When Juan Sanabria bought his home on Golden Spike Drive in Lathrop 10 years ago, he didn’t think much of the exposed pipe in the landscape strip between his sidewalk and the street.
Sooner or later, he thought, those exposed pipes would be filed in with concrete and it would end up looking like the rest the neighborhood.
But weeks came and went. Months came  and went. And years came and went – with those same irrigation pipes staring at him every single time he left his home for work.
And after, he claims, the City of Lathrop told him that there was nothing that they could do – that the developer was responsible for that and they had skipped out before it was completed – he finally had enough.
Now he wants to take matters into his own hands.
On Monday, Sanabria informed the Lathrop City Council that as a general contractor, he wanted to complete the project himself – filing in the exposed piping with concrete so that it doesn’t pose a safety hazard or stick out as an eyesore amongst the neighborhood anymore.
“It’s been there for a lot longer than it should, and there’s something that needs to be done about it,” Sanabria said. “I’m willing to do it if it means that it’s going to get done.”
Mayor Sonny Dhaliwal referred the former Bay Area resident to the city’s Public Works Director, Tim McCoy, who he said would help him figure out the right way to deal with the problem.
Before he actually began the work – which could have run afoul of the city’s rules – he said he wanted to come to the council to see what could have been done to help make the neighborhood safer for the many children who play there.
“I had read that they were going to be discussing something and I thought that this was the place to come down and tell them about what was going on with us,” he said. “So hopefully something comes of this because we have a nice neighborhood and it’s unfortunate that the developer didn’t do what they were supposed to do.
“Hopefully something good comes out of this meeting and we can finally have that taken care of.”
Dhaliwal expects that the homeowner will have an answer to his questions within a week of working with staff, and the ball can get rolling towards a resolution that suits everybody’s interests.

To contact reporter Jason Campbell email jcampbell@mantecabulletin.com or call 209.249.3544.