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City starts pressure washing 16-year-old downtown pavers
pavers

It took 16 plus years but the City of Manteca has finally gotten around to pressure washing downtown pavers.

It is the latest sign that it is no longer business as usual as the current  City Council — working with Acting City Manager Miranda Lutzow — are striving to tackle “little things” that add up when it comes to quality of life issues.

 A city crew was assigned last Tuesday night to start the pressure wash cleaning process to remove 16 years of accumulative grime. The work is being done at night to minimize impacts on traffic.

The public works crews are squeezing in the work around other tasks. Acting City Manager Miranda Lutzow said the one night of cleaning was just the start and that additional time would be blocked out in May or June to tackle more of downtown.

The pavers were part of a $5 million overall downtown upgrade done in 2004 using redevelopment funds. Other work done at the time included the decorative end of the 19th century style street lights, traffic signals, and street scape; trees and landscaping; and two mini-plazas. The pavers were designed to make the downtown area more appealing. They lost their luster over the years due to grime build up.

Many cities pressure clean such pavers once or twice a year.

Let there be more light

The city also has gotten their contractor for street light maintenance to get almost all of the street lights along Moffat Boulevard south of the 120 Bypass overpass working again after being out of commission for more than eight years.

Those scavenging for copper yanked the wiring out of a dozen street lights. The city let them stay dark until the directive went out on the current council’s watch to fix them.

Making new stop signs

much more visible

Councilman Gary Singh said he plans to press for the new stop signs installed at the city’s latest four-way stop created on an existing arterial — Woodward Avenue and Atherton Drive by the new fire station that is under construction — to be more visible.

He wants the same flashing solar powered red LED lights outlining the stop signs as they are on Woodward Avenue at Pillsbury Avenue. Singh said simply having a trailer with an electronic sign warning for the new four-way stop created on a long-established major road that is heavily trafficked for several months is not enough.

Singh wants to see such LED ringed stop signs deployed whenever a new stop is created along arterials to enhance overall safety.

 

To contact Dennis Wyatt, email dwyatt@mantecabulletin.com

 

 

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