Regina Lackey Tuesday said enough is enough.

The Manteca City Councilwoman challenged social media detractors of the council — and specifically those targeting Mayor Gary Singh — to refrain from engaging in personal attacks based on ethnicity. Instead, she said, criticize council members for the decisions they make not because of their race.

“I’m tired of it,” said Lackey.

She added the council expects sharp criticism due to their positions as elected council members but personal attacks rooted in hate based on race cross the line.

Lackey’s defense for Singh came near the end of Tuesday’s council meeting after the latest barrage of social media attacks on Singh slamming the fact he was foreign born, has Punjabi roots, and supposedly favors gas station, convenience store owners, independent truckers and hotel owners because there are a lot that are  Indian and/or share the last name Singh.

She encouraged those with issues to contact council members instead of resorting to anonymous attacks on social media.

“Be transparent,” Lackey urged, so city leaders could reach out to them and address issues and engage in civil discourse.

The attacks have specifically claimed Singh is a cousin of the Stockton truck driver by the last name Singh that made an illegal U-turn on a Florida freeway that killed three people.

They also contend he owned the trucking company.

It’s an extension of other claims that Singh has interest in hotels and gas stations that are operated by people name Singh.   

 The name Singh has deep roots in the Sikh religion, where it is used by all initiated male followers to signify courage, equality, and a rejection of the traditional caste system. 

The  tenth Sikh Guru, Guru Gobind Singh, mandated that all male Sikhs adopt the name "Singh" in 1699. Sikh women were likewise instructed to adopt the name "Kaur," meaning "princess".

Lackey started her remarks by saying that like Singh, she was born in a foreign country and came to the United States as a young child.

Lackey was born in Germany where her father was serving in the Army. She moved to the United States when she was 4.

Singh, whose first name given at birth is Gurminder hence his American nickname Gary, was a toddler in a village of 500 people in northern India.

His grandfather wanted his son and his young family to have a better life.

They were living in a mud hut with no running water. If they needed to go to the bathroom, they went out into an adjoining field on their farm where they grew sugar cane and wheat.

The family mortgaged the farm to pay for their son — Singh’s father — to travel to the United States.

Gary, who was 5 at the time, later became a naturalized citizen when his mother Jesse Kaur did when he was in elementary school.

At age 28, Singh’s father “Sam” started working as a farm laborer in the lettuce fields of Salinas in the early 1980s.

Because he was an agricultural worker and because President Ronald Reagan has implemented the green card program, he was able to stay in the United States.

Sam moved from the fields to a restaurant in San Jose. It was there that baking skills he learned while working for a period in Germany allowed him to get promoted to being a cook, allowing him to pay to bring his wife and then 5-year-old Gary to California.

Sam started working in various doughnut shops. He saved enough money that he was able to buy a shop with partners in Tracy aptly called the Tracy Doughnut Shop. The family rented a two bedroom apartment where altogether 12 people lived.

Sam sold his share in the Tracy Doughnut Shop and bought the liquor store on East Yosemite Avenue in Manteca just west of Austin Road in 1989.

Several years later, he sold that store and bought Manteca Mart from Bob Miner who also owned the store on West Yosemite Avenue in the Lincoln Center that is anchored by Hafer’s. Miner eventually sold that store to Mike Morowit who was elected in 2016 to the City Council with Singh,

Singh, at age 40,is the youngest mayor ever in Manteca he was elected in 2022.

He is the first immigrant elected mayor and first Punjabi-American to be elected mayor.

He also is the first Sierra High grad to be elected mayor although in the 2022 campaign detractors claimed that wasn’t true on the strength of a yearbook production error that left his photo out.

They also claimed he never attended or graduated from the University of Pacific which he did.

 “Gary is more Mantecan than I am,” Lackey said after the meeting. “I was raised in the Bay Area and Gary is basically a lifelong resident of Manteca.
As for the council itself, Lackey stressed they have their difference but also respect one another so when a decision is made they move on.

“We have a damn good council,” she said. “We have a council that works together (despite their differences).”

To contact Dennis Wyatt, email sqwyatt@mantecabulletin.com