are on the hook to pay toward improvements that have an overall price tag of at least $176 million.
New homes built in the 200-year floodplain in Manteca will have $3,145 added to the cost of building a home in the southwest portion of the city.
The fee is $1,417 per 1,000 square feet of commercial, $1,096 per 1,000 square feet of industrial, and $904 per unit of multiple family complexes.
The Manteca fees reflect the flood fees the Lathrop City Council adopted as well. The Manteca fee covers over 900 acres of undeveloped land within the city limits along much of the Airport Way, everything south of the  120 Bypass west of Union Road and an area straddling Woodward Avenue, and a little over four-tenths of a mile east of Union Road. The Lathrop fee covers 4,100 acres.
The fees levied by the two cities on new construction in the 200-year floodplain will cover $62.4 million of the overall $176 million enhanced flood protection work. That leaves a funding gap of $113.6 million that state bond money is being sought to pay.

About those
Manteca potholes
A reader asked what the future holds for the Airport Way corridor specifically between Yosemite Avenue and Louise Avenue.
And while there are no city plans on the five year horizon to widen or resurface existing pavement, they wanted to know about patching potholes and washboard pavement.
Public Works Director Mark Houghton noted weather like we are now experiencing — steady and even heavy rain in cold weather — tends to produce potholes.
The city definitely wants to repair them but part of the rub is there are roughly 300 miles of streets in Manteca and the city lacks the staff to have someone dedicated to driving streets looking for potholes.
It’s why he’s hoping people will use the government outreach on the city website or via the downloadable app to notify the city when they come across potholes and other street issues.
“It’s the quickest way for us to get to them,” Houghton said.
The government outreach program is on the front page of the city’s website at www.ci.manteca.ca.us under “quick links” by clicking the icon dubbed “contact us on-line.