Manteca’s elected leaders in passing on former councilman Mike Morowit’s call for a homeless commission — at least for now — glossed over a suggestion he believes would make their jobs easier.
The suggestion in a nutshell: Gather hard facts if you want broader public support for homeless initiatives that could end up ranking right up with police and fire expenditures when it comes to tax dollars.
His specific pitch is for the city to keep statistics on homeless incidents that demand response from police and fire beyond the community resource officer effort.
Morowit believes, after talking to numerous police and fire frontline personnel that upwards of 20 percent or more of all calls they handle are tied into homeless issues.
If he’s right that means 0.25 percent of the city’s population is responsible for 20 percent of the police and fire workload. Keep in mind that Morowit stresses this is an educated guess at best because the city doesn’t track calls regarding homeless needing police or fire response separately.
Such data would be useful in multiple ways.
First, it could refute — or verify for that matter — claims repeatedly made by several residents who live near the proposed navigation center for homeless that sex crimes committed by the homeless in their neighborhood have spiked since the opening of the existing temporary homeless opened within a half mile of where they reside.
The assertion made now at five public forums including two council meetings has never prompted a direct response from staff mainly because they have no facts to deny or confirm it.
Meanwhile the narrative grows among some that the homeless in Manteca are sexual predators roaming the streets at will.
It’s not good optics at the least. If it’s true it needs to be addressed. If it isn’t, it needs to be swatted down.
The long game is to find a workable solution that would require broad-based community support which brings up the crux of Morowit’s point: Manteca is getting ready to spend at least $5 million to $8 million to secure a site and build facilities to address homeless concerns. That facility will require a significant amount of tax dollars that likely will include some state or federal grants but will also depend on local tax dollars to operate.
Morowit believes anyone who thinks a non-profit will step up and run a navigation center and shelter and raise the money for it as well are living in a fantasy world.
Those costs would be on top of expenses from ongoing police-fire efforts, park and streets cleanup efforts, and costs businesses and others incur dealing with homeless problems.
And if data verifies that homeless calls are as big an issue for police and fire it would mean if Manteca seriously commits the resources to get the homeless situation under control it could free up — or reduce the size municipal forces need to be increased — to deal with crimes as well as fire and medical emergencies.
The real estate offer
the city simply ignored
Say what you want about Manteca City Councilman Dave Breitenbucher’s reluctance to go with the 8 acres on South Main Street for a homeless navigation center/drop-in shelter/transitional housing and possible workforce housing. It is clear, however, he was right on one thing — city leaders were being kept in the dark about the property.
Breitenbucher over the past year has raised a number of questions about the property. They included whether the city should simply allow it to be sold to the highest bidder and use the money of its share of the proceeds for other pressing city needs.
Now, thanks to correspondence from Bill Lange of the Newport Beach real estate concern of LFC Group of Companies that was engaged by the city to sell the 8 acre parcel at 682 South Main Street we know there was a qualified buyer in 2020 before the site came up on the radar as a possible homeless center.
The property in 2019, via an online auction, obtained a high bid of $2,450,000 that was 114 percent over the appraisal price of $2,160,000. The deal, however, did not close.
Pursuant to the firm’s listing agreement and at the city’s urging, Lange’s firm continued marketing the property in search of a backup buyer.
Their efforts in mid-2020 produced a qualified prospect with a list price offer of $2,160,000 that was an all-cash, no contingencies, and 30-day close.
“Unfortunately, supposedly due to COVID, there was no one at the city who was willing or able to deal with the offer,” Lange noted in an email.
At that price the city as its prorated share of the sale would have received roughly $325,000. The biggest taxing agency among those that would split the proceeds once the property sells — Manteca Unified - would have received $1,080,000.
Now, based on the city seeking to buy it for the new appraised price they just received of $1.8 million the school district will receive $180,000 less.
Keep in mind a couple of things.
While it is true local taxing agencies such as Manteca have the first right of refusal to purchase surplus government property at the appraised value, the city has been far from being diligent or forthright disposing of RDA property that was not encumbered with an official and viable redevelopment plan when RDAs up and down the state were disbanded by then Gov. Jerry Brown in 2010.
The city tried to secure the Qualex site for a $1 from the RDA successor agency after getting the backing of the California Legislature in 2018 but the bill was vetoed by Gov. Gavin Newsom. Manteca discovered during the process the state division that was the final clearinghouse for the disposal of RDA properties had long been shuttered.
Apparently Manteca was the only jurisdiction with a former RDA that still had not disposed of surplus property. In case you might be curious the deadline for the city to have done so passed years ago.
The fumbling of the ball spanned no less than four “permanent” city manager eras.
And while it might not change the course of the sale of the property to the city unless someone wanted to waste an inordinate amount of time and money to slap Manteca for not moving in a timely manner, it is clearly a validation of Breitenbucher’s point he made repeatedly while Miranda Lutzow was city manager.
The point, in a nutshell, was that council members such as himself were being left in the dark when inquiring about city issues and things were spinning out of control at 1001 West Center St. based on his often repeated assertion Lutzow lacked the experience to be city manager.
About the $2 million
in bad city utility debt
Hopefully the “wish list” being compiled on how to spend roughly $14 million the City of Manteca received from the federal government will include help plugginh the holes the city allowed to be blown in the water, solid waste, and wastewater enterprise funds.
The news there is $2 million in bad debt in unpaid municipal utility bills presents an opportunity for elected leaders to demand that the part of that loss attributed to the pandemic be reimbursed from the federal funds.
Specifically it should be losses attributed to the period from when the pandemic emergency was declared in March 2020 until today. As part of the city’s pandemic response the council authorized a moratorium on the suspension of water as well as solid waste service and – indirectly — sewer service for non-payment of utility bills.
The federal COVID money was made available first and foremost to keep local governments whole from costs they incur dealing with the pandemic such as backfilling police and fire overtime and other expenses.
In this case ratepayers will be forced to absorb the cost of the city’s pandemic response if the council doesn’t pay back those accounts from the $14 million.
City hall employee
claims keep on coming
Paula O’Keefe, who has served as budget manager in the city’s Finance Department, is apparently joining the list of current and former city employees seeking remedy for grievances in the legal system
The City Council Tuesday met in closed session to discuss “significant exposure to litigation” regarding a potential case O’Keefe might file.
To contact Dennis Wyatt, email dwyatt@mantecabulletin.com
