The days of people parking their cars for sale and trucks double parking along southbound Airport Way between Daniels Street and the 120 Bypass adjacent to the Stadium Retail Center are numbered.

During a discussion of revisions in the city’s rules regarding oversized vehicle parking that took place at the Tuesday City Council meeting, Councilman Jose Nuño related how he has been getting numerous complaints about the practice of people parking cars for sale on that segment of Airport Way as well as the number of semi-trucks double parking near off and on ramps to the 120 Bypass.

Manteca Police Captain Mike Aguilar said the city gets numerous complaints about those two issues. He added police are working with the public works department to create a no-parking zone in the area in question. Once that is done Airport Way will be posted for no parking from the 120 Bypass to a point north of Wawona Street.

Aguilar noted parking issues are a big concern of the public as the department had fielded 565 parking complaints from the start of this year through the first week of April. That works out to an average of 5.5 complaints a day.

Nuño also expressed a desire to have the city crackdown on semi-trucks being parked for extended periods of time throughout Manteca.

“We’re getting a lot of (truckers) parking just everywhere,” Nuño said. “I think it is time we start doing something about this.”

Nuño said he has noticed more semi-trucks parking in neighborhoods. Aguilar said even though the oversized vehicle parking ordinance that is being revised references semi-trailers, staff is waiting until the truck route study is completed to recommend to the council changes regarding rules for semi-truck parking throughout the city.

The council acted to amend the oversized vehicle park rules on Tuesday as follows:

The rules will apply to all city streets and not just residential areas.

The time is being reduced to 24 hours from 72 hours for the unloading, loading, or cleaning of oversized vehicles. Weekends and federal holidays are not included in the restriction.

A four-hour limit is being imposed the parking of unhitched trailers on any city street. Currently there is no time restriction.

The new rules will go into effect 30 days after the council May 21 meeting providing they approve them for a second time as required by law.

Aguilar noted the 72 hours often allowed violators to go for a week or longer based on the timing of complaints and when police respond.  The 72-hour restriction starts after police mark vehicles. If an RV, as an example, is parked on a street Saturday and a complaint comes in on a Tuesday and the RV isn’t marked until mid-day Wednesday a ticket couldn’t be issued until mid-day Monday meaning the RV could end up parking on the street for 10 days without consequences.

Aguilar said by the council shrinking the allowed parking hours it will allow police to more effectively respond to citizen complaints.

Homeless living in

RVs face same rules

It is important to note the rules as adopted apply to everyone who has an RV and not just the ones belonging to a homeowner or a guest that is parked on the street in front of their houses.

One of the PowerPoint slides Aguilar shared was off a photo a Manteca resident took of a rundown RV parked on the street alongside of his home that did not belong to him or any of his neighbors. During the three days it was parked there the homeowner said he would not allow his children to go outside and play. Other photos showed RVs parked for multiple days near parks and in commercial districts.

Aguilar noted some of the complaints about RV parking came from people who also had issued with trash being left in neighborhoods after RVs leave.

Should anyone after the ordinance is adopted park an RV on a street Monday through Friday they are limited to just 24 hours. Should they park on the street on a Friday and police respond, they could stay parked there until Monday without getting a ticket due to the weekend.

That means anyone — including the homeless living in an RV — could park in front of your home and the police would be powerless for more than 72 hours to issue a ticket. Had the council opted for 24 hours regardless of the day of the week police would have been able to issue tickets 24 hours later. That said police staffing levels on weekends aren’t robust enough to keep track of low level parking complaints.

On the flip side the police would — once the second reading of the ordinance is passed and 30 days go by — be able to issue tickets to those parking anywhere on a city street in Manteca more than 24 hours Monday through Friday. That would include the homeless that stay in RVs in business districts, by schools, and near city parks. Powers Avenue, as an example, will throughout a month have RVs that homeless sleep in park on the street by Lincoln Park and Lincoln School.

During the weekend and holidays anyone including the homeless won’t have to worry about a 24 hour limit.

To contact Dennis Wyatt, email dwyatt@mantecabulletin.com