For 40 years the potential Manteca influence on San Joaquin County governance was diluted by deliberate decisions to split the city in half in order not to weaken the political power of Stockton.
That changed on Thursday.
Manteca for the first time since 1980 will not be split between two supervisorial districts. The decision by the Board of Supervisors created District 3 with 151,967 residents based on the 2020 census with 86,000 of them living in Manteca.
“It is good for Manteca,” noted former Mayor Steve DeBrum who chaired the county’s citizens’ advisory committee on redistricting. Former Manteca Councilman Mike Morowit also served on the panel.
Manteca will be split between Districts 3 and 5 until the end of 2025. That’s when the two seats are up for grabs. Tom Patti — who represents Manteca north of Yosemite Avenue, Lathrop, and a chunk of western Stockton plus the Delta will be termed out. Robert Rickman, who represents Manteca south of Yosemite Avenue, Tracy, and Mountain House — will be ending his first four-year term. Supervisors are limited to two terms.
While DeBrum and others have praised the efforts of Patti and Rickman and their predecessors in county matters that Manteca has concerns about, they believe Manteca would better be served by someone more fine-tuned to the city’s interests.
They contend having Manteca and Lathrop in one district will also create a better working relationship with the county for common concerns the adjoining cities share.
“All of the growth in the last 10 or so years has been in the South County,” DeBrum noted. “It will be for the foreseeable future with what is going on in Mountain House and River Islands at Lathrop. That is in addition to growth in Manteca and Tracy.”
Manteca and Tracy were tied in 2020 for being the third fastest growing municipalities among California cities with more than 30,000 residents. Lathrop had an even faster growth rate nearly double of its two neighboring South County cities as it grew 6 percent to reach 28,000.
Between Manteca and Lathrop based on Department of Finance population estimates as of Jan. 1, 2021 have 116,000 residents between them out of the new District 3 population if 151,197.
“The districts comply better now with the goals of the (Voting Rights Act),’ Morowit said.
Ripon and Escalon will go from being part of District 4 that included Lodi, eastern San Joaquin County, and parts of Stockton represented by former Ripon mayor Chuck Winn to District 5. Given Winn is termed out in 2022, Ripon and Escalon voters will end up going six years the next time they weigh in on a supervisor race.
The remapping puts Ripon and Escalon along with surrounding agricultural land as well as rural farm areas south and part of that to the east of Manteca into District 5 with Rickman as their supervisor.
All of the current city limits of Manteca are included in the new District 3 as well as areas in the annexation process and most of the area that has a probability of being annexed between now and 2030.
The rural Manteca area north of East Highway 120, east of Austin Road, north of Southland Road and east of Highway 99 including Raymus Village will be in District 5. That means rural areas around Manteca will be represented by three different supervisors as parts of Districts 3, 4 and 5.
The new supervisorial district boundaries are the culmination of more than 10 months of effort that began on Jan. 26, 2021, when the Board of Supervisors approved the 2021 Supervisorial Redistricting Plan which included the creation of a Redistricting Advisory Committee (RAC).
The RAC held nine hybrid in-person/virtual public meetings: three scheduled training sessions, three scheduled outreach workshops and three scheduled public meetings.
“The Board of Supervisors adopted a supervisorial district map that best represents all of San Joaquin County’s residents,” noted board chairman Tom Patti. “It’s a map that was recommended to the Board by the Redistricting Advisory Committee (RAC), and was based on the RAC’s outreach to the County's diverse communities of interests. I’m proud of the RAC and the Board for finalizing the map especially since there was a significant delay in the County receiving the updated 2020 census data, which is the basis for the maps,.
To see the supervisorial district map adopted by the Board of Supervisors, visit the SJC redistricting website at We Draw the Lines | San Joaquin County (sjgov.org)
To contact Dennis Wyatt, email dwyatt@mantecabulletin.com
