Manteca is finally delivering on a 28 year-old promise, the expansion of the city’s skate park.

Brandy Clark — Manteca’s Director of Parks, Recreation & Transit — said Thursday initial concrete work on the expansion will start before the end of October.

The city is going ahead with the skate park expansion after working with skateboarders, in-line skaters and BMX trick riders.

Instead of having the city use committed federal COVID relief funds to devise plans and such for a second skatepark and then place them on the shelf for years while staff looked for more money, the advisory group embraced a series of improvements for the current faculty.

Eventually the city will build a second skate park most likely as part of the new community park being pursued northeast of Del Webb.

The skate park improvements that have been identified include:

*adding for more skate elements: a curb grind, an up and down, a side to side, a volcano, and an incline ramp.

*adding an open skate area.

*adding new tubing fencing and additional concrete area.

*painting/staining the existing bowl in colorful geometric patterns.

*putting in a new drinking fountain.

*creating two additional plaza areas with seating.

*new entry shade canopies with picnic tables.

*new entrance area to skate park complete with sign.

*new low-water use landscaping and trees.

*new storage containers.

*converting a barren dirt area to the southwest of the skate park into a turf area with trees.

*installing a Flock camera system for security.

The skate park is located along the Tidewater Bike Path between the northwest corner of Center and Elm streets as well as the Walnut Place neighborhood park.

The expansion was seeded more that two years ago with a $250,000 set aside of remaining COVID relief funds by Mayor Gary Singh and then Councilman Jose Nuno.

There was $2.5 million left over of the $11.7 million the city receive in pandemic relief after covering the cost of city incurred COVID related expenses, backfilling revenue lost with the forced shutdown, and addressing a long laundry list of pressing needs such as replacing police vehicles, obtaining pavement equipment to allow larger in-house street repair works as well as needed equipment at the wastewater treatment plant.

Each council member was allowed to identify projects they wanted done or partially funded to wed with other money. The goal was to obtain amenities the city otherwise may not have been able pursue or would have to wait for years to do so.

The current skate park was located along the Tidewater near Elm after the City Council rejected four other sites including south of the Union Road tennis courts and several locations between Moffat Boulevard and the Tidewater.

The late Wayne Flores was the council member that pushed the skate park through on a 3-2 vote.

But then bending to public pressure that opposed placing a skate park near commercial or residential areas, the majority of the council kept rejecting sites until the staff came up with what they indicated was a less than ideal location.

In finally approving the site, three of the council members said they’d push for funds to complete a second phase the following budget year.

But when 1999 rolled around, skate park supporters were informed the city was not going to fund the second phase.

For the current remaining COVID relief funds, the money needs to be spent by Dec 31, 2027.

To contact Dennis Wyatt, email dwyatt@mantecabulletin.com