Manteca dipped into its special funds “savings” and used stimulus funds to go on a $20.1 million investment spree during 2011.It included building a new animal shelter ($2.1 million), starting work on a new vehicle maintenance building ($4.7 million), launching the 2.5-mile long Woodward Avenue sewer pipeline and street project ($9 million), expanding Library Park ($894,000), and completing the HOPE Family Shelter upgrade and renovation ($1.2 million).The city also secured $2.3 million in federal stimulus funds that can only go toward highway landscaping to spruce up the 120 Bypass and Highway 99 corridors. Work on that effort is now under way.That brings the total of major Manteca public works endeavors completed or that got underway in 2011 to $20.2 million.The batch of projects is the result of a directive of the City Council to take advantage of low construction costs, create needed jobs, and to stretch money as far as possible.All of the projects were funded with money that would be illegal to use to soften the cushion of the economic turn and foreclosure mess on the general fund that provides the means to run day-to-day municipal operations such as public safety, parks, and streets.There were cases where the primary funding source didn’t have all of the necessary money in the account. When that happened the city borrowed money within legal constraints in other special funds such as redevelopment that will be paid back with interest from growth fees.Manteca isn’t out of major public improvement projects it can roll out and pay for without borrowing.