Forcing a citywide vote on whether to toss out the just adopted Manteca general plan will require 4,733 verified signatures of registered municipal voters.

City Clerk Cassandra Candini-Tilton Monday confirmed the state law requires petitioners to secure 10 percent of the registered voters based on the latest report of the number of registered voters in order to qualify the referendum for the ballot.

The San Joaquín County Registrar of Voters’ last such tally was issued Feb. 10, 2023. The number for Manteca registered voters on that date was 47,331.

City Attorney Dave Nefouse has 10 days under state law to approve the referendum for the ballot. The referendum was submitted on July 20.

That means petition circulating could start as early as the first week on August.

Proponents have 30 days to gather the necessary signatures.

What sparked the referendum in its most basic form is housing encroaching on agricultural operations, in this case Delicato Vineyards.

The dispute centers around whether the city, in the general plan update they adopted last week to serve as the blueprint for municipal growth for the next 20 years, is adequately protecting agriculture from potential negat8ive impacts housing developments could create.

Delicato, the world’s fifth largest winery, is behind the efforts to qualify the referendum for the ballot.

Arguably, they are well-positioned to unleash a small army of petitioners in Manteca given the winery at Frontage Road and Highway 99 just roughly 1½ miles currently from the city’s most northern city limits has roughly 500 workers.

That means 500 households believe they have a stake in overturning the general plan.

Tossing out the general plan is what their employers believe is the best way to protect their jobs and secure the winery’s future as Manteca grows.

Whether that is the case, will likely be debated in the coming weeks as it has at a series of general plan meetings where Delicato consistently pushed for a buffer to protect the winery from future housing development.

The last time a referendum in Manteca qualified for the ballot was 40 years ago this year.

That led to the recall of then  Mayor Trena Kelley as well as then council members Rick Wentworth and Bob Davis over the council’s  decision to terminate Leonard Taylor as police chief.

A bid almost 30 years ago to place a growth cap on the ballot came up short in the signature gathering process after the council adopted a 3.9 percent growth cap to tie annual sewer allocations for new housing.
Over efforts have been launched — and then aborted — since them to overturn council decisions. Included was the 2022 effort to block the building of homeless navigation center in Manteca.

None of them, however, got beyond either filing to circulate filing petitions or certain a ruckus threatening  to do so.

To contact Dennis Wyatt, email dwyatt@manetcabulletin.com