“I think of Lodi and Woodbridge as one,” said developer Lowell Flemmer, who has built subdivisions in both communities. “It’s hard to tell when you’re leaving, and when you’re coming.”

When entering Woodbridge from its two southern entrances, on Lower Sacramento Road and Woodhaven Lane, it can be difficult to tell the difference, especially on Woodhaven.

On Woodhaven, the western entrance from Lodi, you have to look carefully for the Woodbridge Irrigation District canal to know where the Lodi-Woodbridge boundary is.

On the west side of Woodhaven, which becomes Chestnut Drive once inside Woodbridge, there’s a stream of similar-looking houses on both sides of the canal.

On the eastern leg of Lower Sacramento Road, the difference is more distinct. The boundary shows two older mobile home parks on the Lodi side, while the north side boasts Woodbridge’s historical downtown that is the pride of the community.

Community pride

Perhaps the most striking characteristic about Woodbridge is its residents’ fierce community loyalty. They acknowledge that Lodi is a nice place, but it just isn’t Woodbridge, thank you.

“It’s just a nice, quiet little community; we’re just a little closer to the country,” said Charlie McElligott, chairman of the Woodbridge Municipal Advisory Council, which advises San Joaquin County Supervisor Jack Sieglock on community issues.

“Lodi is a very nice quiet little community also,” McElligott said. “People who have been around for many, many years

have a greater sense of identity (in Woodbridge) than the more recent people. That would be my guess.”

Residents enjoy the small-town feel and the 19th-century downtown architecture in Woodbridge that they don’t find in Lodi. Lodi resident Jan Weyand described Woodbridge as “What Lodi used to be.”

Lita Wallach of the Wine Country Homeowners Association said she enjoys Woodbridge’s multicultural nature.

“We have migrant farm workers within our reach, and we have people in gated homes,” said Wallach, an 11-year Wine Country resident.

Flemmer described Woodbridge as a place for “people who want country and want to hear a cow moo.”

Nevertheless, Woodbridge, with about 4,000 residents, and Lodi, with its 57,000 population, have their similarities. Among the common bonds they share:

• Both are in the Lodi Unified School District. Elementary and high school students from Woodbridge attend Lodi schools while some of western Lodi’s middle-school students attend Woodbridge Middle School.

• Woodbridge residents shop primarily in Lodi.

• Many Lodi residents eat at Woodbridge restaurants.

• Woodbridge residents often use Lodi parks and participate in its recreation programs.

• The Lodi Elks Lodge is in northern Woodbridge.

• Woodbridge Golf and Country Club is more Lodi-oriented than Woodbridge, says its general manager, Rick Morgan.

• Many west Lodi residents prefer to use the Woodbridge Post Office because it is more conveniently located than the Lodi Post Office on South School Street.

• Both communities have a mixture of newer and older homes.

• Their residents mark a cultural and ethnic diversity.

“We are really a little annex of Lodi,” said Earl Harris, owner of Woodbridge Upholstery and a Woodbridge resident.

“People are very friendly (in Woodbridge),” Harris said. “It’s hard to say what’s different about Lodi because they have fantastic people, too. Most of our activities, like the Boys and Girls Club, are in Lodi. We tried the new theater and it’s fantastic.”

Morgan said Woodbridge Golf and Country Club, built on both sides of the Mokelumne River in 1924, is dominated by members from Lodi.

“I would say it’s more of a Lodi country club than Woodbridge,” said Morgan, who lives in Lodi.

Police protection

A sampling of Woodbridge residents indicates that they aren’t concerned about the lower amount of police protection unincorporated areas like Woodbridge have.

Many Woodbridge residents say the San Joaquin County Sheriff’s Department makes them feel safe, even though deputies are spread thin covering a wide-ranging rural area running from Thornton and Terminous on the west to Clements on the east.

“You can walk safely — even as a woman by yourself,” said Gertie Kandris, who moved to Woodbridge more than seven years ago from Roseville. “We feel fairly safe. The people in this area are just wonderful.”

However, Harris said he would prefer the additional manpower the Lodi Police Department provides to its residents.

