It’s been 20 years since Manteca first allowed the sale of safe and sane fireworks by non-profits.

That followed the city having banned the sale of fireworks for decades.

Vince Hernandez, when he championed allowing the sales back when he was on the City Council, made sure there was a five-year sunset clause.

That meant after the first five years, the City Council would weigh how things had gone, ask staff for input, and then decide whether to allow the sales to continue.

Looking back, it was  less of a reassessment than a capitulation by the council in charge in 2009.

The ordinance established that there would be one fireworks booth permit issued per 5,000 residents with an additional permit reserved for the city.

It allowed one additional permit to be part of the non-profit annual lottery whenever Manteca added 5,000 residents.

Manteca, with just under 65,000 residents, issued 14 permits for non-profits and one for the city that was used by the Manteca Police Officers Association.

The MPOA used their proceeds to help fund the city’s aerial fireworks display and cover part of the tabs for their various community endeavors.

Fast forward to this past Fourth of July.

There were 14 non-profit permits and no city permit issued.

Yet, there were 92,000 residents or 30,000 more people than in 2005.

That means, if everything went according to plan, the city should have issued 20 permits.

A clue to what happened can be found in why the city didn’t take advantage of the one they set aside for their use.

It’s called diminishing returns.

As such, the winning golden lottery ticket that was a city issued permit that secured a fireworks booth in 2005 has lost a large part of its luster.

The non-profits raked in the money in the early years.

That’s because Manteca was the only game in San Joaquin County when it came to the legal selling of safe and sane fireworks.

The word got out and people from Tracy, Stockton, and elsewhere flocked to Manteca so they could return to their hometowns and illegally set them off there.

No elected Manteca official gave much thought to the fact they were aiding and abiding people from Tracy and Stockton to break the law in their respective cities.

Why worry about such consequences when nonprofits in Manteca were rolling in the dough?

It was the same attitude in 2009 that ignored then Fire Chief Kirk Waters’ well thought out recommendations because implementing them would have taken money out of the pockets of nonprofits.

Waters fulfilled his obligation to the people of Manteca. He told the truth.

His inspection of municipal records in 2009 showed that there were 18 fireworks-related emergencies in Manteca accounting for $19,000 in property damages between 2005 and 2009.

The four years prior to the fireworks being allowed to be sold legally in Manteca, there were seven fireworks-related emergencies and $100 in property damages.

There were no documented injuries associated with fireworks.

Staff presented the council with two options.

One was extending the legal sale of fireworks for another five years or eliminating the sale of fireworks by letting the sunset clause take effect.

And if the council opted to allow fireworks sales to continue, staff recommended that a $500 cost recovery fee be assessed to each non-profit that is awarded a fireworks permit.

The fee would cover a portion of the fire department’s cost in monitoring fireworks sales. Fees, at the time, ranged from $100 to $1,600 throughout California.

The annual fee would have generated toward what was then the city’s actual $9,405.06  cost of the fire department overseeing the fireworks sales.

The city in 2005, in 2009 — and now — only charges a non-profit $150 for the fireworks booth permit.

Keep in mind, the fire department command — and likely every frontline firefighters — never thought it was smart to allow the sales in the first place.

The proposed 2009 fees would at least have covered some of the costs the city occurred in exchange for allowing the non-profits to make money selling legal fireworks.

It is clear, politically, that city councils have a history of putting non-profits above the interest of city taxpayers.

So why doesn’t the current council consider perhaps boosting the take of individual non-profits  that are issued firework booth permits?

The city should consider revisiting the basic rules put in place in 2005.

Instead of issuing one permit for every 5,000 residents that the city put in abeyance, they  should up the ratio to one permit for every 10,000 residents.

And they should honor a commitment made to taxpayers in making sure that they recover the cost for issuing municipal permits.

Based on 2009 costs — unless the city has bothered to track expenses in recent years — that would come to $1,000 per nonprofit based on 10 permits.

Or if the city stayed with 14 permits, it would be $700 apiece.

The city should not lose money in making it possible for non-profits to make money.

And at the same time the council might want to shore up the value of securing the fireworks booth permits.

Reducing the number of permits would make them more valuable.

As such it would make the permits more attractive in terms of opportunity cost — the time spent manning the booths —  and the net return.

Whether the council thinks the fee should be upped or the number of permits reduced, is debatable.

But what isn’t is the fact Manteca has been sleep walking for the past 15 years.

Good government requires revisiting what government does.

The council in 2009 sidestepped the chance.

Hopefully the current council doesn’t do the same.

This column is the opinion of editor, Dennis Wyatt, and does not necessarily represent the opinions of The Bulletin or 209 Multimedia. He can be reached at dwyatt@mantecabulletin.com