Manteca, for better or worse, too often defaults to two extreme modes when it comes to tackling community amenity projects.

The most common is foot dragging.

The Big League Dreams sports complex is a prime example.

It took eight years to go from the council declaring “let’s do this” to ground actually breaking.

It involved almost three years of non-stop “angry” community meetings over where it would be located.

The other is fast tracking by pushing aside internal processes the city put in place to vet projects to make them happen much sooner instead of the usual much later or even never.

The Moffat Community Center that was built and then leased to the VFW for a post hall illustrates the fast track mode.

Staff said it would take 18 months to go through just the approval process.

The council said no it won’t.

The community center ended up breaking ground in less than a year after it was made a clear directive of the council.

The bulk of major projects such as with the wastewater treatment and water systems, move most of the time without deviating to one planning extreme or the other.

The also have rigid state standards to follow.

Keep in mind BLD and the Moffat Community Center are not projects that have happened in part or whole on the current council’s watch.

But there are two current council endeavors that fit the pattern.

One is the homeless navigation center, and the other is the whatever is coming to a Library Park near you.

The city has beaten the drums about building a homeless navigation center for going on seven years.

There were “angry” community meetings for two or so years as the city tried to find a suitable site that would trigger the relatively smallest political firestorm.

The proclaimed cure using Library Park for what ails downtown is being hammered out about as far on the down low as a California municipality can go without violating state laws.

Granted, the city needs to be able to negotiate without everyone looking over their shoulder 24/7.

Nitty gritty negotiating in public, per se, is not conducive to reaching reasonable agreements or even getting the private sector to the table.

That is why the Brown Act allows actual negotiations to go on behind closed doors.

But there is a big difference in how the city is approaching Library Park.

There has been vague descriptions of what the city and the private concern have in mind. But it is no way near the level of transparency the city had the last time they has a major project that involved the leasing or selling of city land.

That project was the Great Wolf resort.

Although negotiations were ended, other proposals examined, and then Great Wolf came back for a second look and negotiated to seal the deal, the public that the city exists to benefit were let in on the broad details of what Manteca’s leaders was chasing.

All we know about Library Park is it will involve repurposed containers, food, and maybe food trucks.

We don’t know the fate of the gazebo, playground equipment, bocce courts, the water play feature and such.

Nor do we know if the private concern is going to be allowed to have a strong mix of boutique retail as the Downtown Container Park does in Las Vegas.

Two dozen or so dining options basically to serve patrons who will be actually eating at chairs and table under the sycamore trees or taking orders to go seems a tad overly optimistic.

Does the project involve the ability to compete with downtown landlords and even downtown businesses that will likely have much higher overhead?

Who knows besides “The Shadow” and the City Council?

What the city has in mind might just be the bold stroke downtown needs.

It might even be a way to kill those pesky misconceptions that Library Park is a homeless park.

It could happen in such a manner that the park is still accessible to everyone that doesn't create a disturbance, follows the rules of the concern operating it, and obey the law.

As leased city property, the operators have a tighter control on behavior.

The layout of the endeavor could keep much of what is there intact for people to still use even if they don’t drop a lot of coin dining.

The one big detail that has gotten out is the operator would be able to contain the area they lease with wrought iron fencing.

That steps up security.

The city would be off the hook for deploying manpower daily way in excess of what it does elsewhere, including Woodward Community Park, to make the park presentable.

All of that sounds good, assuming that is where the city is headed.

But even if you embrace the concept, Library Park is still a public resource.

A robust community-based discussion for input before the city solicited proposals to lease part of all of Library Park should have happened.

After all, this is the council and city administration that keeps saying they are working to be as transparent as possible.

Going back to the BLD saga.

No one wants a repeat of the knocked down and dragged out mess of that process.

But what came out of the city’s transparent intentions back then, and early in the process, was a loud voice that Woodward Park might not be the best site for the BLD concept.

Neighbors did not like the idea of a community park across the street that would have intense use seven days a week to 10 p.m. or later and the intense street parking that could occur.

The soccer community wasn’t thrilled about losing playing fields in the storm basin that was proposed to accommodate three to four baseball fields.

The input and persistent opposition eventually prompted what might qualify as a genius solution.

The city couldn’t afford to buy land to build a sports complex, but they did have surplus land at the wastewater treatment plant.

That option meant there could be six baseball fields and even an indoor soccer arena.

It did not reduce soccer field playing options.

Plus it did not create a situation where Woodward Park would be utilized significantly more than a typical community park.

It led to the Stadium Retail Center now anchored by Kohl’s thanks to the need to extend Daniels Street to reach the BLD site.

That, in turn, made the Costco and Great Wolf deals possible.

And it was all because the city got pushback, and some positive suggestions, on what they might do, to their solution to jumpstart the completion of Woodward Park with the BLD concept,

It was a concept that allowed major recreation facilities to be built without the city being on the hook for maintenance and operations.

This is not to say a community meeting regarding how Library Park might be rethought would have triggered a series of events such as what happened with the Woodward Park/BLD proposal to score something as game changing downtown as Great Wolf.

But passing on the opportunity for input could mean what is being proposed in whatever form it is may not be tweaked in a manner to get optimum results.

Yes, we’d all like amenities to happen as quickly as the Moffat Community Center did.

The Moffat Community Center was basically built on park land as it is part of the 34 acres that constitute the Tidewater Bikeway.

The council back then went with the community center without asking the public about other possible uses for the land.

That said, they were 100 percent upfront about what they were going to do.

They were transparent.