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Housing and Community Development is the department that handles Building Permits and likely many other matters.

There are statutes on the books to protect residents from improper permitting behavior

One such statute gives the permit office 30 days to review documents, and absent a valid reason for delay related to the permit request, the permit may be deemed approved by the filer. This type of thing exists to prevent government interference, competence and rot.

Recently the permit office was documented taking 4 monthgs and 8 months to approve permits that should have involved less than 10 minutes of actual engagement time for relevant review. Emails were tracked during those processes and only about 10% of the emails were germaine to the permit. The rest were about chasing down non-responsive civil servants or working around illogical or unreasonable business processes.

An even larger example of a concern came out recently where a single email was required to setup a new address. It was not sent out. When the resident asked for support 4 emails to the responsible admin were ignored along with a request for suppervisor support. Only one was returned and it was non-responsive. An email to all known Executives and the media was sent out. That resulted ina response from her supervisor, who oddly, did not have his job title or professional license in his email. He then failed to do what he said he would while offerring false methods for showing it has been setup when it had not. After 7 emails a demand was sent for them to specify the process that was required to setup the address, and nobody responded.

The Admin and her boss currently cost the county over $200,000 per year. 7 emails, and nobody could say, "All it takes to do this was a single email. That did't happen. We are fixing it now".

Beyond Broken.

Current Concerns

No Accountability - Employees at all levels show a lack of accountability for their own work with no concern for penalization by the public or their bosses. (ie - address assignments , ADU rules, permit review delays, procedural incompetence, etc)

No easy escalation mechanisms for the public -- The employees do not include supervisor names and contact information in emails. It makes escalating concerns extremely difficult.

Work Hoarding - The employees there seem to be too few for work required and paid extreme amounts of money to put up with the stress.

Single Authorities - The Building Construction plan review person is believed to be without any backup. He lists a backup contact on his out of office responders but that person claims he can NOT do building permit reviews. Thus permit processing for 100,000 people seem to stop when he's out of the office.

Illogical processes - The recycling reporting requirement for renovation work asks for data that no person could actually provide based on dump receipts -- and they provide no proper clarity on that.

Engaging in illegal permit suppression/denials - Evidence suggests they have been engaging in the illegal suppression / denial of building permits for new construction and ADU permits since the early 2000's. This has been executed in conjunction with the Environmental Health Bureau. There is a chance it targeted Jewish Citizens, although that may just be a fluke.

Outstanding Civil Demands

The EHB Demand affects HCD, thus they are presnted together.

Demand 2 - EHB Director and Staff - Ric Encarnacion, Marni Flag, Cheryl Sandoval - view gDoc view pdf asWebPage (12/12/2025)

Demand 3 - HCD Director and Staff - Craig Spencer, Josh Bowling, Evan Nuckles, Elizabeth Gonzales - view gDoc view pdf (12/22/2025)
Exhibit - Pre-Notice Email sent 12/17/2025 view pdf
Exhibit - Proposed ADU/JrADU Guide view gDoc
Exhibit - Non-Email Exhibits view gDoc
Exhibit - Relevant Emails ( see below )

NOTE: These issues have been deeply frustrating and counterproductive, often requiring extraordinary applicant effort for basic progress. I have documented and shared the supporting emails publicly because the patterns are difficult to credit without direct evidence—and ultimate resolution requires transparency to drive meaningful reforms.

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