Mayor Gary Singh and challenger Jacob Naven agree on at least one thing — Manteca would benefit greatly if the city strengthens its effort at organizing Neighborhood Watch groups.

Both praise the current Manteca Police Department effort as a success.

They see it as an effective way to get neighbors more engaged with each other not just in keeping an eye out for suspicious activity and reporting it to police, but to strength the community fabric of neighborhoods.

But both would like to see the city expand on the outreach approach, and not just simply establishing more neighborhood groups.

*Naven would like to use the Neighborhood Watch concept utilized to go beyond just helping fight crime and serve as am effective face-to-face pipeline of communication with key departments to address overall neighborhood concerns and to share why the city does things a certain way.

*Singh would like to see — as police beats are expanded and made more robust — that those officers are plugged in directly to the Neighborhood Watch system on an ongoing basis to hear residents’ concerns about crime and safety issues in their neighborhood as well as to share crime trends police are dealing with and how residents can reduce their chances of opinion.

The two candidates were approached about the issue of whether expanding on the Neighborhood Watch concept made sense as the campaign gets underway in earnest for the Nov. 3 citywide mayoral election

Manteca was actually gearing up to do just that in 2008, when the Great Recession hit and they were forced to abandon exploring it further — and possibly implementing it — because of the need to make staffing cuts.

Manteca leaders were intrigued at what San Jose was doing on a community level.

San Jose used Neighborhood Watch groups as a sort of “take-city-hall-on-the-road” to find ways the city could work with neighborhoods in a partnership to improve the quality of life.

In the example Manteca officials explored, a Neighborhood Watch meeting with an officer in attendance brought up a prevalent neighborhood concern about kids walking to and from school littering as they passed a particular park as well as the general condition of the park.

The officer shared the feedback with other departments that looked into the complaints and then sent representatives to the next organized meeting of the Neighborhood Watch group.

A partial solution for the litter was relocating an existing city trash can and placing it near the sidewalk in question. Littering from students was greatly reduced.

The meeting that had a parks department official present led to additional resources being directed to the park.

But the big difference, after staff shared what they were dealing with city wide and their limited manpower and resources, was the neighborhood organizing a once a year spruce up effort at the park with volunteers working with city staff to spruce up landscaping and minor improvements.

While Manteca’s government outreach app has provided a path for many citizen complaints and concerns to be addressed, it doesn’t allow for a more established and broader based forum for airing concerns with the city.

Singh, during his tenure as mayor, has established regular council district “town hall” meetings that council members as well as some department heads attend as well.

His suggestion to involve beat officers is more aligned with what Ripon Police do once or twice a year.

Ripon conducts police beat specific community meetings.

Adding other city functions — streets, public works, code enforcement, parks and recreation — would encompass Naven’s approach of setting up a formal channel, if you will, about all neighborhood concerns and not just issues directly tied to police.

It should be noted that Singh during the last 3.5 years has stepped up social media interaction to a level unmatched by previous mayors as he has with in-person group meetings.

Naven believes residents would benefit with even greater city interaction with all neighborhoods and not just reaching out when issues pop up.

Naven said such an approach could lead to more people stepping up to be part of an effort to build a better community instead of just complaining.

The suggestions of both Naven and Singh are in the same vein of what 2020 City Council candidate Dave Terrell Martin Sr. advocated during his campaign.

He wanted police beat manpower beefed up and structured to allow an overlap where officers could be assigned an hour or so periodically to look for pickup basketball games in driveways with youth or to stop and chat with residents they see outside of their homes.

Martin viewed it as a win-win in improving public safety.

Not only would it knock down fences and help build relationships when police aren’t responding to calls, but officers would get a chance to understand neighborhood concerns.

To contact Dennis Wyatt, email dwyatt@mantecabulletin.com