The City certified under CPRA that it had no photographs of Bo Cosley's September 16, 2025 inspection at 4880 T Street. The property's own security cameras recorded him taking them.
The City of Sacramento officially certified that it has no photographs from Bo Cosley’s September 16, 2025 inspection of 4880 T Street, even though security footage shows him taking them. On June 4, 2026, the City closed a public records request stating that no responsive records exist. However, property cameras recorded the inspector framing shots of the house from the walkway and sidewalk at 10:03 a.m. that morning. These photographs are missing from three separate case-file productions and do not appear in the City’s documents index. Since the footage confirms the records were created, the City’s claim indicates the photographs were either never preserved or were missed during the records search. This inspection is the same visit where the inspector made statements regarding permits that eventually led the contractor to stop work.
On June 4, 2026, the City closed CPRA Request 26-2206 — filed that same day asking for Bo Cosley's photographs from his September 16, 2025 inspection visit at 4880 T Street — with the verbatim statement: "The City does not have any records responsive to this request" R.26-2206. That is the claim this card addresses.
The property's security cameras answer it directly. On September 16, 2025, at 10:03:01 and 10:03:11 — timestamps burned into the footage — two cameras recorded the man identified as Bo Cosley: blue shirt and dark pants, a camera or phone raised to his face, pointed at the house, framing shots from the front walkway and the public sidewalk P.2 P.3 P.4 P.5 P.6 P.7. The identification rests on three legs: the burned-in porch-camera frames, the representative addressing Cosley by name on the same morning's audio recording, and the representative's contemporaneous identification C27. Cosley's presence at the property that morning is confirmed by the City's own case note M036.
The photographs Cosley took are not in any of the three case-file productions the City has closed as complete — not the November 2025 file, not the April 2026 re-export, not the 631-page May 2026 searchable export R.25-3549 R.26-1549 R.26-1965 M001–M631. The documents index carries no 09/16/2025 Case-Photo entry attributed to Cosley M022. When the owner's representative filed a targeted CPRA request for exactly these photographs, the City responded the same day with: "The City does not have any records responsive to this request" R.26-2206.
That statement is either false, or it is an admission. The CCTV establishes that photographs were taken — records were created. If the City truly has none, something happened to them between the walkthrough and the June 2026 certification. The City's own CPRA response has foreclosed every other account.
On June 4, 2026, the City certified under California's Public Records Act that it had no records responsive to a request for Bo Cosley's photographs taken at 4880 T Street on September 16, 2025 R.26-2206. That certification is a determination on the record about the adequacy of the City's search and the existence of the requested records GC § 7922.530 GC § 7922.540. The request named the date, the inspector, and the property. The City returned: nothing.
Two cameras at the property recorded the man in the blue shirt and dark pants on the walkway and then on the public sidewalk, a camera or phone raised to his face toward the house, at burned-in 10:03:01 and 10:03:11 on the porch frames P.2 P.3 P.4 P.5, with the sidewalk frames from a second camera carrying no burned-in stamp P.6 P.7. The act of taking photographs is visible in the footage — not an inference. Records were created.
The 09/16/2025 case note confirms Cosley on-site that morning M036. The documents index shows no 09/16/2025 Case-Photo entry attributed to Cosley — the index jumps from a 09/02/2025 Notice-and-Order packet image to a 09/17/2025 correction notice M022. Three successive case-file productions — closed as complete on November 7, 2025; April 20, 2026; and May 22, 2026 — contain no 09/16/2025 Cosley photograph R.25-3549 R.26-1549 R.26-1965 M001–M631.
The CCTV establishes photographs were taken. The City certified it has none. One of three things is therefore true: (a) Cosley took the photographs but they were never uploaded or retained in any City system — a records-handling failure at a live enforcement property; (b) the photographs were uploaded, then deleted before the June 2026 CPRA closure — potential spoliation of evidence during an active administrative proceeding; or (c) the photographs exist in a City system and the June 4, 2026 closure language is false. The City chose its answer on June 4, 2026. It said: no records.
The September 16, 2025 walkthrough is the same event where, on the property's own audio, Cosley told the contractor that the City had let prior electrical work proceed without a permit and that he did not want a permit pulled on the rear workshop C27 V.3. Cosley's photographs from that visit — if they exist — would have been taken in the same timeframe as those statements. Cosley's signature block validates every administrative penalty order in this case C12. His photographs from the walkthrough that set the October 2025 permit demand are not in the file the City handed to the accused.
The produced record shows the following on the points at issue: - City CPRA closure, 06/04/2026: "The City does not have any records responsive to this request" R.26-2206. - Property CCTV, 09/16/2025 — porch camera, wide, burned-in 10:03:01 P.2. - Property CCTV, 09/16/2025 — porch camera, wide, burned-in "16/09/2025 10:03:11 TUE," two other men on porch P.3. - Property CCTV, 09/16/2025 — porch camera, crop, 10:03:01 P.4. - Property CCTV, 09/16/2025 — porch camera, crop, 10:03:11 P.5. - Property CCTV, 09/16/2025 — sidewalk camera facing the house, wide P.6. - Property CCTV, 09/16/2025 — sidewalk camera, side profile, man in blue shirt and dark pants framing a shot toward the property P.7. - 09/16/2025 case note, Lovato: Cosley on-site; correction notice given to contractor; 30-day permit window. No entry records Cosley photographing the property M036. - Documents index: no 09/16/2025 Case-Photo entry attributed to Cosley M022. - Three successive case-file productions — none contain a 09/16/2025 Cosley photograph R.25-3549 R.26-1549 R.26-1965 M001–M631.
On June 4, 2026, the City of Sacramento stated in an official CPRA response that it had no photographs of Bo Cosley's September 16, 2025 inspection of 4880 T Street R.26-2206. The property's own cameras, with timestamps burned into the footage, show him raising a camera to his face toward the house — twice — from the front walkway and the public sidewalk P.2 P.3 P.4 P.5 P.6 P.7. Photographs were taken. The City says it has none.
The certification is either false — in which case the responsive records exist and were withheld — or it is an admission that a Principal Building Inspector's photographs of an active enforcement property were taken and not retained, uploaded, or preserved in any City system between September 16, 2025 and June 4, 2026. The man who took those photographs is the same man whose signature block appears on every administrative penalty order in this case C12. The walkthrough those photographs came from is the same walkthrough where, on audio, he told the contractor the City had let prior work proceed without a permit C27. The City said, four weeks later, that the owner needed a retroactive permit — a demand that drove the contractor off the job C32. The photographs Bo Cosley took that morning have never appeared in any case file the City has handed to the accused.
Anticipated City defense: An inspector's personal reference photographs taken during a walkthrough are not automatically case records; they may be deleted as working-file material without triggering CPRA obligations; and the CPRA closure was accurate at the time of the search.
Answer: Whether inspector photographs constitute case records is not a policy question the City decides unilaterally in a CPRA closure. The moment a senior enforcement officer photographs a property at which administrative penalties are actively accruing, the images are potential case records and the owner is entitled to them in the file. The City's own case note records the correction notice provided to the contractor "included pictures" M036 — photographs were already being attached to case actions that day. More directly: the City's CPRA certification is a factual statement. The CCTV evidence is also a factual statement. Both cannot be true. The City chose June 4, 2026 to state its answer on the record. That answer has consequences.
The production-completeness and enforcement anchors for the missing-photo request are GC § 7920.000 and GC § 7923.000. ---