San Joaquin County and Manteca are looking at two potential annexations designed to improve the delivery of services to upwards of 2,000 people.

The areas are:

*The Oakwood Shores gated community on the western end of Woodward Avenue.

*Raymus Village northeast of the Lathrop Road/Highway 99 interchange.

They are being looked at concurrently with an effort to relocate the Lovelace Transfer Station on Lovelace Road.

Both Manteca Mayor Gary Singh and San Joaquin County Supervisor Sunny Dhaliwal are confident the discussions that are in the preliminary stages will benefit present and current residents.

Both Raymus Village and Oakwood Shores are urbanized areas within the county jurisdiction that are served by the Manteca wastewater treatment plant. Both have their own water systems that are 100 percent reliant on groundwater.

Property taxes, the city,

the county & homeowners

The bottom line that eventually drives homeowners that the majority must agree to the annexation is property taxes.

Annexing to the city would not increase their property taxes.

But it would reduce their monthly sewer rates as they are charged higher for being out-of-city customers.

The big issue with property taxes is where each dollar goes that homeowners pay.

A percentage of each dollar from the two neighborhoods currently goes to San Joaquin County, Manteca Unified School District, Delta College, South San Joaquin Irrigation District, and smaller government agencies that include everything from soil conservation to mosquito abatement.

The percentage that goes to the county would change.

To the degree it does, depends upon what the county and city agree to that is essentially the linchpin to the annexation issue ever reaching the homeowners for consideration.

The county would essentially need to agree to a large enough percentage of their current percentage going to the city for the proposal to work.

Eventually, the Lathrop Manteca Fire District is likely come into play.

And if it does, the city would likely have to negotiate an agreement as they did previously with Ripon Consolidated Fire District when the city annexed 1,080 acres along Austin Road,

What is driving the

annexation discussions

In the event of a major emergency such as someone’s life being in imminent danger, Manteca Police are sometimes called to respond to county service areas near the city if they are the closest law enforcement agency and the sheriff can’t respond in a timely manner.

But for the almost all calls for law enforcement calls, it is the sheriff’s responsibility.

The sheriff staffing countywide is designed for primarily rural coverage and not urbanized coverage. Simply put, cities have more intense coverage.

Fire protection is slightly different.

The City of Manteca and Lathrop Manteca Fire have an automatic aid agreement that is different than a mutual aid agreement.

Automatic aid dispatches the closest available unit to a call regardless of the jurisdiction. Mutual aid requires the agency that covers the area where a call originates to request assistance from another department.

It is not automatic. The other agency can decline to assist. And even if they do respond in almost all cases given it is a two-way street, the dispatch time is longer due to the additional process involved.

Automatic aid contracts come up for review periodically with no guarantee they will be renewed.

With the pending building of Manteca’s sixth fire station less than a mile from Oakwood Shores, the likelihood a city engine would be closer almost all of the time as opposed to the Lathrop Manteca engine stationed on South Union Road next to Nile Garden School increases significantly.

Another issue is long-term water service.

There are potential issues already on the horizon for Raymus Villages.

State standards are always changing.

As such, annexation would make water service more sustainable in the long run at least based on financial considerations if not viability for both neighborhoods.

The transfer station

The landfill station that basically serves Manteca, Lathrop, Ripon and surrounding rural areas is in the path of Manteca growth.

Already, plans have been submitted to annex various parcels to the city to build upwards of 1,400 homes to the south and west of the transfer station that separates the recyclables and handles trash transfers.

The city’s adopted general plan— the blueprint for future growth — has more housing to the east and south.

The goal is to avoid future conflicts between trash haulers and urbanized neighborhoods.

The issue is finding a suitable location that works for Manteca and Lathrop that minimize travel times for solid waste trucks.

The city already is exploring a fee on nearby development when it occurs to help cover costs related to relocating the transfer station.

To contact Dennis Wyatt, email dwyatt@mantecabulletin.com