Is Manteca guilty of having too much government?

It isn’t a rhetorical question as far as Manteca Mayor Willie Weatherford is concerned.

Weatherford used the proposed changes in the zoning code governing property uses at Tuesday night’s Manteca City Council meeting to lambast over-regulation and the long-held perception that Manteca’s city hall isn’t business or property owner friendly.

“In these times the least government is the best government,” the mayor said.

After Weatherford made his initial comments, four speakers got up to express their concerns.

• Pastor Cynthia Jackson worried if the new zooning changes would impact her church’s ability to use a recently rented building on Alameda Street as a classroom.

• Apartment complex manager Joyce Wellington said that while her employer has no plans to convert the apartment complex she manages into condos, he is worried that the city might be taking away the right to do so.

• Marshall Lehr who owns commercial property on South Main Street was hopeful the restrictions that have prevented him from renting his space to the same type of businesses found elsewhere in Manteca on North Main and Yosemite Avenue will go away.

• Joe DeAngelis thought it wasn’t the city’s business to determine whether a tree on residential property was improperly trimmed and if that was the case to force the property owner to replace it with another.

Weatherford - referencing Lehr’s situation of having to turn down tenants because the city didn’t want a specific business at his location that was allowed elsewhere in commercial zones -  said he didn’t want the city to put in place policies that could bankrupt a private property owner because they are unable to rent or lease their property.

The mayor held up the zoning changes at one point and said “the autocratic stance of (city) staff” in the past has thoroughly frustrated and hamstring business people at both ends of the spectrum from the little guy to the corporation.

Weatherford noted some states don’t even have zoning.

California, however, requires zoning and allows municipalities to adopt a cafeteria of regulations reflecting local community desires to regulate everything from housing setbacks and tree locations right down to colors that can be used on commercial buildings if cities opt to go that route.

Weatherford added that the existing municipal staff “is generally the best staff we’ve had” in terms of reducing red tape and moving projects forward.

Councilman Steve DeBrum shared some of Weatherford’s concerns. Before voting on the zoning update proposals that would start moving an ordinance with changes through the approval process, DeBrum wanted to make sure concerns expressed by property owners were addressed.

Councilman John Harris added that in the future he’d like to know what concerns were raised by property owners at workshops and before the Planning Commission and whether those concerns were resolved before the council is asked to move forward.

The council tabled any action on the zoning proposals until the Nov. 15 meeting.