The Unanswered Void-and-Fee Question

Case 23-009185 | Card 27 | 4880 T Street, Sacramento CA 95819

The City was asked, in writing, whether its new order voided the old one and its fees, copied the question into its own file, and the file it produced under Request 26-1965 [R.26-1965.1] holds no answer to it. On September 2, 2025 at 10:40 a.m. — the morning the re-issued Notice and Order was delivered — the owner's helper emailed the Principal Building Inspector: "does this new Notice and Order void the prior one, along with any fines or fees attached to it, with all future enforcement based only on the new notice?" [E3] The City's own case note of 09/11/2025 quotes that sentence [M036] and calls the sender the "property owners handyman" [M036]. The Principal Building Inspector forwarded the email to the inspector and the supervisor with "Paul, who is this person? How is he involved?" [E3]; the inspector's reply, the only one in the file, said the City "deals directly with the owner of the property, or the owners representative" [E3] and to reach out to the owner. That reply went to the owner and to the person the City's log calls the "property owners rep" [M035] — and not to the sender (Card 26: the reply said nothing about the fees; Card 28: who it was sent to).

The City had the answer on paper that day. The re-issued order's letter says it "does not assess any additional fees" [M541] and that the Declaration on the title "will be cleared when permits are finalized and all outstanding fees assessed under the previous Notice and Order have been paid" [M541]. It also acted on it: the City's log records a special assessment on the old order's fees "filed with the County Recorder's Office" [M035] at Book&Page 20250902-0471 — recorded the same day the new order went out — and hearing packets on the old order's invoices going out for 10/08/2025 [M035] and 10/15/2025 [M035]. The email had offered "a signed letter from Jackie authorizing you to communicate with me directly" [E3] if the answer was yes, and asked that, if the owner's consent had to come first, the City "please just confirm that" [E3]. The file the City produced in May 2026 under Request 26-1965 [R.26-1965.1] holds no reply that does either.

The City's letter of September 2, 2025 [M541] said the old fees stayed, and it was delivered before the question was asked [E3]. Nine days later the City copied the question, word for word, into its own case log [M036], beside a reply that does not answer it [E3]. Which page in the file the City produced under Request 26-1965 [R.26-1965.1] shows the City telling the owner, or the person its log calls the owner's representative [M035], in answer to that question, whether the April 12, 2023 order and its fees still stood?

IN PLAIN TERMS

The morning the City delivered its new Notice and Order, the owner's helper asked in writing [E3]: does this void the old order and the old fees? The City copied the question into its own case notes [M036]. Its letter that day said the old fees still had to be paid; the same day it recorded a lien on the old fees [M035] against the title. The one reply it sent went to the owner and the person the City calls the owner's representative, and said to go through the owner. The file the City produced in May 2026 under Request 26-1965 [R.26-1965.1] holds no answer to the question. The question for the City: which page shows it answering the owner's side — did the new order void the old one and its fees, or not?

