The Unresolved Cancellation Text

RECORD CHAIN

1. August 20, 2025, 9:48 a.m. — the text the owner's side holds. The screenshot [S3] shows a text in a thread labeled "Paul," stamped "Wed, Aug 20 at 9:48 AM [S3]," saying Jackie Baritell would postpone the visit with "you and Doug" [S3] and that she had been told to call that day too. The handwriting in the margin — "My text to him to cancel Thurs" [S3] and "Jackie didn't call so Paul showed up Thurs 8/21" [S3] — is the sender's own later annotation, not part of the message. The year is inferred from the August 21, 2025 visit.
2. August 21, 2025 — the City's note: the cancellation, the warrant sentence. The 08/21/2025 case note [M035] states the caretaker wanted to cancel and that, because the inspection was not being allowed, the City would move forward with an inspection warrant.
3. August 21, 2025 — the recording: the caretaker says it cannot happen without the owner's helper. The caretaker says the inspection cannot proceed without the owner's helper [V1.T] (line 1). The official responds with the warrant statement [V1.T] (line 6).
4. August 21, 2025 — "She didn't tell me she canceled". The inspector said, "She didn't tell me she canceled" [V5.T] (line 8), and repeated it when asked [V5.T] (line 10).
5. August 21, 2025, 11:40 a.m. — a phone in the inspector's hand. The footage [V6] shows the inspector holding or handling a phone-shaped device at 11:40:12 a.m. Whether that device was the City-assigned phone, and what it received the morning before, is what Request 26-2491 [R.26-2491.3] asked the City to show from its own records; the City's July 28, 2026 closure [R.26-2491.3] states that there are no responsive records.
6. August 21, 2025 — "if we just gona take a peek in the back". The inspector said they did not necessarily need the owner's helper "if we just gona take a peek in the back" [V5.T] (line 16), and asked, "Would you let her know it's pretty important that we just take a peek today?" [V5.T] (line 24).
7. August 21, 2025 — the call thirty minutes later. The note [M035] records that roughly thirty minutes later the inspector received a call from the owner's helper — the City's words are "the property owners rep" [M035] — and then contacted PBI Cosley. Those entries record the calls; whether the August 20 text [S3] reached the same phone is what items 4 through 6 of Request 26-2491 [R.26-2491.3] sought, and the City's July 28, 2026 closure [R.26-2491.3] states that there are no responsive records.
8. June 23 – July 14, 2026 — the request, and the City's two asks for a number it already held. On June 23, 2026, Request 26-2491 [R.26-2491.2] was filed under the Public Records Act (Government Code section 7920.000 et seq. [GC.7920.000]) for the texts between the inspector and the owner's helper, and the delivery-channel records, behind the same August 20-21, 2025 cancellation, attaching the same screenshot [S3]. On June 26, 2026, at 10:32 a.m., the City Clerk asked the requester to "provide the specific phone number for which you are requesting the search" [R.26-2491.2] — naming the owner's helper — stating "The City does not maintain a database of phone numbers" [R.26-2491.2] and setting June 30, 2026 as the date for a response. On June 28, 2026, at 3:11 a.m., a portal "Message from requester" [R.26-2491.2] stated, "I am not requesting public disclosure of any private telephone number for" [R.26-2491.2] the owner's helper "or any other non-City person [R.26-2491.2]," that "Any private telephone numbers appearing in responsive records may be redacted [R.26-2491.2]," and asked the City to search its own custody — Paul Lovato's City-issued or City-managed device and account, City messaging systems, telecom and mobile-device-management records, backups, and case-file contact fields — and to conduct a custodian inquiry to Lovato, "consistent with City of San Jose v. Superior Court (2017) 2 Cal.5th 608." [R.26-2491.2] On June 30, 2026, at 1:39 p.m., the City invoked additional time "due to the volume of materials required to be searched, collected, and examined for responsiveness (permitted under Government Code 7922.535 (c)(2)) [R.26-2491.2]," stating it would notify the requester "on or before Tuesday, July 14th 2026" [R.26-2491.2]. The provision the City invoked, Government Code section 7922.535 [GC.7922.535], requires the City to "determine whether the request seeks copies of disclosable public records in the possession of the agency" [GC.7922.535] within ten days of receipt and to notify the requester of that determination and the reasons for it, and allows added time only by written notice of unusual circumstances. At 2:01 p.m. the same day, the City wrote, "Thank you for responding to our request for clarification. However, you did not provide a phone number for" [R.26-2491.2] the owner's helper, and asked for a response "by 9 AM on Wednesday, July 8th 2026" [R.26-2491.2]. The request was still open when the portal was captured [R.26-2491.2].
9. July 28, 2026 — "no records", and the inspector's number written out. On July 12, 2026, at 6:23 p.m., the requester wrote that the number the City had asked for "is already contained in the City's own case file and was disclosed there without redaction [R.26-2491.3]," citing the April 10, 2025 entry on page 33 [M033m]. On July 14 the City sent a second extension notice [R.26-2491.3]. On July 28, 2026, at 10:34 a.m., the City closed the request: "The City does not have any records that are responsive to your request. After an exhaustive search where your request was diligently routed to the relevant departments within the City that might have possessed pertinent records, we have determined that there are no responsive records to this request. However, we can confirm that the mobile phone number assigned to BI Paul Lovato is as follows:" [R.26-2491.3] and the number, adding: "It is important to note that our response adheres to our policy; we do not create records solely for the purpose of fulfilling Public Records Requests." [R.26-2491.3] The closure [R.26-2491.3] names no system, no device, no account, no custodian, and no retention period, although the June 28 message had asked the City to "identify the specific system … whether Paul Lovato was asked to search or produce his responsive communications" [R.26-2491.3].

