Manteca may soon receive $15,000 a year renting an existing light standard adjacent to the parks/golf corporation yard to Verizon for use as a wireless cell tower.

The City Council on Tuesday will consider leasing the light pole to Verizon. It will also include some 500 square feet on the ground for equipment. The council meets at 7 p.m. at the Civic Center, 1001 W. Center St.

And since it is surrounded by tall trees, it won’t need to be camouflaged like the tower going in on Button Avenue this year. The council last year made it clear to staff they did not want cell towers “sticking out like sore thumbs.”

Verizon is also erecting the 88-foot cell tower disguised as a pine tree in the 100 block of Button Avenue within a small industrial park.

The “pine tree” cell tower will be several blocks away from the city’s tallest clock tower that was put in place last year to disguise a cell tower on southwest corner of Commerce Avenue and East Yosemite Avenue behind the McDonald’s.

One cell carrier was prepared to erect an 80-foot flag pole doing double duty as a cell tower on Wetmore Street at the city’s corporation yard until it was determined the garrison-style flag would interfere with municipal emergency communications transmitters that were also being placed on the tower. It instead went up as an oil derrick-style tower.

The pine tree tower is planned for the northeast corner of a storage area of an existing auto repair shop at 178 Button Avenue that is owned by Gerry Cargile.

The cell tower will be screened by branches of the fake pine tree fashioned from a monopole. A pine tree design was chosen to blend in with existing pine trees on nearby properties.

Disguising cell towers whenever possible is keeping with a directive by the City Council to staff that they didn’t want to see stark cell towers popping up over Manteca if it could be avoided.