Debbie Moorhead was adamant at the last Manteca City Council meeting that she wants the infamous missing link on Atherton Drive between Airport Way and Union Road built. The councilwoman said she wanted it discussed when the council adopts the budget next month.
If you’re expecting this will lead to earth moving equipment being deployed in the next year or so don’t hold your breath.
It’s not that Moorhead isn’t sincere or isn’t an effective council member. It’s just that we’ve been down this road at least four times before. Each time it was brought up by the council during the city budget adoption process. The entire council made it clear putting in the missing section of Atherton Drive was a priority. Each time the money was earmarked from growth fees that have already been collected. Each time it was included in the capital improvement program (CIP) to be built in the fiscal year starting just days after the budget was adopted. And each time nothing happened.
That isn’t exactly right. Last June the staff dropped the project off the CIP 5-year list. When Mayor Steve DeBrum inquired about this at the budget workshop in 2016, staff assured him the road section was still on the list of projects (but not on the near horizon). They also noted other road projects due to how actual development was actually unfolding were becoming more pressing than Atherton Drive.
While that may indeed be true, it misses three rather clear points,
uStaff at council meetings when residents south of the 120 Bypass brought up concerns about traffic, safety and speeding on Woodward Avenue repeatedly noted that once Atherton Drive was completed from Airport Way to Woodward Avenue just west of Moffat Boulevard it would help take traffic off of Woodward.
uPromises were repeatedly made to residents that the missing link would be built. In fact, environmental work was done years ago but then the city got distracted by the Austin Road Business Park and temporarily shifted the money for Atherton Drive to make improvements at Austin and Moffat for work that never was done. The city then said once all loose ends on the aborted Austin-Moffat work was completed they would move the money back to the Atherton Drive section and move forward with the work.
uThe City Council established policy and it essentially was ignored.
That sounds a tad more Machiavellian than it should. Not only are bureaucracies notorious for having a life of their own that even bureaucrats in charge are at a loss to control, but councils even before the recession hit had a tendency to run municipal staff so lean that rib cages show in many departments so they could keep fees and taxes as low as possible. There’s nothing wrong with being lean but there are limits. Lean is healthy, anorexic is not.
The question that needs to be asked, though,  is pretty straightforward: Does the City Council matter?
Directing that the missing segment of Atherton Drive be built after it was presented to the council by staff as a logical and needed expenditure of funds charged growth for roads isn’t exactly micro-managing.
The City Council four times adopted policies — the 5-year CIP list that’s part of the budget document — that essentially told staff to build the Atherton Drive segment. Discussions leading up to those budget adoptions made it clear the direction that the elected leaders of this city wanted Manteca to head. The end result has made one of two things clear: Either the failure to communicate here is one for the record books or Hans Christian Andersen got it all wrong — it’s the City Council that has no clothes.
What should be viewed as a basic road project is deteriorating rapidly into a question as to who is setting policy in Manteca — elected leaders or the bureaucracy?
The council’s biggest decision is hiring the city manager and entrusting them to assemble a competent staff to run the city. The council’s most important ongoing function per se is two-fold — to provide policy direction while leaving the details to staff and making sure there are adequate tools and staff to get the job done. The latter can be done in one of three ways:
uIncrease fees or seek for more taxes to provide adequate funding for staff and tools.
uLook for innovative solutions.
uPare back the priority wish list to fall within reality’s perimeters.
Moorhead sound frustrated and a bit piqued at the last council meeting when she brought up Atherton Drive.
It’s little wonder.
Council members should either conserve their vocal chords during the budget adoption process or follow through on their policy directives.
Sorry, but asking the “why hasn’t Atherton Drive been built” question just once a year doesn’t cut it.
At the end of the day the buck — or in this case Atherton Drive’s missing segment — stops at the Manteca City Council.