Many Woodbridge residents aren’t concerned that they have the power to elect only one county supervisor, who could be outvoted on Woodbridge’s desires by the other four members of the County Board of Supervisors.

In a city like Lodi, voters elect all five City Council members, all of whom must live within the city limits.

Other issues such as the controversy surrounding the Woodbridge Sanitary District don’t seem to be significant in Woodbridge, either — at least not enough for residents to leave the community.

Water, sewer issues

Water and sewer service in Woodbridge were major issues for the Lodi Unified School District, serious enough that the district sought to have Woodbridge Middle School annexed this year into the city of Lodi.

The county’s Local Agency Formation Commission has approved the school’s annexation into Lodi, but the annexation hasn’t taken effect yet because the city still has to do some engineering studies on how to begin providing sewer and other services, said Mamie Starr, the school district’s assistant superintendent of facilities and planning.

The school district first pursued annexation of Woodbridge Middle School into the city of Lodi as early as 1986, but voters defeated a ballot measure that year to bring it into Lodi.

School district officials explored annexation again in 1995, primarily because the school’s well didn’t yield enough water pressure for the fire sprinklers, Starr said.

Instead of annexing into Lodi, the district contracted for domestic water service with Lodi. The district has had to pay an extra fee for water because the school is outside the city limits, Starr said.

In 1998, a major failure in the septic system at Woodbridge Middle School caused the district to consider seeking Lodi’s help once again.

The Woodbridge Sanitary District was notified last year by the California Regional Water Quality Control Board that it lacked sufficient land to absorb sewage from rainfall comparable to the 1997 floods. That year, treated sewage from Woodbridge spilled into the Mokelumne River.

The state’s ruling resulted in the Woodbridge district pursing eminent domain proceedings to purchase eight acres adjacent to the wastewater treatment plant off Benedict Drive.

Although the sanitary board still doesn’t know how much the land will cost, the district attempted to raise its sewer rates by 50 percent. However, the proposal was defeated recently when the board deadlocked in a 2-2 vote.

Despite the sanitary district’s problems, Kandris credits the district for not allowing any more residential growth in Woodbridge by not expanding its wastewater treatment plant.

Lodi Public Works Director Rich Prima said there may be some logistical problems in Woodbridge being annexed into Lodi.

“Their (sewage) system points the wrong way,” Prima said.

Woodbridge’s wastewater goes north toward the Mokelumne River, while Lodi’s goes southwest to its treatment plant near Interstate 5 and Highway 12, Prima said. Lodi is busy trying to upgrade its own wastewater plant without taking on Woodbridge, he said.

School annexation

Woodbridge residents’ fierce loyalty to their community came into focus when they strongly protested Lodi annexing the middle school that bears Woodbridge’s name.

Some residents wondered if the school annexation would be the first step in Lodi annexing the entire Woodbridge community.

“I don’t ever remember anybody aggressively wanting the city of Lodi to scoop up Woodbridge,” Starr said.

“Frankly, I wouldn’t see any advantage being annexed into Lodi,” said McElligott, the Woodbridge Municipal Advisory Council chairman.

“It would seem wise to keep the historic element in Woodbridge and not intermingle with Lodi,” said former council chairman Mike Rishwain, who moved to Lodi in November after 10 years in Woodbridge. “It might lose its identity as Woodbridge.”

McElligott, who moved to Woodbridge from the Bay Area seven years ago, said he is satisfied with Woodbridge’s “adequate” protection from the sheriff’s department and the Woodbridge Rural Fire Protection District.

Walls had greater praise from his emergency services providers.

“I have nothing but praise for the sheriff’s department,” Walls said. “They’ve always been here immediately and taken care of our problems.”

Walls added, “Of course, the Woodbridge Fire Department is one of the finest in the state, as far as I know.”

History

During the Gold Rush days, Woodbridge was San Joaquin County’s largest community north of Stockton. However, Lodi became the dominant community when Central Pacific Railroad officials determined that an area three miles east of Woodbridge would be a better location for trains to cross the Mokelumne River. The crossing was built in 1869.