RECORD CHAIN

  1. September 2, 2025, 10:40 a.m. — the question, in writing. At 10:40 a.m. on September 2, 2025, the owner's helper emailed Cosley [E3] asking whether the new Notice and Order voided the prior one, "along with any fines or fees attached to it" [E3], so that future enforcement would rest only on the new notice. He added that if the owner's consent had to come first, the City should confirm that and "we’ll bring it immediately" [E3]; the sender's Gmail-native export [E12] carries the same email. The email is in the City's production [E3], produced under Request 25-4711, and quoted in the City's own note [M036].
  2. September 2, 2025, 2:29 p.m. — "who is this person?" At 2:29 p.m. the same day, Cosley forwarded the email to Paul Lovato and Pierson [E3] with the line, "Paul, who is this person? How is he involved?" [E3] The forward contains no response to the voiding or fee question.
  3. September 2, 2025, 2:43 p.m. — the only reply, and what it did not say. At 2:43 p.m., Paul Lovato sent the one reply [E3] that appears in the produced thread and the May 2026 Case File [R.26-1965]. The reply was addressed to the sender by first name [E3] and sent to the owner and the person the City calls the owner's representative [E3], not to the sender (Card 28); it referred him to the owner and the owner's representative [M036], and did not say whether the new order voided the old order or its fees.
  4. September 2, 2025 — the letter posted that day carried the answer. Its cover letter [M541] stated that outstanding fees assessed under the previous Notice and Order remained payable, a statement examined at Card 26. The reply [E3] did not include it.
  5. September 2, 2025 — the attachment. The attachment to the same email, "Final Statement on Jackie’s Case [S7]," named the sender, stated for the record that draft letters to the Mayor and City Council were never sent, and asked the City to coordinate through the owner's representative; the Gmail-native copy of the attachment [E12.1] carries the same text.
  6. September 11, 2025 — the City copies the question into its own notes. The produced email thread [E3] and the City's note log [M036] each record the question and Paul Lovato's reply in the same terms; the fee-status statement in the re-issued order [M541] appears in neither, as Card 26 shows. The production-completeness baseline for these records is established at Card 4 and Card 46.
  7. September 2 – October 15, 2025 — enforcement on the old order continued. The log records "City Council Resolution 2025-0219 adopted on 8/12/2025, placing a special assessment on the property in the amount of $380 for invoice CDDCHC21078. The special assessment has been filed with the County Recorder's Office- Book&Page 20250902-0471." [M035] — the page-and-book number carries the recording date, 09/02/2025. The produced Case File [R.26-1965], produced under Request 26-1965 [R.26-1965.1], contains no later direct City message answering the void-prior-order and old-fees question, and no page stating the standard by which the City identified the owner's representative, the negative search recorded at Card 19. In the same weeks, case activity continued: a 10/08/2025 HCAAB hearing packet [M035], a 10/15/2025 DLHO hearing packet sent certified [M035], and special assessments placed on the property [M035], with hearing-packet receipt and special-assessment entries continuing through October 2025 [M036].

FULL CIRCLE

The City's first available answer is no: the letter served that day [M541] says the old fees stayed, so the order itself answered the question.

Then the answer was no, and the City would not write it. The letter went out before the question was asked; the question was put to the City in writing that morning (the email [E3]); the City's log records the question and the reply nine days later [M036]; and the reply said nothing about the order or the fees (Card 26). A no the City had on paper that morning and would not restate in the one reply it addressed to the owner is the finding.

The City's second available answer is that the sender was, in its own words, the "property owners handyman" [M036], that it owed him no answer, and that the reply went to the owner and the "property owners rep" [M035] — the people it said it deals with.

Granted on every point, and the card stands: the reply the City sent to the owner and the person it calls the representative (the reply [E3]) still said nothing about the order or its fees. The email offered the owner's signed authorization on request, and asked the City to say if it was needed. The City said neither. The one rule it gave — the owner or the owner's representative — is the rule Card 19 carries: the City had already decided who the representative was, and would not say.

What would defeat this card is a page from the City, written after the question and addressed to the owner or to the person the City calls the owner's representative, stating whether the September 2, 2025 order voided the April 12, 2023 order and its fees. The file the City produced under Request 26-1965 and closed with "All responsive records have been provided." [R.26-1965.1] holds the question, the forward, the reply, the letter, and the lien — and no such page. Card 4 is the completeness baseline (what the file the City produced means, and does not mean).

APPLICABLE LAW

The card's point is documentary: the City produced the question, the internal forward, the reply, and the continuing hearing and special-assessment activity. The rule the reply invoked — that the City "deals directly with the owner of the property, or the owners representative" — has no written standard behind it in the produced file. The City's permit-specific Form CDD-0204, Agent-for-Owner Authorization is the owner-agent documentation mechanism the City prints; it is a permit-application form, not a rule for every code-enforcement conversation, and it matters here only if the City contends that owner-agent authority was required before staff could rely on non-owner permit communications. The produced Case File contains no completed version of that form for any contact in this case and no produced staff directive extending it to ordinary code-enforcement communications, as Card 19 sets out. The production-completeness implication is addressed in the anchor cards Card 4 Card 46.

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