STOCKTON – Manteca is heading toward 30 years as a divided city when it comes to representation on the San Joaquin County Board of Supervisors. 

And Ripon - a city that is about as far south as you can get in San Joaquin County - is being lumped in with Lodi and the rest of the North County.

The supervisors voted 4-1 on Tuesday to accept a redrawn district map for their seats based on the 2010 Census that will leave Manteca divided into three parts. Yosemite Avenue will serve as the split that separates Area 3 held by Steve Bestolarides (to the north) and Area 5 held by Leroy Ornellas (to the south). In addition everything in the city east of Highway 99 to Austin Road remains in Ornellas’ district.

The redrawn map actually does the existing split of Manteca one better by ignoring the fact 1,040 acres for the proposed Austin Road Business Park were annexed to the city earlier this year. That part of Manteca will soon be in a third district represented by Supervisor Ken Vogel of Lodi.

 The board rejected a plan pursued by Manteca’s civic elected leaders to end the community’s status for the past 20 years as the only divided city when it comes to Board of Supervisors’ representation. Manteca would have been combined with South Stockton in the alternative. The Manteca alternative was supported by the Ripon City Council because it would have kept Ripon in a South County district instead of being thrown in with Lodi.

Ornellas cast the lone dissenting vote because he didn’t want to see Ripon, which is now part of his district, stripped away and handed off to Vogel. Ripon would now fall in the same supervisorial district as Escalon and Lodi.

Some in the audience viewed Manteca’s attempt to stretch Area 1 Supervisor Carlos Villapudua’s area from South Stockton all the way down through Manteca as an attempt to redraw the boundaries in order to shift the demographics and help influence future elections.

“You’re being asked to take the only compact district you have and stretch it out over 20 miles so that somebody from Manteca can run for Supervisor,” said Attorney Richard Oliver. “It’s a move that would increase the number of white voters in that district by 80 percent and lower the number of African-American voters by 33 percent. It’s an attempt to change the dynamics of the First District.”

But according to Don Parsons of the Whole Cities Coalition of Manteca and Ripon, the request was simply an attempt to get adequate representation for San Joaquin County’s fourth largest city. It is the only one of its size, he said, that is split between two supervisorial districts.

Even if the board didn’t like his proposed map, Parsons suggested possibly shelving the matter and creating a committee consisting of himself, Manteca Mayor Willie Weatherford and local Developer Bill Filios that would sit down with a committee of two supervisors and another designated representative to come up with a compromise.

“Reapportionment is about voters choosing their representatives, not representatives choosing their voters,” Parsons said. “There’s no legitimate reason for perpetuating the Manteca split – it’s a matter of political convenience rather than practicality.”

With the results of the federal 2010 census pointing out major population shifts in some of the districts – Ornellas saw more than 50,000 people move into his area in the last decade – the board had to come up with a way to try and even the playing field among the five elected officials so that parity could be had.  

At the end of the day, however, Villapudua said that after extended conversations with Parsons and the Manteca contingent he simply couldn’t see shifting the focus of a district he loves and a group of people he’s proud to represent to another area without causing more harm than good.

“To change my district dramatically – it’s not about me but it’s about the future of the district and I’m not sure that’s the right move,” Villapudua said. “I’ve had the honor to meet with and get to know some of the people from Manteca, but don’t see how changing my district so greatly could have any positive benefits.”