The Missing September 16 Inspection Photographs

Case 23-009185 | Card 32 | 4880 T Street, Sacramento CA 95819

The City says it has no photographs from the Principal Building Inspector's September 16, 2025 inspection of 4880 T Street; the property's cameras recorded him with a camera or phone raised at the house. At 10:03:01 and 10:03:11 that morning the porch camera (see [P2], see [P3]; crops 10:03:01 [P4], 10:03:11 [P5]) and a second camera facing the walkway and sidewalk recorded a man in a blue shirt and dark pants facing the house with a device raised [P6], then in side profile with it at eye level [P7] — identified in the owner's walkthrough notes as Bo Cosley (V2), whom the City's own case note [M036] places on site at 10:00 a.m. Asked on June 4, 2026 for his photographs from that visit, the City closed the request the same day: "The City does not have any records responsive to this request [R.26-2206.2]."

The same case note says more. Its author "had provided the contractor with a correction notice, that included pictures, of the violations on the property" [M036] and adds: "A copy of the correction notice I provided is uploaded to documents [M036]." The documents index carries that row — "Correction Notice.doc [M022]," dated 09/17/2025 and typed "Case Photo" [M022] — and no 09/16/2025 Case Photo entry from the Principal Building Inspector [M022]. The 631-page file the City produced under Request 26-1965 and closed with "All responsive records have been provided." [R.26-1965.1] carries the index row and the note; the words "correction notice" appear on no other page of that file [R.26-1965.2], and neither the notice nor a picture from it is in the file. The June 23, 2026 re-request attached these stills and asked for the images' metadata, the device and account, and any upload, deletion, non-retention, or search record; the City closed it the same day: "This is a duplicate request of your previous request, 26-2206." [R.26-2492.1] (Card 31: what the officers said on the property's recording at the same walkthrough).

Where are the pictures the City's own 09/16/2025 note says were in the correction notice it says is "uploaded to documents" [M036] — the row its index carries as a 09/17/2025 Case Photo, "Correction Notice.doc" [M022] — when the 631-page file the City produced in May 2026 under Request 26-1965 [R.26-1965.1] holds the index row and the note but not the notice or one picture of that visit, and the City answered the request for the Principal Building Inspector's photographs from the same morning, the one the property's cameras recorded him facing the house with a device raised [P6], with "The City does not have any records responsive to this request" [R.26-2206.2]?

IN PLAIN TERMS

The City stated in writing that it has no photographs [R.26-2206.2] from the Principal Building Inspector's September 16, 2025 inspection. At 10:03 a.m. the property's own cameras caught the man identified as the Principal Building Inspector facing the house with a camera or phone raised [P6]. The City's own note from that day says the correction notice handed to the contractor "included pictures" [M036] and was "uploaded to documents" [M036]; its index lists the notice as a Case Photo [M022]. The 631-page file the City produced in May 2026 under Request 26-1965 [R.26-1965.1] holds the note and the row, not the notice or a picture from it. Sent the stills and asked for the upload, deletion, and search records, the City closed that request the same day as a duplicate [R.26-2492.1]. The question for the City: where are the pictures its own note says it uploaded?

