The three city functions that engage the most Manteca residents on any given day — recreation, parks, and transit — are being combined into one department.
The move comes as:
*Participation is exploding in recreation programs, specifically community events such as trunk or treat and other family orientated endeavors ranging from the “Park Palooza” to “Music on Maple.”
*Ridership on Manteca Transit buses is growing by double digits, going from 78,783 in 2024 to 88,089 last year for an 11.81 percent increase.
*The city is adding recreation and park facilities at a stepped up pace including the interactive water play feature opening this spring at Woodward Park, three more neighborhood parks moving forward, and seven more in the planning process.
It underscores the city’s commitment to strengthen the community fabric and quality of life as Manteca grows past the 100,000 population mark.
City Manager Toni Lungren noted the passage of the Measure Q sales tax is giving Manteca the ability to step up — and better support — direct services to residents across the board from public safety and more resources to maintain streets to quality of life endeavors.
The city has already started putting new initiatives into motion that will ultimately be more effective with better coordination between transit as well as community services.
Those include:
*A rethink of the Manteca Transit fixed route bus system and adding a fifth route as well as preparing for integrating service with the ACE commuter train passenger service coming to downtown by the transit center in 2027.
*Plans to develop, use, and program the asphalted corner and the IOOF building the city is in the process of acquiring combined possibly with an adjoining alley segment and municipal owned parking lot as a community gathering place with various events.
And, as Lundgren noted, it is also to make better use of existing taxpayer investments such as the transit center that has a large community room with kitchen could by more effectively as well as a plaza that has rarely been used.
The transit center was the outgrowth of the community-based 2020 Task Force in 1998 whose recommendations to the city included putting in place an iconic building that would be a focal point of downtown and serve as a community gathering place.
The large community room — that can accommodate more than 200 people in a table and chair setting and a maximum of roughly 400 for “standing’ events — plus a kitchen was not needed to build a passenger transit hub.
It was done to create a community gathering spot at a high profile downtown intersection, Main Street and Moffat Boulevard.
ACE will be expanding the transit center parking lot almost all the way to Garfield Avenue directly across Manteca High whose front entrance has been reorientated toward Moffat as part of the modernization project.
The parking lot’s main entrance will align with Sherman Avenue and Moffat.
The actual passenger loading platform — that will include a pedestrian bridge complete with stairs and elevator to accommodate double tracking — will be to the south of the existing parking lot.
That will allow ACE trains to load and unload passengers without blocking the Main Street crossing.
The transit center community room in 2025 had 52 private events — weddings, birthday parties, and organizational gatherings, 83 city meetings, and 5 non-profit events such as fundraisers.
Recreation Manager Brandy Clark during Thursday’s City Council goal setting workshop for the fashioning of the city’s budget for the upcoming fiscal year starting, July 1, noted involvement in community events organized surged in 2025.
It ranged from the Halloween trunk or treat event in downtown being so well attended people seemed to fill the street shoulder to shoulder to new events such as the Spook & Skate that drew more than 500 people.
The city plans to expand the trunk or treat and other events to accommodate more people this year.
Manteca, through the community services division that Clark heads, is working with American Legion Post 249 to bring back the three-day Memorial Day Weekend Commemoration to Woodward Park.
To contact Dennis Wyatt, email dwyatt@mantecabulletin.com
