Manteca Police has 27 vehicles, of which seven are sidelined due to various issues.

Manteca Fire recently took delivery of a used fire truck from the City of Fremont. And instead of adding it to its well-aged reserve fleet the department used it to replace one of their five frontline engines because it was in better shape.

The condition of the city’s public safety vehicles mirrors that of trucks and cars in use in other departments.

The inability of the city to replace vehicles before they became problematic and expensive to operate was highlighted Tuesday as part of the $84 million in needed capital projects.

The city can’t afford to fund the needed projects because revenues aren’t keeping up with the cost to run the city.

The deteriorating condition of vehicles Manteca relies on to do everything from responding to medical emergencies and fires, roll when a citizen is in imminent danger, to collect garbage, and do a host of other municipal functions was noted Tuesday.

The City Council was discussing the proposed $73.8 million general fund budget for the fiscal year starting July 1.

Among the highlights of what Police Chief Stephen Schluer said:

*The lowest mileage police vehicle has 70,000 miles and the highest has 140,000 miles.

*Because patrol vehicles are running virtually all of the time, manufactures indicate the wear and tear on the drivetrain is double what the actual keelage on the odometer reads.

*On Tuesday, two police officers had to double  up on patrol  as there weren’t enough available units that were in running order.

That said, residents will be seeing eight new police vehicles in the coming months on city  streets.

But if it hadn’t been for more than $13 million in federal relief funds the city received due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Manteca would not have had the money in the general fund to purchase the eight vehicles.

The city was able to use roughly $7 million of what they received and didn’t need to backfill lost revenue due to forces closured of stores or to pay for pandemic-relasted costs to make one-time expenditures.

Included were things such as street repair equipment that would allow city crews to do some of the work instead of contracting it out.

The new police vehicles include three 2024  Ford F-150 Police Responder pickups and two 2024 Dodge Durango SUVs that will serve as patrol units.

The other vehicles include a Ford F-250 pickup equipped with cages for animal control services as well as two unmarked vehicles for use by detectives.

 Manteca’s general fund situation is not as bad as it was when Councilman Charlie Halford started his career as a city police officer in 1976.

That is when  the city couldn’t afford to staff the Louise Avenue fire station and had a general fund reserve of just over $1,000.

The city has to resort to buying used CHP patrol vehicles from the state that arrived in Manteca with between 75,000 and 100,000 miles on the odometers.

Halford shared that he crashed the used CHP vehicle he was driving. The cause was attributed to mechanical failure.

As for fire engines, it is considered to be best practices to take engines out of front line service after 10 years. That’s due to problems the specialized vehicles start developing after about a decade of use.

In Manteca’s case, there are frontline engines that are older than 20 years.

The five frontline engines are spending more and more time in the shop due to maintenance issues.

And just recently, one fire truck blew an engine.

It is likely to be repaired as the cost of a new engine would sustainably exceed its value.

The city is taking delivery of two new frontline fire engines that cost in excess of $1.2 million apiece in the coming year or so.

The city is scrambling to find funds to pay for those engines.

To contact Dennis Wyatt, email dwyatt@mantecabulletin.com