It was supposed to be a grand entrance feature for Manteca.

A water fountain shooting up 60 or so feet skyward — think the Bellagio on the Las Vegas Strip — greeting motorists as they passed Manteca on the 120 Bypass.

It was put in place in 2007 at the Stadium Retail now anchored by Kohl’s.

A circular sidewalk gently descends to the fountain at the center of a circular concrete pool in a basin slightly to the southwest of Petco.

It’s still there.

But it hasn’t been on for close to 18 years.

The fountain was the brainchild of Kitchell Development and municipal leaders at the time.

It was about creating ambiance. It was about creating civic pride. It was about showing off Manteca.

It ended up being a colossal waste of money and an expensive lesson in you can’t make Manteca have the feel of the Bay Area or any other place. It’s Manteca.

Manteca should be the best Manteca it can be.

Even Las Vegas can’t escape the simple fact it is what it is.

They can build a pseudo Eiffel Tower or a pseudo New York skyline but it is still Las Vegas located smack dab in the desert and not along the Seine River or on Manhattan Island.

So why isn’t the fountain working?

Two words: Delta breezes.

Caltrans had a say in how the fountain could be operated for obvious reasons. A 60-foot or so plume of water shooting into the air along a freeway could cause serious traffic safety issues in the wind.

Startling drivers moving along at 65 mph on a 100-degree day without a cloud in sight with the spray from a water fountain splattering across the windshield doesn’t exactly scream safety.

Caltrans, as a condition of the city being able to approve the fountain, restricted its operations to times when the wind was less than 5 mph.

About the only time winds stay below 5 mph for most of the day in Manteca is during tule fog season or when high pressure systems deliver still summer days that send temperatures soaring past the century mark.

Local residents involved in the approval process should have known better.

Had an engineer bothered to research daily wind speeds in Manteca they would have known it was illogical for a water foundation with such restrictions to be built.

It actually gets worse.

Even with winds under 5 mph and reducing the reach of the water to 30 feet, water spray still fell on the Bypass’ outside westbound lane.

The fountain was turned on briefly for less than two dozen days over the course of three months before it went dry forever.

Water also plays heavily into another example of trying to make Manteca into something it can never be instead of making Manteca into the best Manteca it can be.

A previous council in 2012 that proceeded with an interactive water play feature in the expansion and upgrade of Library Park with a design celebrating Manteca’s heritage also ignored the realities of Manteca.

In order to save money, they cut a water-recycling feature out of the play feature.

That meant every drop of expensive treated water used went directly into the wastewater system where it went through an expensive treatment project.

Clearly, the cost of the water the play feature would go through was not economically sustainable in the long haul.

What should have been equally obvious was the fact they were cutting a water recycling feature out of the project in a city that in the previous 35 years had gone through five droughts spanning a third of that time.

Six years later, the State of California did what it should have done decades earlier given realties that proceeded the Johnny-Come-Lately climate panic. Sacramento banned the use of water fountains, water play features, and similar devices that did not recycle water.

The Central Valley has always been semi-arid. The area that has been defined as California has also been subject to droughts for numerous centuries including some spanning 50 years or more.

Manteca is not the East Coast or the South. It is not the Bay Area. It is Manteca.

It does not have mild temperatures as you’ll find along the coast nor is it awash in water supplies.

Why this matters is simple.

Manteca is now in the midst of devising a holistic plan for downtown that is costing $980,000.

To be done right, it must reflect the reality that is Manteca and not that of Livermore, Pleasanton, San Jose, or even Lodi for that matter.

Climate counts.

So do demographics that dictate lifestyles.

Not only is this a commuter city in a county where agriculture is more than viable given San Joaquin is the seventh most productive farm county in the United States, but we are part of a subregion that’s is leading the country in supercommuter growth.

The ever growing crop of new homes is housing families that either can’t afford or eschew the perceived Bay Area lifestyle.

They came to Manteca for a reason.

And it’s not to find Livermore East.