Manteca Unified is considering purchasing Lincoln Park in a bid to assure the future viability of the Manteca High campus and to help assure the district’s ability to keep accommodating city growth.

The talk of a possible sale and how that would unfold for the City of Manteca as well as the school district is at the exploratory stage.

What is shaping the proposal and issues it would raise are outlined in an exchange of emails earlier this month between the two jurisdictions. And how it ultimately impacts the community as a whole — including educational and recreational opportunities — is reflected in evolving needs over the years of both the school district and the city as Manteca grows.

Park borders both the Lincoln

& Manteca High campuses

The 4-acre Park is squeezed between the Manteca High and Lincoln School campuses that are respectively the oldest high school and elementary school campuses within the city limits.

The park consists of the city’s only community swimming pool that was built in the 1960s and is significantly undersized for a city of 89,000.

There is also a covered group picnic area, playground area, and lighted baseball field.

Lincoln Park was considered the city’s first community park when it was created in 1960 when the city had 8,242 residents. Located next to the city’s first modern subdivision — Powers Tract — it was on the outskirts of the city.

Manteca High was established 101 years ago. The campus was on the edge of  town at the time. It started with two classrooms, a study hall, library, office and less than 30 students. Over the years homes were built adjacent and across the street from the campus.

Today there are 1,850 students. Manteca High is the initial secondary campus within the city that is targeted to be taken up to 2,200 students so that growth doesn’t swamp existing Manteca, Sierra and East Union high schools.

The biggest challenge is having adequate space to accommodate an educational program for 2,200 high school students along with the needed support facilities such as a cafeteria, gym, playing fields, and even parking. The campus currently has 42 acres. State standards call for 55 acres for 2,200 students.

The lack of adequate space and the fact the campus for years was simply an add-on affair as the community grew creating security and flow issues are two of the most pressing problems with the campus. It  is why replacement of aging classroom wings funded with Measure A bond proceeds in the next phase of improvements will be two-story buildings surrounding an open quad.

Manteca High is currently in the process of buying a motel along Moffat Boulevard and homes on the south side of Mikesell Street to add needed parking as well as provide space for future classrooms for growth plus facilities offering more robust career technical education offerings.

Sale would allow possible

MUSD junior high system

Having the additional acreage Lincoln Park would provide maximum flexibility for education programs and to accommodate growth as it would connect the Manteca High campus with the Lincoln School site.

It also would allow the districts at all of their high school campuses to weigh a junior high option. It could be a way of keeping educational programming goals front and center while addressing the need to maximize tax dollars when it comes to school facilities.

Such a concept, should it materialize, would place cluster of 10 classrooms for ninth grade offering away from the senior high school and the elementary school. Yet the junior high would use the same support facilities and have the same administrators as the senior high.

That would be how a junior high for ninth graders only would work at a future joined Manteca High-Lincoln School campus and the East Union High and Neil Hafley School campuses that already border each other.

There is adequate space at both Sierra High and Lathrop High to places a cluster of junior high classes away from existing campus buildings.

It is a variation of what is at the Weston Ranch High that has the New Vision High Continuation School on the opposite side of the campus with the two schools sharing support facilities.

It would also allow the school district to enhance security. Homeless individuals routinely use a far corner of the park to bunk down adjacent to Lincoln School play fields. They also hang out at the covered picnic area when school is in session.

They also can be seen at night using BBQ grills to prepare food.

60-year-old plus Lincoln Pool

would cost city at least

$2 million to simply more viable

The City of Manteca in 2018 commissioned a study that indicated it would cost $2 million to make the 60-year plus pool more viable without enlarging its footprint.

A replacement pool roughly the same size would cost at least $4 million.

The study was part of the preliminary work that led to the proposal for the city to spend $81.4 million investing in an aquatics center, a 72,000-square-foot community gym/recreation center and possibly nine additional soccer fields.

The city was moving toward a one cent sales tax proposal to put before the voters when municipal management — unsure of the city’s financial outlook when they came across $60 million in accounting discrepancies — convinced the council instead to pursue an unrestricted general tax increase to bolster the general fund.

Voters rejected the measure. Opposition was led by community members who indicated they would have been more receptive to supporting a tax hike if how the funds could be used was restricted and went toward specific amenities such as youth recreation facilities and public safety.

MUSD has already had

an appraisal done on

value of Lincoln Park

In the email exchange the district indicated “short term plans” do not at this time include the removal of the existing pool.

The district has indicated they would maintain the pool until such time major changes were needed to accommodate Manteca High growth and education programming.

At the same time the district would continue to work with the city in allowing use of the pool and baseball for community-based recreation programming.

The district could also utilize both pools for school-related uses.

The school district has already had an appraisal conducted on the Lincoln Park site.

If such a sale were to happen the district has made it clear they would continue to partner with the city to make school facilities available for community recreation programs including existing district pools, the new Manteca High pool as well as the facilities at Lincoln Park until such time modifications were needed for the Manteca High campus.

The district would avoid maintenance and upkeep fees of the Lincoln Park facilities other than what is collapsed into the agreement when the two agencies use each other’s facilities.

The funds from a sale could fund recreation amenities elsewhere such as going toward adding fields to the Big League Dreams sports complex or improvements that have been suggested over the years at Woodward Park such as an amphitheater, turning the basin into a multi-use complex for soccer and baseball, and tennis courts.

It could also go toward funding for the $81.9 million recreation complex the city envisioned or to secure land for a third community park.

To contact Dennis Wyatt, email dwyatt@mantecabulletin.com