No Written Standard for Non-Owner Contacts

Case 23-009185 | Card 19 | 4880 T Street, Sacramento CA 95819

The produced case file records the City recognizing, relabeling, and redirecting non-owner contacts inconsistently, and it contains no written standard governing which non-owner contacts the City would recognize. On 04/04/2023, the inspector replied the same day to the representative's first contact email M024. A case entry dated 09/11/2025 records the inspector addressing him as "Chris" while logging his 09/02/2025 email as one from the "property owners handyman" and directing him to "reach out to the owner of the property" M036. On 09/16/2025, the inspector and the Principal Building Inspector met "a contractor and a representative of the property owner," gave the contractor a correction notice, and told the representative the City would allow "30 days to obtain the building permit" M036.

The produced file does not show staff asking the representative, the contractor, the owner, or any other non-owner to submit an authorization form, and it contains no owner-signed authorization form for the permit-compliance contacts at issue. The City's CDD-0204 Agent-for-Owner Authorization form is permit-specific, and this card does not treat it as a rule for every code-enforcement conversation. The form is relevant only if the City contends that owner-agent authority was required before staff could rely on non-owner permit communications or permit execution; the produced file contains neither a completed form nor a policy applying that requirement here CITY.CDD0204.AgentAuthorization. The 09/02/2025 email thread records a further instance: the Principal Building Inspector forwarded the representative's own email to inspector Paul asking, "who is this person? How is he involved?" in a thread that already named the representative and concerned 4880 T Street and the new Notice and Order E3 R.25-4711. The absence finding rests on a negative search of the produced Case File, not on a separate City statement.

IN PLAIN TERMS

A city does not have to talk to every person who writes in about a property. But its file should show what rule it applied. Here, the City answered the owner's representative at first contact, later logged him as the "property owners handyman" and told him to contact the owner, and then met a contractor and a representative about permit timing. The file shows no one being asked to submit the permit-specific authorization form. The same records show the Principal Building Inspector asking "who is this person?" in an email thread that named the representative. The produced file contains no written standard saying who was recognized, who was redirected, and why.

RECORD CHAIN

  1. The City recognized the representative at first contact and replied to him. The 04/04/2023 case entry records "Good morning, My name is Chris Foley and Jacqueline Baritell has informed me you had stopped by," and the inspector "replied back" to him the same day M024.
  2. The produced file contains no stated form requirement. No entry, email, or notice in the produced file shows the inspector, the Principal Building Inspector, or any other staff asking the representative, the owner, or the contractor to submit an authorization form, or stating that the City could not deal with a non-owner until one was on file. This is a negative search across the produced May Case File, checked against the City form source CITY.CDD0204.AgentAuthorization and the production provenance R.26-1965.
  3. On 09/16/2025 the City recognized non-owner contacts without an authorization form. The inspector "met with a contractor and a representative of the property owner," gave the contractor "a correction notice, that included pictures," handed him "my business card," and recorded, "I let the representative of the owner know I would give them 30 days to obtain the building permit" M036. The entry records no request that any of them submit an authorization form.

The produced record also shows how the City treated the representative himself over the same period.

  1. The City relabeled and redirected the representative. The inspector's 09/11/2025 case entry recorded the email as one "from property owners handyman," and the same entry records his reply that the City "deals directly with the owner of the property, or the owners representative" and that "any concerns you have with the property, please reach out to the owner of the property" M036. The entry also shows the representative had offered written authorization on request — "If Jackie's consent must come first, please just confirm that and we'll bring it immediately" (referring to Jacqueline Baritell, the property owner) — and the produced file shows no staff response requesting that confirmation M036.
  2. On 09/02/2025 the Principal Building Inspector forwarded the representative's own email and asked who he was. The representative emailed the Principal Building Inspector directly, writing that the official had "just came by and delivered the new Notice and Order packet" and that he "tried to catch you before you left but missed you"; that same afternoon the Principal Building Inspector forwarded the email to inspector Paul asking "Paul, who is this person? How is he involved?" The thread named the representative and concerned 4880 T Street and the new Notice and Order E3 Card 28 Card 29 Card 27.
  3. The file contains no permit-agent authorization record for anyone. The produced Case File carries no owner-signed permit-agent authorization form for the representative, the contractor, or any non-owner the City recognized for permit-compliance coordination CITY.CDD0204.AgentAuthorization.

FULL CIRCLE

The expected response is that non-owner representatives can communicate about a case without an authorization form; that the CDD-0204 form is a permit-application document, not a rule for every conversation; and that staff may redirect a person whose role is unclear. The record answers that response on either premise.

If written authorization was required before staff could rely on non-owner permit-compliance coordination, the produced Case File contains no such authorization for the representative, the contractor, or the other non-owner contacts the City recognized CITY.CDD0204.AgentAuthorization. If no form was required for ordinary communication, the file still contains no documented rule explaining why the representative was recognized at first contact M024 and later relabeled and redirected M036, while other non-owner contacts were recognized for the permit window without a form M036. The "who is this person?" forward appeared in the representative's own named thread about 4880 T Street and the new Notice and Order E3.

The finding is limited to procedural consistency. The produced file contains no written standard for recognizing, relabeling, or redirecting non-owner contacts, and no staff request that anyone complete the permit-specific authorization form. The record does not identify the rule that determined who was recognized, who was redirected, and why.

APPLICABLE LAW

This card does not rest on a specific statutory duty. Its subject is procedural consistency: the produced file shows no written standard, form requirement, policy entry, or documented threshold determining which non-owner contacts the City would recognize, redirect, or relabel.

SOURCE CITATIONS USED BY THIS CARD

CARD REFERENCES