The 311 Intake Outside the First Export Filter

Case 23-009185 | Card 41 | 4880 T Street, Sacramento CA 95819

The City's first search for the complaint that opened Case 23-009185 began three days after the complaint was filed. On Request 25-3549 [R.25-3549.1], which asked for the originating complaint [R.25-3549.1], the City posted a 311 export on October 31, 2025 at 2:45pm [R.25-3549.1] that prints its own filter on the sheet: "Date Field: Date/Time Opened equals Custom (3/20/2023 to 10/30/2025)" [R.25-3549.2.xlsx]. It holds eight rows, none opened before 3/20/2023 [R.25-3549.2.xlsx]. The earliest Code Enforcement row on it, 11/7/2023, ticket 231107-2094683 [R.25-3549.2.xlsx], ends its own description with "This is a follow up of request Request 230317-1609966" [R.25-3549.2.xlsx] — the City's filtered sheet naming the ticket its filter left out. The City's own case file gives "Open Date: 03/18/2023" [M001], first log entries dated 03/20/2023 [M001], and a case Description that begins "THEY HAVE BEEN BUILDING AN ADDITION TO THEIR GARAGE" [M001] — the words of ticket 230317-1609966, "Work Without a Permit", opened 3/17/2023 11:41 AM [R.25-3549.3.xlsx], which sat in the City's 311 system under the same address.

The City's strongest page is the requester's own. On October 27, 2025 at 12:13pm [R.25-3549.1] he read the City's PDF back to it — "The activity timeline shows an Initial Complaint (3/20/2023)" [R.25-3549.1] — and asked for the "Original complaint intake/311 entry" [R.25-3549.1]: the intake that produced that log entry, which comes before it. On October 31 at 6:23pm, after the first sheet, he wrote that "the "Date/Time Opened" filter begins on March 20, 2023" [R.25-3549.1], supplied the ticket number, asked the City to "Re-run the 311 report for 4880 T Street with a start date of January 1, 2023 (or remove the [R.25-3549.1] start-date filter altogether" and to "Perform a direct search for request 230317-1609966" [R.25-3549.1], and asked it to "indicate which systems and custodians are being searched" [R.25-3549.1] — the help Government Code 7922.600 [GC.7922.600] describes. The thread [R.25-3549.1] carries no City message answering that question. On November 7, 2025 at 8:05am [R.25-3549.1] the City released "Request 25-3549_311.xlsx" [R.25-3549.1] — filtered only "Address contains 4880 T St" [R.25-3549.3.xlsx] on its Filtered By block, its worksheet tab titled Apr 15, 2020 to Nov 5, 2025 [R.25-3549.3.xlsx], ten rows, the March 17 ticket among them [R.25-3549.3.xlsx] — and in the same minute closed the request: "All responsive records have been provided." [R.25-3549.1] (Card 4).

Where, on the 25-3549 thread or in the file it closed, does the City state the basis for starting its search for the complaint that opened Case 23-009185 on March 20, 2023 — two days after the "Open Date: 03/18/2023" [M001] its own file prints and three days after the ticket [R.25-3549.3.xlsx] — and name the systems and custodians it searched, when its own filtered sheet had already printed the excluded ticket's number in its 11/7/2023 row [R.25-3549.2.xlsx] and the re-run was filtered on address alone [R.25-3549.3.xlsx]?

IN PLAIN TERMS

The requester asked the City for the complaint that started this case. The City's first spreadsheet printed its own search window on the sheet [R.25-3549.2.xlsx]: starting March 20, 2023. The complaint was filed March 17. So the sheet had eight tickets, the earliest from April 2023 [R.25-3549.2.xlsx], and not the one that opened the case — though its own November 2023 row named that ticket as the one it followed up [R.25-3549.2.xlsx]. The requester spotted the date, supplied the ticket number, and asked which systems were searched [R.25-3549.1]. A week later the City posted a second sheet filtered on address alone, ten tickets [R.25-3549.3.xlsx] — the March 17 ticket on it — and closed the request in the same minute [R.25-3549.1]. The question for the City: where does it say why the search started March 20, and what it searched?

