The City corresponded with the representative, recognized other non-owners at will, asked no one for an authorization form, then relabeled and redirected him — while the supervising official, forwarding the representative’s own email the same afternoon, asked “who is this person?” in a thread that already named him.
When a property owner is sick or hard to reach, a city usually lets a trusted helper or representative speak for them — and most cities have a simple form the owner signs to put that in writing. City Form CDD-0204 Here the city talked to the owner’s representative from the very first email in 2023 and kept dealing with him; M024 later, the same month, a city inspector met a contractor and a representative at the property, handed over a correction notice, and gave them thirty days to get a building permit — all without ever asking anyone to fill out that authorization form. M036 Yet around the same time the inspector started calling the representative the “owner’s handyman” and told him to stop contacting the city and go through the owner instead. M036 There is no rule in the file that explains who got recognized and who got pushed away — it came down to the inspector’s own call, not a written standard. M001–M631 Separately, on the day Foley believed a senior city official had personally delivered the new enforcement packet to the property, the representative emailed that official directly; the official forwarded the email to the inspector the same afternoon asking “who is this person? How is he involved?” — even though the email named the representative and was about this exact case. E.3 One detail only surfaced after the owner’s representative forced the city’s records out through public-records requests: that “who is this person?” email was a city-internal message the city had not volunteered, R.25-4711 and it sits next to the representative’s own written offer to bring signed authorization the moment the city asked — an offer the city never took up. M036
Bottom line: the city recognized non-owners freely when it suited it, relabeled the same representative a “handyman” and redirected him on the inspector’s say-so with no documented rule, and a senior official asked “who is this person?” in a thread that already answered the question — the same afternoon the representative wrote to him about a notice he believed had just been delivered.Across the case the City’s produced file shows it corresponded with the property representative directly, recognized other non-owner contacts when it chose to, and never once told anyone that a written authorization form was required — yet later relabeled and redirected the same representative. M024 M036 The inspector knew the representative from the first contact email and replied to him the same day. M024 By September the inspector was addressing him as “Chris” while also calling him “property owners handyman” and telling him to “reach out to the owner of the property.” M036 Days later the inspector and the Principal Building Inspector met “a contractor and a representative of the property owner,” gave the contractor a correction notice and “30 days to obtain the building permit,” and recognized those non-owner contacts — again with no authorization document in the file. M036
Separately, the Principal Building Inspector forwarded the representative’s own email to the inspector asking “Paul, who is this person? How is he involved?” — inside a thread that named the representative and referenced the case. E.3 The produced file contains no owner-signed authorization form matching the City’s current Agent-for-Owner Authorization mechanism City Form CDD-0204 for the representative, the contractor, or any non-owner the City chose to recognize; that is a negative full-production search. M001–M631
The 04/04/2023 case entry records “Good morning, My name is Chris Foley and Jacqueline Baritell has informed me you had stopped by,” and the inspector “replied back” to him the same day. M024 The City knew who he was from the first communication.
No entry, email, or notice in the produced file shows the inspector, the Principal Building Inspector, or any staff asking the representative, the owner, or the contractor to submit an authorization form, or stating the City could not deal with a non-owner until one was on file. M024 M036 This is a negative search across the produced May case file. M001–M631 City Form CDD-0204
On 09/16/2025 the inspector “met with a contractor and a representative of the property owner,” gave the contractor “a correction notice, that included pictures,” handed him “my business card,” and let “the representative of the owner” know “I would give them 30 days to obtain the building permit” — no authorization form requested from any of them. M036
“I let the representative of the owner know I would give them 30 days to obtain the building permit.” M036 — 09/16/2025 case note (Paul Lovato)
On 09/11/2025 the inspector recorded the email as one “from property owners handyman,” then replied that the City “deals directly with the owner of the property, or the owners representative” and that “any concerns you have with the property, please reach out to the owner of the property.” M036 The same entry records that the representative had offered written authorization on request — “If Jackie’s consent must come first, please just confirm that and we’ll bring it immediately” — and the City did not take it up. M036
On 09/02/2025 the representative emailed the Principal Building Inspector directly, referencing that the official had “just came by and delivered the new Notice and Order packet” and that he “tried to catch you before you left but missed you”; that same afternoon the Principal Building Inspector forwarded the email to the inspector asking “Paul, who is this person? How is he involved?” — in a thread that named the representative and referenced the case. E.3 Card 49
The production carries no owner-signed authorization form for the representative, the contractor, or any non-owner the City recognized. City Form CDD-0204 M001–M631 The standard for whom to recognize, relabel, or redirect rested on the inspector’s say-so, not a documented rule.
Either written authorization was required before the City could deal with a non-owner — in which case the produced file lacks it for the representative, the contractor, and everyone else the City recognized City Form CDD-0204 M001–M631 — or it was not required, in which case nothing in the record explains relabeling the representative as “handyman” and redirecting him to the owner. M036 The City replied to him at first contact, M024 recognized a contractor and a representative the same month it redirected him, M036 and never once asked anyone for a form. M001–M631
The strongest realistic City response: non-owner representatives may communicate about a case without an authorization form; staff acted in good faith to facilitate compliance; the inspector could reasonably redirect a representative whose role was unclear; and a high-volume official may not instantly recall one individual. If a form was not needed for ordinary communication, the City cannot later justify redirecting the representative on the ground that he lacked one. M036 If authorization was required before staff could rely on non-owner statements for compliance or permit coordination, the produced file contains it for no one — not the representative, not the contractor, not any other non-owner the City chose to recognize. M001–M631 City Form CDD-0204 The City also cannot rescue the redirection by calling the representative’s role unclear: its own remedy for an unclear role is the authorization form, and the record shows the City never once asked anyone to complete one and did not take up the representative’s offer to bring it. M036 Card 47 Card 48