A political action committee representing a coalition of interests building homes in Manteca has made a $5,500 donation to the City Council campaign of Regina Lackey.

The Building Industry Association of the Great Valley PAC contribution is the largest ever in the history of Manteca politics.

The BIA last month got the City Council to postpone raising growth fees that are critical for funding a new police station, a sixth fire station in southwest Manteca, and other city facilities that carry a $266 million price tag.

The building trade group contends the fees, as proposed, are essentially too high.

They asked to have additional input.

City officials agreed to the delay the implementation to review the BIA concerns but also made it clear they would not allow the approval process to be dragged out as it was by the same organization more than a decade ago.

Given Manteca built 987 homes last year, each month the new fees are delayed means as many as 80 homes a month could start construction without being subject to higher growth fees than are currently in place.

Lackey is one of three candidates seeking the Area 2 seat on the City Council.

The Nov. 5 election will be the first time an Area 2 representative per se will be elected.

Candidates must live within the district and are only elected by those residing within the district.

 The district consists of Manteca south and east of the 120 Bypass and Union Road as well as the city east of Highway 99 except for The Collective neighborhood.

The other two candidates are Judith Blumhorst and Gabriel Galletta.

Lackey has collected $19,482 so far for her campaign.

 The amount includes:

*$5,000 she contributed out of her own pocket.

*$1,000 from former Councilman Richard Silverman who was running but dropped out and backed Lackey when she filed papers.

*$1,000 from retired builder George Gibson who built homes in Manteca under the name Frontiers.

*$1,000 from Brocchini Farms of Ripon.
*$1,000 from the Big Valley Fund PAC out of Fresno.

Blumhorst has amassed $12,600.

That includes a $10,600 loan she made to her own campaign.

Her only contribution is $2,000 from Delicato Vineyards.

The winery irked local developers when they challenged the adoption of the general plan update that builders played a role in shaping.

Delicato argued that the general plan was too pro-growth enabling it to collect enough signatures to qualify a referendum on the general plan update for the ballet.

However, it was clear that first and foremost Delicato wanted to protect their winery — the fifth largest in the world — from residential development and by extension protect more than 400 jobs.

A subsequent settlement with the city led Delicato to drop the ballot referendum.

The key element of that was establishing Manteca’s second 50-acre community park where hundreds of homes had been envisioned southeast of Union Road and Lovelace Road.

Galletta, as of Monday, has not collected enough donations to requiring a filing.

Prior to the BIA’s $5,000 donation to Lackey, the largest contributions in the history of Manteca municipal politics were a pair of $5,000 checks written in the 2018 mayoral election.

One was a $5,000 donation to Steve DeBrum’s re-election campaign by the Punjabi-American Association of Manteca (PAAM).

The other $5,000 donation was made to Cantu by Eliberto Cantu of Texas.

The next largest donation on record was $4,000 made by PAAM. It went to Debby Moorhead in 2010 in her unsuccessful effort to unseat them mayor Willie Weatherford.

To contact Dennis Wyatt, email dwyatt@mantecabulletin.com