RECORD CHAIN

  1. March 17 – 20, 2023 — the complaint, the case, the log. 311 ticket 230317-1609966, opened 3/17/2023 11:41 AM, Code Enforcement, "Work Without a Permit", 4880 T ST [R.25-3549.3.xlsx]. The City's File Detail Report: "Open Date: 03/18/2023" [M001]; its first Activity Log entries, INITIAL COMPLAINT and INITIAL INSPECTION, 03/20/2023 [M001]; no 03/17/2023 row on that page [M001]; its Description, "THEY HAVE BEEN BUILDING AN ADDITION TO THEIR GARAGE THAT USES THE FENCE IN THE ALLEY AS A WALL" [M001], is the March 17 ticket's narrative in capitals.
  2. October 27 – 31, 2025 — the request for the originating complaint, and the filtered sheet. The requester, October 27, 12:13pm [R.25-3549.1], read the City's PDF back to it — "The activity timeline shows an Initial Complaint (3/20/2023)" [R.25-3549.1] — and asked for the "Original complaint intake/311 entry" [R.25-3549.1]. The City's October 31, 2:45pm release [R.25-3549.1], "Request 25-3549.xlsx" [R.25-3549.1], is stamped "As of 2025-10-31 14:07:10" [R.25-3549.2.xlsx] and filtered "Date Field: Date/Time Opened equals Custom (3/20/2023 to 10/30/2025)" [R.25-3549.2.xlsx], "Address contains 4880 T ST" [R.25-3549.2.xlsx]: eight rows [R.25-3549.2.xlsx], none opened before 3/20/2023; the earliest Code Enforcement row, 11/7/2023, ticket 231107-2094683 [R.25-3549.2.xlsx], ends "This is a follow up of request Request 230317-1609966" [R.25-3549.2.xlsx].
  3. October 31, 2025, 6:23pm — the cutoff identified, the number supplied, the systems question asked. "Because the case file references [R.25-3549.1] request 230317-1609966 (submitted three days earlier), that filter would exclude the very complaint the City says triggered case 23-009185." He asked for a re-run from January 1, 2023 or with no start date, a direct search for the ticket, and "which systems and custodians are being searched (Sac311, [R.25-3549.1] inspector call sheets, code-enforcement queue, archives, etc.)".
  4. November 6 – 7, 2025 — the second sheet, and closure in the same minute. "Request 25-3549_311.xlsx" [R.25-3549.1], stamped "As of 2025-11-06 13:06:14" [R.25-3549.3.xlsx], filtered only "Address contains 4880 T St" [R.25-3549.3.xlsx] (its worksheet tab titled Apr 15, 2020 to Nov 5, 2025 [R.25-3549.3.xlsx]) — ten rows, the March 17 ticket among them [R.25-3549.3.xlsx] — released November 7, 2025, 8:05am [R.25-3549.1]; "All responsive records have been provided." [R.25-3549.1], 8:05am; Anna Sorensen's message, "The City has collected all documents that appear to be responsive to your request." [R.25-3549.1] The thread [R.25-3549.1] carries no City message on which systems or custodians were searched, or on the March 20 start date.
  5. May 2026 — the produced case file. Later complaint entries appear in it, dated 01/09/2026 [M011], 01/27/2026 [M039] and 03/26/2026 [M012]; the originating ticket appears in the corrected 311 sheet [R.25-3549.3.xlsx] and on no page of the file's first report [M001].

FULL CIRCLE

The City's first available answer is that the search was re-run, the ticket produced, and the request closed on the corrected sheet — true when issued.

True of the second sheet. The card is about the first: a search for the originating complaint set to begin after it, on a field the City chose — "Date/Time Opened" [R.25-3549.2.xlsx] — with a date no City page explains; and a ticket whose number the City's own filtered sheet printed in its 11/7/2023 row [R.25-3549.2.xlsx], and which entered the production only after the requester read that number back to the City [R.25-3549.1].

The City's second available answer is that 311 intake and case opening are separate steps, and the search began from the case log's first entry.

The filter was on the 311 ticket's own open date, not the case's; the case opened 03/18/2023 [M001], not 03/20; and the corrected run was filtered on address alone [R.25-3549.3.xlsx], its tab spanning Apr 15, 2020 to Nov 5, 2025 [R.25-3549.3.xlsx], so the March 20 start was a choice, not a system requirement.

The City's third available answer is that the requester's own October 27 message gave 3/20/2023 as the Initial Complaint date, so the search started there.

That message quoted the City's PDF — "The activity timeline shows an Initial Complaint (3/20/2023)" [R.25-3549.1] — and asked for the "Original complaint intake/311 entry" [R.25-3549.1] behind it, a record that comes before the log entry. The City's own pages put the start earlier: "Open Date: 03/18/2023" [M001], a case Description in the March 17 ticket's words [M001], and the filtered sheet's own "This is a follow up of request Request 230317-1609966" [R.25-3549.2.xlsx]. The thread [R.25-3549.1] carries no City message giving that, or any, basis.

What would defeat this card is a City message on the 25-3549 thread, or a page in the production, stating the systems and custodians searched and the basis for the March 20, 2023 start date. The thread [R.25-3549.1] holds neither; the City closed the request with "All responsive records have been provided." [R.25-3549.1] Card 4 is the completeness baseline (what the file the City produced means, and does not mean).

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