RECORD CHAIN

  1. September 16, 2025, 10:03 a.m. — the cameras: a device raised at the house. Two cameras at the property recorded the blue-shirted person in dark pants on the walkway and then on the public sidewalk with a camera or phone raised, at burned-in 10:03:01 [P2] and 10:03:11 [P3] on the porch frames, cropped at 10:03:01 [P4] and cropped at 10:03:11 [P5], with the frames from a second camera facing the walkway and sidewalk carrying no burned-in stamp: facing the house, device raised at chest height [P6], then in side profile, device raised at eye level [P7]. The City closed the request for the images [R.26-2206.2] with no records and the request for the device and account identifiers and the upload, deletion, non-retention, and search records [R.26-2492.1] with "This is a duplicate request of your previous request, 26-2206." [R.26-2492.1]
  2. September 16, 2025 — the same walkthrough. The September 16, 2025 walkthrough is the same event where, on the property's own audio, a City speaker said a permit was still required but explained that electrical work had been allowed to start because of a visible hazard; Paul Lovato also discussed the workshop in 120-square-foot / utilities-removal terms and described a falling-roof concern [Card 31]. Any Cosley photographs from that visit would date from the same event. Cosley's signature block appears on every administrative penalty order in this case [Card 15]. No photograph attributed to him from that walkthrough appears in any case-file production the City has closed for the owner under Requests 25-3549, 26-1549, and 26-1965.
  3. September 16–17, 2025 — the City's note and index: a correction notice with pictures, uploaded. The 09/16/2025 case note puts the Principal Building Inspector on site at 10:00 a.m. [M036] and says its author "had provided the contractor with a correction notice, that included pictures, of the violations on the property" [M036] and that "A copy of the correction notice I provided is uploaded to documents [M036]." The documents index shows no 09/16/2025 Case Photo entry attributed to Cosley [M022]; the surrounding Case Photo rows are a 09/02/2025 IMG_5985.JPG the index labels "Notice & Order Packet" [M022], a 09/11/2025 PDF the index labels "Document from handy man" [M022], and a 09/17/2025 "Correction Notice.doc," 112 KB, labeled "Correction notice" [M022]. Three successive case-file productions were closed on November 7, 2025 [R.25-3549.1], April 20, 2026 [R.26-1549.1], and May 22, 2026 [R.26-1965.1]; in the 631-page searchable May file the words "correction notice" occur on page 22 (the index row) and page 36 (the note) and on no other page [R.26-1965.2]; the notice the note says was uploaded, and its pictures, are not in that file.
  4. June 4, 2026 — the City's no-records closure. On June 4, 2026, the City closed a California Public Records Act request for Bo Cosley's photograph records from the September 16, 2025 visit to 4880 T Street with the statement that it had no responsive records [R.26-2206.2]. Under GC.7922.530, the City must make disclosable responsive records available [GC.7922.530]; the closure is the City's record-position that no responsive records were available to produce. The request named the date, the inspector, and the property [R.26-2206.1]. Before that closure, the City had closed the November 2025 case-file production for this property with its own written determination: "All responsive records have been provided." [R.25-3549.1] To affirm both determinations is to affirm that a case file the City determined was complete carries no photographic record of an inspection the City's own case note places on the property that morning [M036].
  5. The page the City's own note says exists. The CCTV shows conduct consistent with photographing; the City stated it has no responsive records. For the Principal Building Inspector's own images one of three accounts must hold: (a) no image file was created or saved despite the camera-or-phone posture; (b) image files were created but never uploaded or retained in any City system; or (c) responsive photographs exist in a City system and the June 4, 2026 closure statement [R.26-2206.2] is inaccurate. The City has not said which: the request for the upload, deletion, non-retention, and search records that would show (a) or (b) [R.26-2492.1] was closed the same day with "This is a duplicate request of your previous request, 26-2206." [R.26-2492.1] The card does not rest there. Independently of what his device held, the City's note says a correction notice "that included pictures" [M036] was "uploaded to documents [M036]," its index carries the row as a Case Photo [M022], and the file the City produced under Request 26-1965 and closed with "All responsive records have been provided." [R.26-1965.1] carries the row and the note and not the document [R.26-1965.2]. That is a page the City itself says it has.

FULL CIRCLE

The City's first available answer is that an inspector's reference photographs are working files, not case records, and may be deleted; that the no-records closure was accurate when the search was run; and that the Public Records Act does not oblige it to write a search log or a deletion record that does not exist.

The card does not ask for a log to be written. It asks for a page the City's own note says exists: a correction notice "that included pictures [M036]," a copy of which "is uploaded to documents [M036]," carried in the City's own index as a 09/17/2025 Case Photo [M022]. The file the City produced under Request 26-1965 and closed with "All responsive records have been provided." [R.26-1965.1] holds the index row and the note and not the document [R.26-1965.2]. The index also lists photographs for other visits by name and date (Card 10: thirty sworn photograph declarations, on 26 pages, for the monitoring rounds); it lists none from the Principal Building Inspector for this one.

The City's second available answer is that the pictures in the correction notice were the case inspector's earlier photographs, not anything taken on September 16, 2025.

That may be so, and it does not close the card. The index rows for the earlier photographs are individual IMG files dated 08/25/2025 [M022]; the correction notice is a separate 112 KB .doc row dated 09/17/2025 [M022]. Whatever pictures it carried, the note says the notice was uploaded and the index says it was filed, and the May 2026 file the City produced under Request 26-1965 [R.26-1965.1] does not carry it.

The City's third available answer is that the man in the stills is not who the owner's side says he is, or that he took no picture.

The City's own note puts the Principal Building Inspector on the property at 10:00 a.m.; the stills are from 10:03. Whether he took a picture is what the June 23 request asked the City to answer from its own devices and accounts; the City's answer was "This is a duplicate request of your previous request, 26-2206." [R.26-2492.1] — and the request it points to is the one it closed with "The City does not have any records responsive to this request [R.26-2206.2]."

What would defeat this card is one of two City pages: the correction notice with its pictures, produced from the City's documents tab, or a 09/16/2025 photograph from the Principal Building Inspector produced from a City system. The file the City produced under Request 26-1965 and closed with "All responsive records have been provided." [R.26-1965.1] holds neither, and the June 4 [R.26-2206.2] and June 23 [R.26-2492.1] closures add no page. Card 4 is the completeness baseline (what the file the City produced means, and does not mean).

APPLICABLE LAW

SOURCE CITATIONS USED BY THIS CARD

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