The City posted Orders Imposing Administrative Penalty on the front door of 4880 T Street on Thanksgiving Eve 2023 M003 and Christmas Eve 2024 M007; each posting started the twenty-calendar-day administrative-penalty appeal window under SCC § 1.28.010 when City offices were closed for the holiday, and the City's own POST NOTICE log shows it posted freely on ordinary business days throughout the case.
The City posted penalty orders on the front door of 4880 T Street on the day before Thanksgiving in 2023 and on Christmas Eve in 2024. Each of these postings immediately triggered a 20-calendar-day countdown to file a written appeal with the City Clerk’s office, meaning the clock started running while City Hall was closed for the holiday. Although the City’s own records show that inspectors routinely posted notices on ordinary business days throughout this case, these two specific orders were placed on holiday eves in consecutive years. Because an appeal must be physically delivered to the City Clerk rather than just postmarked, the holiday timing effectively compressed the practical window for a response. These dates are documented in the City’s own activity logs, which show no contemporaneous explanation for why the postings were not handled on a regular workday when City offices were open to receive filings.
The case file's POST NOTICE log records two enforcement postings on holiday eves. An inspector posted an Order Imposing Administrative Penalty and Building Monitoring Fee on the front door at 9:39 a.m. the day before Thanksgiving M003; a fuller narrative copy of that posting appears in the General Case Information log M026. The following year, a second inspector posted an Administrative Penalty/HDB Monitoring Fee on the front door on Christmas Eve M007; a fuller narrative copy of that posting appears in the General Case Information log M031. Both appear in the City's own production in the field staff's own words.
Each posting started the twenty-calendar-day appeal window under the Chapter 1.28 administrative-penalty provision SCC § 1.28.010, running from the posting date regardless of holiday observance; the appeal must be filed in writing with the City Clerk — a City office that is itself closed across the holiday window the posting opens. The same Order Imposing Administrative Penalty template was applied across the case C12. The City's own log shows it posted routinely on ordinary business days: 06/30/2023 at 7:35 a.m. M002, 02/07/2024 at 8:10 a.m. M004, 11/15/2024 at 9:46 a.m. M007, and 03/11/2025 M007. Neither holiday-eve date was forced by the calendar.
When a city tapes a penalty order to a front door, a countdown starts — twenty days to deliver a written appeal to the city clerk's office, and a postmark is not enough; the paper must actually reach a city office. Here the City taped penalty orders to this property's front door the day before Thanksgiving one year and on Christmas Eve the next, so the appeal clock began running at the exact moment city hall was shutting down for the holiday. The City's own activity log shows it posted notices on ordinary business days throughout this case M002 M003 M004 M007, so it did not have to pick a holiday eve either time. Two holiday-eve postings, in consecutive years, on the same property, are written into that log in the inspectors' own words. None of this came from City announcements; it surfaced after the owner's representative pushed records requests until the City handed over its full activity log, where the two holiday-eve postings sit side by side with the routine workday ones.
An Order Imposing Administrative Penalty, once served, begins a twenty calendar-day window to file a written appeal with the City Clerk under SCC § 1.28.010 — the appeal must reach a City office, not merely be postmarked.
A posted Order Imposing Administrative Penalty starts a twenty-day, file-with-the-City-Clerk appeal clock under SCC § 1.28.010 from the date of posting. The City affixed such orders to the front door on Thanksgiving Eve 2023 M003 and Christmas Eve 2024 M007, in consecutive years, on the same case. The City's own log shows it posted routinely on ordinary business days — 06/30/2023, 02/07/2024, 11/15/2024, 03/11/2025 M002 M004 M007 — and the produced record contains no contemporaneous note explaining why either holiday-eve posting could not have waited for the next business day. The twenty-day appeal clock runs from the posting date regardless of holiday observance, and the appeal must be filed with the City Clerk — a City office that is itself closed across the holiday window the posting opens. The chosen date is exactly what compresses the practical opportunity to appeal.
A single holiday-eve posting is plausibly coincidental. Two of them, on the eves of two of the most observed holidays of the year, in consecutive years, on the same case, is a documented pattern on the face of the City's own POST NOTICE log M003 M007. The City's own record forecloses the "no choice" reading: the log shows it posted on ordinary business days throughout the case, and it produced no contemporaneous note explaining why either holiday-eve posting could not have waited. On the City's own record, the City started a short, paper-must-arrive appeal clock by posting penalty orders on Thanksgiving Eve and Christmas Eve — when its own offices were closed — even though its own records show it routinely posted on ordinary workdays.
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