Editor Manteca Bulletin,

I’m not sure our good Mayor consulted with those of us who will have to deal with the increased truck traffic on Airport Way and Louise Avenue when he suggested “The City of Manteca is very pleased that Amazon has chosen our community to locate …”.  It’s all in location, location, location. 

 It seems that folks just tend to forget that Airport Way north from the 120 Bypass to French Camp Road, along with Louise Avenue heading east from the western city limits, are not legal for the large trailered trucks to travel on.  Neither road is a state designated STAA truck route.  What is Amazon going to use to transport goods from the Stockton Airport straight down Airport Way to this new distribution center on Louise Avenue?  Pickup trucks?  More than likely it will be the large trailered trucks that these roads were never engineered to carry the weight of nor designed to accommodate physical turning requirements, etc.  

The entire CenterPoint development from Lathrop Road north to Roth Road was sold to us with the promise there would be no large truck traffic on Airport Way, that it would all be contained on the spline road to be put in between the CenterPoint properties and the Union Pacific property.  Now a new project is being booked that will negate that promise; will that open it up then for CenterPoint to freely use Airport Road as well?  Btw, why isn’t Amazon considering the CenterPoint development where none of these issues would exist if the original promises were kept?  There’s still eighty percent or more of the CenterPoint land waiting to be developed and more than likely the folks behind CenterPoint, that is majority owned by CalPers, would make Amazon a fantastic deal just to get them into the CenterPoint development.

Why aren’t these factors being considered by City Staff?  Why isn’t the City being as considerate of us residents as they are for new businesses?  Are we already at a point where the citizens of Manteca no longer have a say in how our community develops?  Is this project just going to be used as a lever (accomplished fact) to eventually force the public to accept Staff’s long standing intention to have these roads designated as STAA routes over the objections of the citizens?  Can anyone tell me where else in San Joaquin County, or even in California, where large trucking based commercial concerns are mixed so closely with residential neighborhoods?  Has Staff forgotten that all the farm land up to Lovelace Road east of Airport Way has been rezoned low density residential by the County?  Isn’t there usually everywhere else a buffer of light commercial businesses between?  Would staff be inclined to live near these roads, I think not.

Bill Barnhart

Manteca