All that Brad Peters wants to see is adequate access to the Social Security Administration offices.

The Manteca resident – who has been disabled since the early 1980s – said he was shocked and dismayed on a recent trip to the new complex when he discovered that a section of sidewalk to reach the office had yet to be completed. It’s the last thing he expected to see out in front of a federal building.

So he got on the phone. He contacted his congressman. He contacted the City of Manteca. And he contacted other wheelchair-bound individuals in the community that he knew were going to take issue the same way that he had.

And when he finally did get a response from the consultant hired by the city to handle the necessary compliance issues for the Americans with Disabilities Act, he was far from pleased.

“They basically told me that they don’t have to finish that section of the sidewalk until the neighboring parcel develops,” said Peters. “It’s almost the same thing that happened when St. Dominic’s Hospital first opened and they had a big section of the sidewalk that wasn’t completed – it was the same answer I got then.

“I just can’t see how a federal building where seniors and people with disabilities are the only people who will visit it can open without taking care of something like that first.”

City Manager Karen McLaughlin noted the council recently approved a capital improvement plan for this budget year that sets aside almost $65,000 to place sidewalk from the Social Security site to the intersection of Phoenix Drive and Commerce Drive where sidewalk already exists.

She expects the project to move forward in the fall. The right-of-way was dedicated when Spreckels Park was approved. The city will put in the sidewalk using its share of Local Transportation Funds collected by the state. It will be reimbursed by the property owner when the vacant parcel develops.

McLaughlin noted Social Security did install sidewalk in front of their new offices.

She added the city will look at realigning bus routes to make reaching the Social Security offices more convenient.

“Their previous location )(on South Main Street) was much easier for people to access,” McLaughlin said of the agency’s leased space.

The money for the Commerce Court sidewalk to access the Social Security building is different than the Proposition 1B money set aside to do work on East Louise Avenue near Cottage Avenue that includes sidewalks first promised residents in 2006.

Peters pushed the city for years to get the Cottage Avenue overcrossing widened to allow for safer passage completed, finally seeing the work wrapped up in 2010 as it got put behind other issues that were more pressing.

“That kind of let me down,” he said. “I’ve learned that squeaking the wheel is the only way to get things done – I’ve been doing this for a while now. And I know that this is something that is going to affect a lot of people.

“I’m just going to wait for a more detailed explanation because this is something that needs to get done.”