Mayoral candidate Lei Ann Larson demanded an independent investigation of one of her opponents, Gary Singh.

Manteca Police needed to restore decorum in the City Council chambers.

Councilman Dave Breitenbucher got in a heated exchange with an audience member over the city’s proposed homeless navigation center and slammed a speaker for going beyond the boundaries of common decency.

Resident Dennis Raff decried a Manteca where the homeless dying in the streets is the new norm and where homeless are creating hundreds of dollars in property losses for businesses as they try to access water in fire sprinkler systems.

And forced to keep order was Ben Cantu, the current mayor and the third candidate on the Nov. 8 ballot.

Yes, it is 20 days to Election Day.

Tuesday’s City Council meeting started with the first four speakers including Larson and her advisor Frank Aquila arguing Singh had a conflict. It involved his duties as a city council member and his father being part of a group of six investors that bought 47.86 acres on the northeast corner of the  Austin Road and Highway 99 interchange.

Singh’s alleged conflict according to Aquila — determined weeks ago to not being a conflict under state law by attorneys for both the City of Manteca and San Joaquin Council of Governments — stems from the council’s involvement in moving the Highway 99/120-Austin Road upgraded project forward.

Larson characterized it as a “pay for play” scheme, scolded other council members for doing nothing, and then demanded an independent outside investigation.

The speakers also called for Singh’s resignation.

It was Aquila’s remarks, however, that at the end of the meeting brought a strong rebuke from Breitenbucher during the council comments portion of the agenda.

After Aquila lectured the council about ethics, he then asked “does this have an appearance of a conflict of interest” and then answered his own question with the word  “absolutely”.

After that he started talking about Singh’s wife and the fact that Singh and his family lived in the same house as his father to leave the impression that was somehow proof positive of a conflict because that is the address the Secretary of State’s office has on file for chief financial officer for the Austin Investment Group that happens to be Singh’s father.

It is a tradition in many families with roots in South Asia, India, and Latin America  for multiple generations to live under one roof.

The wording that Aquila used, his repeated references to Singh’s wife and the fact Aquila publicly announced the address repeatedly of the house where Singh and his family lived prompted Breitenbucher to note “first speakers talk about ethics” and then they “undercut” them with an attack not based on facts.

Breitenbucher characterized some of the comments made about Singh and his family “unconscionable”.

After the four speakers spoke and as David Shmuckler defended Singh’s performance as a council, the heckling from the audience started in earnest.

There were exchange between audience members — supporters of Larson’s and those who were not supporters of Larson. At one point there was a recording on a smartphone that had a Larson supporter telling a person that did not support Larson that he hoped she would “get cancer and die”.

By then, there were four uniformed Manteca Police officers in the council chambers.

Cantu, who repeatedly had told audience members to stop with outbursts and to show decorum or else he would have them removed, at one point gaveled the meeting into a recess.

One audience member that continued to be augmentative was “nudged’ toward the door by an officer.

It was during council comments that Raff criticized the Bulletin for carrying comments from a Manteca Police representative who stated people die and since the homeless are also people when they die they are likely to do so in public places.

Raff related how in his job that involves fire suppression systems that he had been called out to a number of Manteca businesses where the homeless have damaged fire sprinkler lines in a bid to access water

It required him to remove feces, syringes and the remnants of vandalism that he encountered in areas where he needed to make repairs.

Raff also criticized the council for not making an effort to get input from the nearby neighborhood before buying the site for a navigation n center.

Schmuckler, who spoke after Raff, pointed out the city had numerous public meetings over the course of three years and that the current feedback was from those that didn’t like the decision the council made as opposed to the city not conducting business in an open and transparent manner

At the end of the meeting when Breitenbucher sought to clear up a point that the navigation center will not be a regional center, and that Assemblyman Heath Flora — whose text has been used to claim that it is — was actually referring to two homeless projects with one in Manteca and the other in Modesto and that they  would help “the region”, Raff kept interrupting him.

That prompted Breitenbucher to tell Raff he had listened to him speak and it was Raff’s turn to listen to him.

“It’s a navigation center,” Breitenbucher said. “It was never a regional  navigation center.”

To contact Dennis Wyatt, email dwyatt@mantecabulletin.com