LATHROP – Brent Maynor’s concerns aren’t necessarily limited. 

In a sense he’s like every other resident that has planted a stake in small town America – worried about what the rush of new residents being drawn by a marketed lifestyle will bring for the future. 

But he’s also careful about how he approaches the things that he wants to address. A three-year Lathrop Parks and Recreation Department commissioner, Maynor – who is taking another crack at the City Council this November – knows that there are two sides to every argument and that taking a hard-line position on any one can be detrimental towards future compromise. 

Take, for example, the oft-discussed idea of the City of Lathrop forming its own police department. Maynor says his motivation in discussing it isn’t a slam on the job that the San Joaquin County Sherriff’s Department is doing but simply a matter at looking towards the future. 

Yes, he has heard stories – some from other dais hopefuls that pull no punches when it comes to airing their grievances – about deputies parked for hours on end even though he’s never seen that sort of thing happen himself. 

At the end of the day, he said, it comes down to the funding. 

“I think a simple investment strategy early on could provide the startup capital needed, and then pay for the cost of the program in perpetuity,” Maynor said. “The city is in a good place right now – we have reserves and that’s important. But we can reinvest back into the community and take those steps towards independence right now. 

There are other things that he simply wants to continue.

Maynor said that looking at a list of businesses in town that didn’t exist five years ago show that the Lathrop City Council, by-and-large, has been proficient in helping grow the community beyond the introduction of rooftops. They’ve added jobs. They’ve grown the footprint. 

His own feelings on growth are somewhat conflicted – he says that his home value has gone up thanks to the market no longer being saturated with homes for sale, but he also believes that the number of people that move into a community help promote the sort of commercial and economical growth that people are looking for. 

Maynor, the father of two young girls, also wants to see offerings that don’t currently exist to cater to a town of 20,000 people. As a Parks and Recreation Commissioner he knows how beneficial some of the recently completed projects are to the city as a whole, but a teen center, he said, isn’t something that’s immediately beneficial to everybody. 

And that even includes the types of housing that are available for residents. 

“This is a community of families and right now if you want to rent an apartment you have to go to Manteca – there aren’t enough here,” he said. “I think it’s time that we came up with programs that reflect that.”

Maynor lives in Lathrop with his wife Candace and their two children – Alyssa, 8, and Kiera, 3. He is currently in the honors program at Stanislaus State University.