The Notice and Order named no specific permit; the licensed contractor retained to comply refused the undefined permit and walked off.
When a city orders repairs on a building, it is supposed to say what work needs a permit. SCC §8.100.190 Here the city’s order and its violation list only said, in effect, “get all required permits” — without ever naming a single specific permit. M124 M125 To comply, the owner’s attorney brought in a licensed building contractor — Arthur Popov of Best of Remodel Inc., CSLB License #1040536 — who a month earlier had walked the whole property alongside two city inspectors. M036 When the attorney asked him to file the permit the city wanted, the contractor wrote back that everything on the list was already done, that he was being asked to pull a permit “for anything they ask” over loose “misc items” no one had put in writing, and that he was out. R.25-3549 The city’s own notes record the same thing twice — once saying the contractor “backed out,” M036 and again, days later, calling it the contractor’s “refusal to participate.” M037 That a detail this damaging shows up in the city’s file at all only came to light because the owner’s side forced the records out through public-records requests. R.26-1965
Bottom line: the city demanded permits but never said which ones, and the licensed contractor brought in to comply read the order, found the work done, and walked away rather than guess — a refusal the city wrote into its own file.In October 2025 the City’s permit requirement drove the owner’s attorney, Mark Saakian, to have a contractor file a permit to “address and correct the violations.” R.25-3549 The contractor identified for that task was Arthur Popov of Best of Remodel Inc., a California-licensed General Building contractor (CSLB License #1040536). R.25-3549 Popov had walked 4880 T Street on 09/16/2025 alongside Principal Building Inspector Bo Cosley and the inspector of record, Paul Lovato — a walk the City logs in its own file. M036 Card 27 On the morning of 10/20/2025 he wrote to Saakian withdrawing rather than pull a permit “for anything they ask” tied to “misc items.” R.25-3549 A licensed contractor, having walked the property with both inspectors, reached the conclusion the served record compels: the Notice and Order and its Correction List name no specific permit, and the City had specified none as of the 10/20/2025 walk-off. M124 M125
The Notice and Order M124 and its Correction List M125 carried only the generic B59 “Permits Required” placeholder (SCC §8.100.190); Card 3 no permit category was named, even after three written demands. Card 7 In the Saakian thread, even the owner’s own attorney — pointing to the order’s abstract “all required permits” language R.25-3549 — could identify no specific permit-triggering finding; the order’s own words are “all required permits for repair shall be secured” M124 — a category, not a permit.
Through Saakian, the path to compliance was for Popov to “coordinate the minimal permit with the inspectors” to “address and correct the violations.” R.25-3549
On 10/20/2025 Popov wrote to Saakian: R.25-3549 “Sorry Mark, I am am not placing myself into this. It is talking too much of my time. All the listed items are done. I do not feel comfortable pulling permit for anything they ask and be stuck with this misc items. I am out.” Three independently significant statements: “All the listed items are done” — the contractor’s representation as of 10/20/2025; “pulling permit for anything they ask” — the request was open-ended, not tied to a specific citation; “this misc items” — the requested scope was items not enumerated in any formally served document. M125
In the City’s 10/20/2025 phone-call note the inspector records that “the contractor who is was going to help them has backed out of the project.” M036 Three days later the City logs Saakian telling the inspector the permit-application “delay stems from the contractor’s refusal to participate in the process.” M037 No amended Notice and Order naming the items the contractor was asked to permit was served before 10/20/2025. Downstream: only after the contractor walked off did the owner pull the permit herself (application emailed 10/20 M036; permit processed 11/21 M037; issued ∼12/02 M037); the inspector first reduced the work to a concrete itemized inspection list on 12/02/2025 M037 — six weeks after the walk-off and not via any served Notice and Order.
The City’s permit requirement pressed the owner’s attorney to have a licensed contractor pull a permit “to address and correct the violations,” but the served order named no specific permit — only “all required permits for repair shall be secured.” M124 M125 The contractor — retained to comply, not to fight, and present on the property with both inspectors a month earlier M036 — read the Notice and Order and its Correction List, found the listed items done, and refused to pull a “permit for anything they ask” tied to “misc items” outside the served record. R.25-3549 The City’s own notes log the reason as the contractor backing out M036 and as the contractor’s refusal to participate. M037
The strongest City response is that the contractor simply exercised business judgment and that the order’s “all required permits” language already satisfied the statute. SCC §8.100.190 That reading treats the order’s phrasing M124 as a substitute for the City specifying what it wanted permitted. The record shows neither. An independent, California-licensed General Building contractor, retained by the owner’s counsel for the express purpose of compliance, walked the property side by side with the Principal Building Inspector and the inspector of record on 09/16/2025, M036 then put his reason for declining in writing on 10/20: the request was “for anything they ask” and tied to “misc items” not in the served record. R.25-3549 That is not a business disagreement about scope; it is the exact gap a properly particularized Notice and Order is meant to close. SCC §8.100.190