The Notice and Order named no specific permit; the licensed contractor retained to comply refused the undefined permit and walked off.
A licensed contractor hired to fix code violations walked off the job because the City’s official order failed to specify exactly which permits were required. In October 2025, attorney Mark Saakian attempted to comply with the City’s demands by having general contractor Arthur Popov file for a permit to address the violations. Although Popov had toured the property with two City inspectors in September, he ultimately refused to pull a permit for what he described as "misc items" and "anything they ask" that were not clearly defined in the formal records. The City’s own case notes from October 2025 confirm that the contractor backed out and refused to participate further in the process because of these undefined requirements. Because the City used a generic placeholder in its order rather than naming a specific permit category, the owner lost their professional contractor and was forced to handle the permit application themselves.
In October 2025 the City's permit requirement drove the owner's attorney, Mark Saakian, to have a contractor file a permit to "address and correct the violations" E.4. The contractor identified for that task was Arthur Popov of Best of Remodel Inc., a California-licensed General Building contractor CSLB.1040536. Popov had walked 4880 T Street on 09/16/2025 alongside Principal Building Inspector Bo Cosley and the inspector of record, Paul Lovato — a walk the City logs in its own file (M036; see C27). On the morning of Monday 10/20/2025 he wrote to Saakian withdrawing E.4 rather than pull a permit "for anything they ask" tied to "misc items." A licensed contractor, having walked the property with both inspectors, reached the conclusion the served record compels: the Notice and Order and its Correction List name no specific permit, and the City had specified none as of the 10/20/2025 walk-off.
The Notice and Order M124 and its Correction List M125 carried only the generic B59 "Permits Required" placeholder (SCC § 8.100.190; see C03); no permit category was named, even after three written demands (see C07). In the Saakian thread, even the owner's own attorney — pointing to the order's abstract "all required permits" language (E.4; Saakian, 10/20/2025: "The Notice and Order DOES contain requirements to obtain a permit. Some excerpts here…") — could identify no specific permit-triggering finding; the order itself names only the generic category. The order's own words are "all required permits for repair shall be secured" M124 — a category, not a permit.
On 10/20/2025 Popov wrote to Saakian E.4: > "Sorry Mark, I am am [sic] not placing myself into this. It is talking too much of my time. All the listed items are done. I do not feel comfortable pulling permit for anything they ask and be stuck with this misc items. I am out"
Three independently significant statements: "All the listed items are done" — the contractor's representation, as of 10/20/2025, that the listed items had been done — though the City's earlier 09/16/2025 on-site note M036 recorded that the handyman had taken care of only "some of the violations" and "the contractor was still needed to complete the work," a state that predates Popov's statement by over a month; "pulling permit for anything they ask" — the request was open-ended, not tied to a specific citation; "this misc items" — the requested scope was items not enumerated in any formally served document.
In the City's 10/20/2025 phone-call note the inspector records that "the contractor who is was going to help them has backed out of the project" M036. Three days later the City logs Saakian telling the inspector the permit-application "delay stems from the contractor's refusal to participate in the process" M037. No amended Notice and Order naming the items the contractor was asked to permit was served before 10/20/2025.
Downstream: only after the contractor walked off did the owner pull the permit herself (application emailed 10/20, M036; permit processed 11/21, M037; issued ~12/02, M037); the inspector first reduced the work to a concrete itemized inspection list on 12/02/2025 M037 — six weeks after the walk-off and not via any served Notice and Order.
A Notice and Order — or a formally served amended Notice and Order — that specifically identified the items the City was asking the contractor to pull a permit for, dated before 10/20/2025, would convert the "misc items" characterization into a misunderstanding. The reviewed materials contain no such document; the served Correction List names only the B59 "Permits Required" placeholder M125. Absent that document, disproving this claim requires the City to introduce records that contradict the CPRA production it has already closed as complete R.25-3549 R.26-1549 R.26-1965 — the record-production completeness trap C47; the email-specific completeness exemplar C48.
The City's permit requirement pressed the owner's attorney to have a licensed contractor pull a permit "to address and correct the violations" E.4, but the served order named no specific permit — only "all required permits for repair shall be secured" M124 M125. The contractor — retained to comply, not to fight, and present on the property with both inspectors a month earlier M036 — read the Notice and Order and its Correction List, found the listed items done, and refused to pull a "permit for anything they ask" tied to "misc items" outside the served record E.4. The City's own notes log the reason as the contractor backing out M036 and as the contractor's refusal to participate M037. An independent, California-licensed General Building contractor CSLB.1040536, retained by the owner's counsel for the express purpose of compliance, walked the property side by side with the Principal Building Inspector and the inspector of record on 09/16/2025 M036, then put his reason for declining in writing on 10/20: the request was "for anything they ask" and tied to "misc items" not in the served record E.4.
The October 2025 Saakian thread E.4 contains Popov's 10/20/2025 withdrawal verbatim; the "minimal permit" instruction from Saakian; and Saakian's own reliance on the order's abstract "all required permits" language. The City's 10/20/2025 phone-call note records the contractor "backed out of the project" M036; the City's 10/23/2025 case note records Saakian telling the inspector the application "delay stems from the contractor's refusal to participate in the process" M037. The City's own 09/16 case note records the inspector on site "with PBI Cosley" meeting the contractor M036 — establishing that the contractor who walked off 10/20 was the same individual both inspectors had met at the property a month earlier.
The City demanded permits but never said which ones, and the licensed contractor brought in to comply read the order, found the work done, and walked away rather than guess — a refusal the City wrote into its own file twice M036 M037. That a detail this damaging appears in the City's own case notes — both times recorded the day it happened or within three days, before any representative's characterization had been added to the record — is the claim at its strongest.
Anticipated City defense: The strongest City response is that the contractor simply exercised business judgment and that the order's "all required permits" language already satisfied the statute.
Answer: That reading treats the order's phrasing M124 as a substitute for the City specifying what it wanted permitted. The record shows neither. The licensed contractor retained for compliance, after walking the property with both inspectors, wrote that he would not "pull a permit for anything they ask" tied to "misc items" outside the served record E.4. That is not a business disagreement about scope; it is the exact gap a properly particularized Notice and Order is meant to close.
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