Steve Pinkerton was not an overly popular guy during his tenure as Manteca’s city manager.

His first year on the job in 2008 was when the housing crisis — the explosion of foreclosures spurred by liar loans — started to mushroom.

Pinkerton, after less than a year down the road, was looking at a multi-year deficit approaching $15 million.

The Great Recession sidetracked what hopes the City Council had at the time to take advantage of Pinkerton’s forte in economic development.

Things went into survival mode.

He had to find a way to keep municipal services going while making painful cuts that people — specifically city employees — had to buy into to make it work.

First, he needed the community to understand what was at stake.

At his recommendation, the council appointed a 15-member blue ribbon citizen committee to examine the finances and make suggestions on how the city could stay afloat.

The committee included the late Fred Milner who was as pro-police that you could get.

The group was zeroing in on support for Pinkerton’s proposal for all bargaining groups to agree to a solution that would provide the savings needed to avoid Manteca ending up like Stockton did, which was filing bankruptcy.

It translated into either taking a 20 percent overall cut in compensation from existing pay and forgoing contracted raises yet to be awarded over multiple years or no pay cuts and an equal savings through layoffs.

Each bargaining group was allowed to choose between the two options.

The final two groups to holdout against compensation cuts where the firefighters and police bargaining units.

The assumption was the citizens wouldn’t allow for public safety staffing to be cut.

Milner was one of those citizens.

At a pivotal gathering of the committee in a meeting room at the senior center, Milner pressed hard to make cuts anywhere else except public safety. He suggested parks and recreation and streets as possible targets

Then Police Chief Dave Bricker shared his thoughts.

Street maintenance, Bricker noted, contributed to the public’s safety as unmaintained roads are dangerous to drive.

The chief noted police in the mid-20th century across the nation started pushing for more robust parks and recreation programs to offer healthy diversions for youth and young men as a way to prevent crime.

Bricker’s argument was more elaborate than that. But the bottom line is Milner sided with cuts to be citywide and not targeted to keep fire and police services whole.

The firefighters got on board.

The police officers group didn’t. They ended up going for the layoffs that cost the department 16 officers, of which four were immediately hired back using a federal grant Manteca was able to secure.

The point is even in the darkest financial times in Manteca’s recent history the city administration did not decapitate the Parks & Recreation Department and leave it without a director.

Manteca for the past six years or so robbed parks and recreation of department status, dumped the work associated with running a department on mid-management along with their other duties, and then rebranded it as Community Services.

The day of treating parks and recreation as a stepchild in a growing community where it is needed in helping thread together and strength Manteca’s community fabric through recreation, cultural, and social pursuits is over.

City Manager Toni Lundgren, in a move to step up community engagement through both parks and recreation and transit efforts, which on a day-to-day basis are the municipal services the most Manteca residents access in person — combined the into a new department.

It is now Parks & Recreation & Transit.

It is clear by its name what services are provided to the community.

It is treating it as a department with a leader that cannot just oversee day-to-day operations but to step up programming and serve as the city’s point person in making sure recreation, parks, and transit grows with Manteca.

At the end of the day, having recreational facilities that are broad-based such as the recent addition of a cricket pitch and more amenities at neighborhood parks as well as the interactive water play feature and outdoor fitness court on their way to Woodward Park are essential as Manteca grows.

Equally essentially is effectively programming the use of all facilities — current and coming down the pike — to assure robust community engagement.

A city as a livable community — as pointed out in the darkness 17 years ago — needs clean water, public safety, good streets, a wastewater system and garbage collection that is dependable, as well as parks and recreation.

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