Manteca’s new dumping grounds — the 600 block of North Lincoln Avenue — now has even more garbage being dropped off including a refrigerator as well as a junked trailer loaded with trash that has been left parked in front of the Northside Church of Christ.
The City of Manteca did pressure the owner of the property to address the mess they left when they tore down a number of homes to make way for a now stalled townhouse project. But after a crew was on site for one day and filled up one junk container early last week, nothing else has happened.
Meanwhile the broken window theory that city leaders espouse as to why code enforcement is needed to avoid cancerous blight taking hold in neighborhoods is in full swing.
Fresh garbage has been dumped on the lot since last week — including three empty containers that were labeled diesel exhaust fluid — to join the piles of rubble that are still in place.
The hired crew did remove three couches that had been dropped off on the sidewalk three weeks ago but now there is a new one that has since been dumped on the sidewalk. Joining it this time is an unsecured refrigerator — that safety experts repeatedly warn can be death traps for curious young kids — sitting on Lincoln Avenue.
On Monday afternoon a dozen kids walking home from Shasta School dodged the mess that also includes a pile of fresh tree trimmings that someone dumped in the street that was then driven through by those neighbors said appeared to be teens horsing around while driving a car. The result is debris covering much of the street.
A dilapidated boat trailer loaded with garbage has been left across the street in front of the church underscoring how piles of garbage and rubbish encourage people with no conscious to simply pile on.
One neighbor, who asked not to be identified, said while it was nice the abandoned homes they had been complaining about for years that had been taken over by homeless and drug users who have started several fires including one that threated a neighborhood home were razed, they feel the city “doesn’t care about their neighborhood because new $500,000 homes” aren’t being built there.
The parcel with a number of rubbish piles as well as high weeds that are now drying out is arguably the most egregious violation of the city’s weed and rubbish abatement law.
The city’s policy requires property owners to address such issues or else the city will take steps to abate the problem and place a lien against the property.
The neighbor said that when the property owner removed the “rental fencing” that problems started multiplying. The fencing, she said, at least kept people off the parcel and seemed to be a deterrent to illegal dumping.
The city municipal code doesn’t include a section that can force property to be fenced but it is clear about rubbish, yard waste — there are a number of large trees chopped up in the piles — ripped out concrete and such  being left on land is illegal.
City officials that were in contact with the property owner several weeks ago said if that didn’t work they would use other means to address the issue.
The site that is behind the Bank of Stockton, String’s Restaurant, and across the street from senior housing built a few years ago as well as being near single family homes and duplexes does not exactly paint a vision one would have when you talk about Manteca being the Family City.

To contact Dennis Wyatt, email dwyatt@mantecabulletin.com