The City closed Request 26-1549 the same day it arrived; the requester’s record-integrity notice four days later drew no preserved reply.
A property owner’s representative asked the city for a fresh, complete copy of one case file — the same file the city had handed over twice before. R.26-1549 The city received the request before dawn and closed it that same evening, releasing the file and reciting its usual boilerplate about exemptions. R.26-1549 Four days later the requester sent the city a detailed written notice saying the new copy was a problem: it had been turned into a picture-only document you cannot search, Card 40 the same entry was blacked out on one page but visible on another, Card 41 and new 2025-dated remarks had appeared that were not in the earlier copy. The notice asked the city to hand over a proper searchable copy, to say who authorized the changes, and to pause a cost-recovery hearing set for June 10, 2026 — a hearing that would turn an unpaid $410.40 charge into a lien on the property. M627–M629 The same portal that had closed the request in a single day never answered the notice in the record the city later preserved. R.26-1549 The specific defects the notice pointed to are not just the requester’s opinion — two of them are independently confirmed elsewhere in this deck. Card 40 Card 41 All of this only surfaced because the requester forced the file out a third time through public-records requests and then compared the versions side by side, which is how the searchable-to-image downgrade and the after-the-fact edits came to light. R.26-1965
Bottom line: the city closed a records request in hours, then went silent when the requester pointed out — before a hearing that could put a lien on the property — that the file it had just released was a downgraded, altered version of a record it had produced searchable five months earlier.Request 26-1549 asked for a current export of one case record: Case 23-009185. R.26-1549 The portal record shows the City received it at 5:49 a.m., released 23-009185_Redacted.pdf, and closed the request at 6:06 p.m. the same evening. The closing officer was Mindy Cuppy, City Clerk; the portal point of contact was Melanie Haage. R.26-1549 The closure recited the same two-category exemption boilerplate carried across Chapter H Card 39 and named no custodian, system, or responsible official.
Four days later, at 11:13 a.m., the requester filed a written record-integrity notice in the same portal thread. R.26-1549 The notice identified the April production as a flattened, image-only, materially different case-file export and made four answerable demands: a certified, text-searchable export; identification of who authorized the format change; identification of the author of added 2025-dated characterizations; and a stay of the June 10, 2026 hearing. M627–M629 M012 M040 The preserved 26-1549 record contains no City response after the April 24 notice. R.26-1549
The portal record shows the request opened at 5:49 a.m., was auto-acknowledged at 6:05 p.m. with “within 10 days” determination language, and was closed at 6:06 p.m. the same evening after a document release. R.26-1549
At 11:13 a.m. on April 24, 2026, the requester filed a detailed portal message putting the City on notice of specific production-integrity defects and asking for a certified searchable export, identification of who authorized the format change, identification of the author of added 2025-dated characterizations, and a stay of the June 10, 2026 hearing until record integrity was addressed. R.26-1549
The City’s own notice packet sets a Housing Code Advisory and Appeals Board cost-recovery hearing for June 10, 2026 at 5:30 p.m., 915 I Street, Second Floor, on invoice CDDCHC24459. M627–M629 That is the proceeding that could turn an unpaid $410.40 monitoring charge into a special assessment against the property, with the special assessment slated for the August 11, 2026 City Council. M012 M040 The proof of service for this same hearing packet is date-inconsistent. Card 46
The City received Request 26-1549 at dawn and closed it that evening, releasing the April production and reciting standard closure language. R.26-1549 Four days later the requester filed a detailed notice that the April file was an image-only downgrade of a record the City had produced searchable five months earlier Card 40, that the same entry was redacted on one page and exposed on another, and that new 2025-dated characterizations had appeared. Card 41 The notice demanded a certified searchable export and a stay of the June 10 hearing. R.26-1549 M627–M629 The preserved portal record shows no response. R.26-1549
The strongest City answer is that the request was already answered in full when closed, the April 24 message was argument rather than a new records request, and any reply could have occurred outside the portal or at the hearing. That answer does not resolve the record problem. The April 24 notice made specific, answerable demands tied to defects independently established in Card 40 and Card 41, and it did so before a hearing that could convert a monitoring charge into a property assessment. M627–M629 If the City has a response, it should produce it. If it does not, the silence preserved in the portal record is the record. R.26-1549 Card 47