A Manteca Police Officer driving down the Moffat Boulevard segment of the Tidewater Bikeway drove right by “it” on Monday.

“It” is an “environmentally protected” homeless encampment that’s been hidden for weeks behind low hanging evergreen branches as well as shrubbery.

The careful selection of cardboard colors and such further helps mask the hideaway that has its own “door” to the railroad right-of-way cut through the fence.

To his credit, the homeless individual there keeps debris mostly hidden from the passing youngsters and young moms on bicycles, the elderly on walks, high school students walking to and from Manteca High with buds in their ears, and joggers.

His dog rarely barks.

That coupled with keeping to himself and not creating a mess that screams “I’m illegally camping here,” he escapes both attention and complaints being made to police.

The City Council, by the way, double downed recently about people being in parks between dusk and dawn. The city ordinance also applied to the Tidewater Bikeway.

For years, Manteca has advised businesses to reduce homeless issues on their property through “environmental design” when it comes to landscaping.

The goal was not to create places for the homeless to set up encampments, solo or otherwise, within vegetation or behind it.

And while the city has done that for the most part, there are areas they have come up short.

A case in point is the Tidewater Bikeway segment along Moffat Boulevard.

Manteca Police routinely call out Manteca Property Services to clear out illegal encampment including along the Bikeway.

The city would do itself a favor by spending a few days or so of serious tree trimming and brush clearing to reduce the number of municipal supplied hiding places for the homeless along the Tidewater and any other property under their direct control.

There had been some cleaning beneath evergreens on the strip between the bike path and the cyclone fence Union Pacific installed to keep people off of the railroad tracks on the Moffat segment between Cowell Street and Powers Avenue.

It includes the area around a de facto fire pit with concrete edging where Manteca Fire other years have been dispatched to extinguish warming fires to prevent their potential spread to vegetation.

The end result is the area is no longer conducive to illegal encampments and actually looks like it is part of a well-kept park system.

You will find the long-term homeless encampment farther to the west amid trees and shrubs on a segment of the Tidewater hidden from Moffat by several buildings and fenced in yards complete with privacy slats accented by coiled barb wire.

There are also several dead evergreen trees that have been in that state for years. Rest assured they would have gotten noticed if they were at the Manteca Civic Center.

It is clear the parks division had been doing a Herculean job for years with what resources they have.

But as the community focus groups noted that were part of the master plan update process, a high priority for many is that the city maintains the parks they have and not just roll out new endeavors or finding ways to repurpose lighted baseball fields.

As far as maximizing efforts to homeless encampment proofing the city park system, if the department needs more manpower, it should be part of the discussion for the upcoming council budget workshop.

If not, then it would make sense to step up the coordination of the city’s homeless efforts to include getting rid of low hanging branches and such on municipal property.

To contact Dennis Wyatt, email dwyatt@mantecabulletin.com