FULL CIRCLE

The City's first available answer is the closure itself: the request "was diligently routed to the relevant departments within the City that might have possessed pertinent records" [R.26-2491.3], and "we do not create records solely for the purpose of fulfilling Public Records Requests" [R.26-2491.3] — so the search record asked for was not something it would write up, and the one thing the City could confirm from an existing record was the inspector's assigned number.

The request asked for existing records, not created ones: item 4 [R.26-2491.3] for carrier, device, account, and mobile-device-management records; item 6 [R.26-2491.3] for the record assigning a number, line, device, or account to the inspector; item 7 [R.26-2491.3] for any record of the search actually made. The closure confirms the inspector's number, which is the item 6 record read aloud, and produces nothing. A department is not a record, and the June 28, 2026 message [R.26-2491.3] had asked which "specific system" [R.26-2491.3] was searched and "whether Paul Lovato was asked to search or produce his responsive communications" [R.26-2491.3]; the closure answers neither.

The City's second available answer is that the text went to a personal or non-City number and did not reach the work device, so the inspector's words at the door were true to his knowledge.

That is the answer item 5 of the request [R.26-2491.3] asked the City to document — whether the "Paul" contact is a City-issued number, a City-managed line, or a City-managed account — and the City's closure says it holds no record that answers it. What it did put in the closure is the inspector's City-assigned mobile number. An answer the City cannot document from its own records is not one it can give at the door.

The City's third available answer is that the text said "will postpone her visit" [S3], not cancel, and that the owner was to "call you today too" [S3] and did not — so the inspector reasonably came.

The City's own note does not give that answer: it records that the caretaker "wanted to cancel the inspection" [M035] and answers with the warrant sentence, not with a missed call. At the door the inspector's words were "She didn't tell me she canceled" [V5.T] (lines 8 and 10) — that nothing reached him, not that what reached him was conditional. Whether anything reached the inspector's City channel is what items 4 and 5 [R.26-2491.3] asked, and what the City says it has no record of. The handwriting on the screenshot is the sender's own annotation and the card gives it no more weight than that.

The City's fourth available answer is that the June closures and the July closure are consistent: voice call-detail records for a 2.5-hour window are a different record set from text and delivery-channel records for two days.

They are, and the card keeps them apart. What the two lanes share is the search: for one the City determined records exist and withheld them; for the other it determined none exist and named nothing it looked in — after being asked, in writing, to name the system, the device, the account, the custodian, and the retention period, and after conditioning its search on a number its own file held.

What would defeat this card is one record: a delivery, carrier, device, account, or message-export record showing what the channel the City assigned to the inspector received on August 20, 2025 — or the search record the request asked for. The May 2026 case file, produced on a request naming communications, correspondence, and metadata [R.26-1965.1] and closed with "All responsive records have been provided." [R.26-1965.1], holds neither, and the July 28, 2026 determination places the first among records the City says do not exist. Card 4 is the completeness baseline (what the file the City produced means, and does not mean); Card 23 sets the City's note against the recording of the same exchange.