In a major departure, Mayor Ben Cantu turned the State of the City address into a virtual campaign speech prompting his four council colleagues to distance themselves from his promises.

Reaction to Cantu’s presentation at the Manteca Chamber of Commerce’s annual event conducted at the Transit Center Tuesday morning contrasted sharply with previous State of the City gatherings. In the past former Mayor Steve DeBrum’s speeches that delineated the city’s economic successes in the previous year and initiatives in place that were moving forward were interrupted by applause. On Tuesday the crowd of some 200 sat silently and offered polite applause at the end.

Cantu opted to focus on what he wanted to see in the future, acknowledging he needed the majority of the council to agree with him to move forward. Although most of his visions lacked specifics and in most cases have never been vetted by the council let alone adopted as city policy, Cantu made it clear that Manteca needed to be more aggressive at raising revenue — fees and taxes — so Manteca would be able to have better streets and secure a laundry list of amenities from an aquatics center to building a new city hall downtown. He said such amenities are essential so the city could live up to its municipal motto of being a “Family City” where people wanted to raise families.

Cantu called for a “rebirth of Manteca” so the community can regain its “rightful place in South County prominence.” The mayor said over the years Manteca has essentially fallen behind surrounding communities.

Cantu wants city hall

downtown & through

traffic to go elsewhere

“City hall needs to move downtown,” Cantu declared, as he said a multi-faceted approach involving the public sector, property owners, and merchants was needed in addition to spending what could be in excess of $30 million shifting municipal operations from the Civic Center to downtown.

His vision for downtown called for making it “more pedestrian friendly” stating the city needs to route through traffic around downtown. He did not clarify whether that meant just Yosemite Avenue traffic — the second heaviest traveled east-west corridor in the city — or Main Street as well which is the heaviest traveled street in Manteca.

Cantu said the only traffic heading into downtown should be people that are going to shop there.

Councilwoman Debby Moorhead, who was the only elected leader not in attendance due to a conflict with her employment, wanted to make it clear as far as she was concerned that “city hall is absolutely not going to be relocated downtown.

“We don’t have the money, there is no land for it, and it would create parking problems,” Moorhead said.

Council members Jose Nuño, Gary Singh, and David Breitenbucher — all who were in attendance — did not zero in on a specific endeavor that Cantu was pushing although each stressed Cantu was speaking for himself and that no consensus had been reached for any of his plans for the future that required not just funding but a majority of the council that includes Cantu being on board to move forward.

That said they each indicated some of his ideas had merit and may have buy in but what he outlined in his State of the City talk was “more of a campaign speech” as opposed to what course the city is taking.

Cantu: ‘We are going to

sell our community’

to businesses

Cantu called for the city to become more aggressive at economic development and used losing Yellow Freight to Tracy in 1989 as an example of what the city has missed out on in terms of job generation by not actively pursuing employers.

“We are going to sell our community,” Cantu said.

The said that means having land with infrastructure that is “shovel ready” to take advantage of the fast pace that business wants to move in today’s economy.

Cantu said it also means instead of waiting for businesses to come to Manteca that the city will go after them.

He made no mention of a list of enterprises the city went after including Target and Costco — each of which told city officials the Manteca market was too small at the time they were approached — to the 10-year effort to snare the $180 million Great Wolf indoor waterpark resort. That deal the city aggressively pursued Great Wolf to execute will provide 500 jobs and bring in more than $2.1 million in room taxes into city coffers during its first full-year of operation that will make it the biggest tax generator in Manteca.

Cantu advocates more

robust city income thru

higher fees and taxes

Cantu said the reason Manteca did not already have an aquatics center, improved library services, better streets, a performing arts center, a new city hall, a teen center, and a host of other amenities is because the city has “spent decades squabbling over 50 cent rate increases” instead of hiking rates and taxes up high enough to pay for things.

Cantu noted the city basically has to come back five years later “to raise (fees) $5” instead just to stay even.

The mayor wants to see Manteca’s geocentric growth continued instead of growth just happening south of the 120 Bypass. He wants to see plans in place to push development east toward Jack Tone Road and north toward French Camp Road.

Somewhere east of Austin Road he wants to see a parkway, expressway, or what would be a partial road loop of the city such as many large communities in Texas have to quickly move traffic. At the same time he wants Roth Road extended eastward to an interchange at Highway 99 and the envisioned Raymus Expressway in south Manteca built with its own Highway 99 interchange that the city estimated10 years ago would cost $120 million before they dropped the idea last year in favor of working with Caltrans on a much more robust Austin Road interchange that is part of a $131 million solution for the 99/120 Bypass. Cantu also wants to see the city where Raymus Expressway will pass through rural estates and farmlands south of Manteca instead of developers building in Manteca.

Cantu also wants to see housing built that is affordable in terms of the jobs that are created in Manteca.

 The mayor also said the city needs to plan for major sewer trunk lines to allow the city to grow. Manteca is already doing that with the North Manteca Trunk Line project expected to break ground in the next year or so that will cost close to $10 million.

He also said it was shortsighted to reduce land for future expansion of the wastewater treatment plant so future capacity could be added that would go beyond the 40,000 to 60,000 additional residents the existing plant could accommodate.

The land that Manteca has “chipped away at” is where Big League Dreams was built, where Great Wolf is under construction and the city’s family entertainment zone is being built. Changes in the treatment process over the years have reduced the amount of land needed to added additional capacity.

To contact Dennis Wyatt, email dwyatt@mantecabulletin.com