It’s not by accident Ripon is growing slower than Manteca and Lathrop.

Two deliberate acts in the past 20 years assured that would happen.

But it also meant Ripon could eventually find itself a bit squeezed financially.

The decisions?

The first was to block Walmart from building a store — at least on the scale of their Manteca location and larger —in Ripon off of Jack Tone Road.

The city did so  by adopting an ordinance that survived a legal challenge for retail buildings over a certain size.

Admittedly, Ripon got a little help from the late Bob Piccinini when he ran SaveMart.

SaveMart at the time was battling Walmart from inundating its Northern San Joaquin Valley turf  in smaller towns where the only viable supermarket was the Modesto-based retailer.

Piccinini wanted to open a Ripon store but if wouldn’t work with Walmart in the market.

Do not misunderstand.

There was strong Ripon opposition.

There was a concern of what it would do to downtown.

But arguably even more important to many was the type of congestion and growth that would occur.

There was little doubt a Walmart in Ripon would lure customers from Salida and Escalon.

But the long-range issue would have been the target placed on Ripon’s proverbial back.

Getting a Walmart, particularly in California, puts the town or area it located in on the growth map.

There would have been retailers that don’t directly complete with Walmart — including other big boxes — adding Ripon to their potential list for expansion.

It would also have gotten the attention of land developers that buy property, get subdivision maps approved, and then sell to builders.

The decision to fight Walmart made Ripon radioactive in high stakes development circles.

And the changing retail landscape since then with the shift to 19.4 percent of consumer purchases on line changed the financial dynamics.

It now takes significantly more rooftops, or households, to get on a company’s radar for locating stores or even restaurants.

It doesn’t help with the close proximity of Manteca and Modesto to Ripon.

Actually, the bigger problem for Ripon is Manteca.

The 120 Bypass corridor based on the rapid expansion of households with median incomes pushing $120,000 snapping up new homes being built in southwest Manteca is the new Mother Lode for Northern San Joaquin Valley retail.

There are now five shopping centers and larger retail projects in play with others being formulated.

Orchard Valley, anchored by Bass Pro, is in the process of being bought by a heavyweight in San Joaquin Valley retail development and leasing.

There are no less than three grocery stores in serious talks with shopping center developers, including one that reported has agreed to move forward by committing to a start date for construction.

Add to that a number of restaurants and other concerns that Manteca has caught their attention as it is on pace to close in on 100,000 consumers within four years with almost all from households with six digit incomes.

The second deliberate decision was to kill an effort to build a second crossing of the Stanislaus River.

It would have created a crossing just to the west of Ripon’s city limited aligned with Olive Avenue.

It would have tied into Highway 99 via an interchange that would have also connected Manteca’s Raymus Parkway now being developed in segments on the southern edge of the city.

The proposed four-lane project was designed to open the area west of Salida in Stanislaus County for development.

Although nothing was in the works for Ripon at the time, such a roadway would have opened the western edge of Ripon to large scale development.

Major roadways and river crossings are extremely difficult for one developer to build unless you are on the level of Cambay Group that has moved the 15,001 home-planned River Islands at Lathrop project forward.

It is illegal, under state law, for cities to just say no to new housing.

Ripon is a desirable community.

But those two actions essentially took Ripon out of play for those that are big game players.

Ultimately, the fallout from both actions will create tougher financial challenges.

Cities today rely heavily on property and sales taxes.

High property tax based on higher assessed valuation helps, but the city only gets roughly 15 cents of every dollar a Ripon homeowner pays.

Basically, half goes to schools with the county and 10 other jurisdictions carving up the remaining proverbial pie in various sized slices.

Going after truck stops with their abundant fuel sales definitely has been a boon.

But it the state mandates stick, fossil fuel sales for cars as well as truck will start diminishing.

Why any of this matters has everything to do with voting for the Ripon Consolidated Fire District parcel tax than ends this Thursday.

Passage will clearly help assure essential service levels are met.

But the writing is on the wall.

Over the long-haul it likely will not be enough.

How this connects with the city’s outlook is simple.

Cities need to snare close to 100 percent of the taxable consumer dollars of its residents as possible given municipalities can’t live by property tax alone.

The absence of retail big box whales like Walmart or Target means when sales tax receipts on fuel starts backsliding, Ripon is likely to end up being squeezed.

The decisions that have helped keep Ripon small has also meant it can’t access rapidly growing property taxes that large scale development brings to the table such as in Manteca.

It also has reduced the sales tax potential.

There is nothing wrong with Ripon’s basic course of action that only saw it add 1,800 residents in the last 14 years as opposed to 26,000 more residents in Manteca and 21,000 more residents in Lathrop.

But it does mean government entities such as Ripon Fire will need to ask for revenue from more sources other than just basic property and sales tax.

Eventually, the City of Ripon may need a higher sales tax rate.

Ripon is different from surrounding cities that have not thrown down spike strips, if you will, to slow down growth.

As such, those benefitting by such decisions that have assured they live in a community that is not growing like gangbusters will need to open their wallets more if they want to maintain current levels of service.

This column is the opinion of editor, Dennis Wyatt, and does not necessarily represent the opinions of The Bulletin or 209 Multimedia. He can be reached at dwyatt@mantecabulletin.com