Manteca has secured a replacement private security service for the transit station, city locations in the downtown area, and select city parks.

The three-year contract for $450,000 was awarded by the Manteca City Council to Ronin Protection Solutions. The previous contractor was no longer able to service the contract.

The city in 2015 switched from hiring part-time employees to retaining a private security firm to check and lock municipal restrooms at Library, Lincoln, Northgate, and Morezone parks.

The city was finding it increasingly difficult to keep a worker on board given how homeless would harass them and often refuse to leave in an effort to spend the night in the restrooms.

There were instances of the part-time workers being physically threatened prompting a need for a Manteca Police response.

That issue dropped significantly after the city hired a uniformed security service. 

Manteca has also been using a security service to check the transit center where the homeless are also an issue after hours — and under a carveout in a city ordinance allowed by the courts — are banned from sleeping at any time.

The city is the largest downtown property owner between the library, the transit center, Wilson Park, Library Park, three public parking lots, and the Tidewater Bikeway. It is those properties that are checked during the night by a private security firm.

It is not illegal to sleep on city property that is not secured or on a municipal sidewalk providing adequate room is left for passage between 11 a.m. and 6 p.m.

 It is illegal, however, as outlined in a municipal ordinance to sleep at the transit station, the Manteca Veterans Center on Moffat Boulevard, and parks when they are closed — including along the Tidewater Bikeway.

Guven no one regardless of housing status are allowed in city parks overnight as posted, the homeless can not legally sleep in them including the ones downtown.

How the issue of people sleeping in vehicles parked on one of three downtown parking lots — four if you include the library parking lot — will be handled is subject to state law.

To contact Dennis Wyatt, email dwyatt@mantecabulletin.com