Woodbridge was a somewhat isolated community for more than 100 years. It consisted primarily of old homes, and Lodi hadn’t grown very far west of Ham Lane.

Lodi resident Danine DeJong, a Woodbridge hairdresser, remembers when the Cactus restaurant on Lower Sacramento Road was the Odd Fellow hall and Woodbridge Upholstery was a Hancock gas station.

“Woodbridge has a long history,” DeJong said. “There are families who have been here many generations.”

Her mother, Sarah Nipkau Lauchland, was born on Woodbridge Road where the Del Rio subdivision is now. Back then, it was way out in the country.

But as residential and commercial development grew between Ham Lane and Lower Sacramento Road in the past 20 years, Woodbridge looked more and more like a northern suburb.

“The main thing is Woodbridge was a rather rough neighborhood in the ’50s, ’60s, even the ’70s,” said Sammie Walls, a 41-year Woodbridge-area resident and pastor at Woodbridge Community Church the past 21 years.

“Some gang members went to jail, others just grew up,” said Walls, who serves with McElligott on the municipal advisory council. “The (sheriff’s) deputies we’ve had over the years have done an excellent job.”

“When I first started developing in Woodbridge, Woodbridge was not a place to live,” said Jeff Kirst, who has developed subdivisions in both communities.

New subdivisions

Kirst credits the development of the Woodlake subdivision between Turner Road and Woodbridge Middle School in the mid-1980s for turning Woodbridge around. For the first time, buyers were willing to pay similar home prices in Woodbridge as they did in Lodi, Kirst said.

Even though Woodlake is in Lodi, the subdivision opened the door for newer Woodbridge subdivisions in the 1980s and 1990s like Wine Country, just west of Chestnut Street, and the River Meadows, Del Rio and Windwood subdivisions nestled between Woodbridge Road and the Mokelumne River.

Lowell Flemmer, a Realtor who helped develop the Del Rio and Windwood subdivisions in Woodbridge, said that home prices are comparable in both communities, whether you’re talking about older homes or the more upscale variety.

Homes in Windwood, the newest development in Woodbridge, sell in the $400,000 range, Flemmer said. Home prices in Sun West, southwest of Lower Sacramento and Turner roads in Lodi, are higher because some homes and yards are quite larger than they are in Woodbridge, he said.

The larger homes in Sun West, Flemmer said, sell for $700,000 to $900,000.

Property tax in the two communities is comparable, said Flemmer, who once lived in Del Rio and Windwood in Woodbridge, but now lives across Turner Road in the Sun West neighborhood. Regardless of which community one lives, the property tax is 1.125 percent of the selling price, he said.

Electricity

While home prices are comparable in both communities, the city of Lodi and Pacific Gas & Electric Co. are in dispute over what Woodbridge customers pay for electrical rates.

The city-owned Lodi Electric Co. increased its rates on Aug. 1 to $94.65 for 665 kilowatt/hours per month. In Woodbridge, PG&E charges $86.42 for the same amount of energy usage, said PG&E spokeswoman Jann Taber. However, Alan Vallow, Lodi’s electric utility director, insists that PG&E charges $122 for 665 kilowatt/hours.

“We also don’t have the reliability of Lodi Electric,” said Kirst, who lives in Woodbridge. “We have electrical surges from PG&E. Refrigerators and TVs have blown out at times.”

Kirst added that Lodi has an edge over Woodbridge in that Vallow refused to follow the Independent Systems Operator’s request on March 19 to institute rolling blackouts as part of a statewide effort.

While Vallow kept the lights on in Lodi, PG&E complied with the rolling blackout request.

Vallow said that Lodi has enough electricity to serve Woodbridge if that is what the community desired, but the city of Lodi would more likely contract with another public agency like the Woodbridge Irrigation District if Lodi was to supply the electricity.

Peace and quiet

After dissecting all the issues inherent in Woodbridge, what seems to separate it from Lodi is its peace and quiet.

“The traffic is next to nothing except for a Friday or Saturday night on (the) main street,” said Glenda Wall, who sits on the municipal advisory council and sanitary board. “And those people go home. That’s what I tell my husband — I don’t care how many people come to Woodbridge as long as they go home.”

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