Manteca Councilman Jose Nuno would love to hear the air at Woodward Park on a hot summer day filled with laughing children cooling off in a water splash pad.

So would Mayor Gary Singh.

It is why the two of them earmarked a portion of the remaining $2.5 million in federal COVID relief funds to go toward installing a splash pad at the 50-acre community park that is heavily used by families.

Nuno allocated $175,000 and Singh $230,000 toward the splash pad.

That means the city will need to come up with $595,000 to cover the estimated $1 million cost.

As far as Singh is concerned, that shouldn’t be too much of a problem.

The mayor said the city should be able to tap into community park fees collected on new growth to fund the rest of the tab given that Woodward is a community park.

And if there is not currently adequate funding in the park growth fee account, Singh favors advancing the money from another growth-related account that has a strong fund balance.

Given Manteca’s growth pace, he noted it could be paid back with the required interest in a relatively short time frame..

Meanwhile, work could move forward to get the amenity in place.

“People ask me all the time about when we are getting a splash pad,” Singh said.

Besides being in high demand, Singh said moving forward sooner than  later when the city has adequate funding in  the park fee account to cover the balance, if that is an issue, means costs won’t skyrocket due to construction inflation.

Construction inflation typically far exceeds any interest earned or that has to be paid on money borrowed internally.

Manteca does have a water play feature  but it can’t be used..

And it is arguably the best customized one around as it incorporates Manteca’s indigenous heritage, the nearby river system, and railroad history into the design.

It is complete with a  railroad crossing signal, benches that look like boxcars, and a programmed system that blows train whistle like sounds when water starts spraying up from the ground.

It was built at Library Park more than 12 years ago for $450,000.

The council at the time went with a staff recommendation to not spend an extra $150,000 to recycle the water through a filtering system that would meet state health standards for re-use.

That ended up being a costly, shortsighted decision to save money.

That’s because all of the water goes directly into the city’s storm drain system.

When drought emergencies surfaced as they did four times between 1975 and 2014 in California, the state banned the use of water features that did not recycle water.

During the last drought in a bid to have more prudent use of water going forward, the state banned such features that did  not recycle water even during periods when the state isn’t under a drought emergency.

The city four years ago got an estimate to retrofit the water play feature with the ability to recycle water. The cost was in excess of $500,000, or more than  the original expenditure.

Every city in San Joaquin, except Manteca and Escalon, has one of more splash pad/water play features.

Lathrop, as an example, with a population just over a third of Manteca’s, has three water splash pads at city parks.

To contact Dennis Wyatt, email dwyatt@mantecabulletin.com