The City posted Orders Imposing Administrative Penalty on the front door on Thanksgiving Eve 2023 and Christmas Eve 2024; each posting started the twenty-calendar-day administrative-penalty appeal window under SCC §1.28.010 when City offices were closed for the holiday, and the City’s own POST NOTICE log shows it posted freely on ordinary business days throughout the case.
When a city tapes a penalty order to your front door, a countdown starts: you have twenty days to deliver a written appeal to the city clerk’s office, and a postmark is not enough — your paper has to actually reach a city office. Here the city taped penalty orders to this property’s front door the day before Thanksgiving one year M003 and on Christmas Eve the next M007, so the clock to appeal began running at the exact moment the clerk’s office and the rest of city hall were shutting down for the holiday SCC §1.28.010. The city could say that was just bad luck of the calendar. But its own activity log — the running diary its inspectors keep — shows it posted notices on plenty of ordinary mid-week workdays throughout this case M002 M004, so it did not have to pick a holiday eve either time. Two holiday-eve postings, in a row, in consecutive years, on the same property, are written into that log in the inspectors’ own words. None of this came from the city’s own announcements; it surfaced only after the owner’s representative kept pushing records requests until the city handed over its full activity log R.26-1965, where the two holiday-eve postings sit side by side with the routine workday ones.
Bottom line: the city started a short, paper-must-arrive appeal clock by posting penalty orders on Thanksgiving Eve and Christmas Eve — when its own offices were closed — even though its own records show it routinely posted on ordinary workdays. M002 M004 R.25-3549 R.26-1549The case file’s POST NOTICE log records two enforcement postings on holiday eves. An inspector posted an Order Imposing Administrative Penalty and Building Monitoring Fee on the front door at 9:39 a.m. the day before Thanksgiving M003; a fuller narrative copy of that posting appears in the General Case Information log M026. The following year, a second inspector posted an Administrative Penalty/HDB Monitoring Fee on the front door on Christmas Eve M007; a fuller narrative copy of that posting appears in the General Case Information log M031. Both appear in the City’s own production in the field staff’s own words.
Each posting started the twenty-calendar-day appeal window under the Chapter 1.28 administrative-penalty provision SCC §1.28.010, running from the posting date regardless of holiday observance; the appeal must be filed in writing with the City Clerk — a City office that is itself closed across the holiday window the posting opens. The same Order Imposing Administrative Penalty template was applied across the case Card 12. The City’s own log shows it posted routinely on ordinary business days: 06/30/2023 at 7:35 a.m. M002, 02/07/2024 at 8:10 a.m. M004, 11/15/2024 at 9:46 a.m. M007, and 03/11/2025 M007. Neither holiday-eve date was forced by the calendar.
An Order Imposing Administrative Penalty, once served, begins a twenty calendar-day window to file a written appeal with the City Clerk under SCC §1.28.010 — the appeal must reach a City office, not merely be postmarked.
The POST NOTICE entry reads:
“On 11-22-2023 at 9:39 am I posted Order Imposing Administrative Penalty and Building Monitoring fee on the front door.” M003 — POST NOTICE, William Ely, 11/22/2023 (Thanksgiving Eve 2023; Thanksgiving fell on November 23)
The POST NOTICE entry reads:
“on 12/24/24 I posted a Admin. Penalty/HDB Monitoring Fee on the front door.” M007 — POST NOTICE, Carl Tafoya, 12/24/2024 (Christmas Eve 2024; Christmas fell on December 25)
Postings across the case fall on routine, non-holiday dates — 06/30/2023 at 7:35 a.m., 02/07/2024 at 8:10 a.m., 11/15/2024 at 9:46 a.m., and 03/11/2025 — so the calendar did not force a holiday-eve date on either occasion.
A posted Order Imposing Administrative Penalty starts a twenty-day, file-with-the-City-Clerk appeal clock under SCC §1.28.010 from the date of posting. The City affixed such orders to the front door on Thanksgiving Eve 2023 M003 and Christmas Eve 2024 M007, in consecutive years, on the same case. The City’s own log shows it posted routinely on ordinary business days — 06/30/2023, 02/07/2024, 11/15/2024, 03/11/2025 M002 M004 M007 — and the produced record contains no contemporaneous note explaining why either holiday-eve posting could not have waited for the next business day. The twenty-day appeal clock runs from the posting date regardless of holiday observance, and the appeal must be filed with the City Clerk — a City office that is itself closed across the holiday window the posting opens. The chosen date is exactly what compresses the practical opportunity to appeal.
A single holiday-eve posting is plausibly coincidental. Two of them, on the eves of two of the most observed holidays of the year, in consecutive years, on the same case, is a documented pattern on the face of the City’s own POST NOTICE log M003 M007. The City’s own record forecloses the “no choice” reading. R.25-3549 R.26-1549 Card 47