subject:   12 Bayview Road- Pre notice of a lot of concerns and upcoming needs...


Hello Elizabeth, Jim, Tim Evan and others,    (monterey county housing and community development people)

In the next week or two, i'm going to be reaching out to the permitting office to ask what I feel might (or might not) be moderate to complex questions about support you all can or can not provide trying to approach a neighbor who is on my water system and flooding out our properties -- while refusing to engage with me as the System Owner.  Ultimately we are dealing with a person with a mental health issue -- and that's not anything anyone wants to do -- but I've got to figure out how to do it somehow and given whats transpired already and transpiring now I don't believe it's going to be easy.    Along with that question I have questions about permit requirements for some repairs ./ replacement of pipes for the water system that cross multiple properties. 

I'm reaching out now, prior to having to do that, because I need to clear the air before starting that process -- such that if anything goes wrong in those interactions, i've already dumped everything I have to share about my prior experience first so it wouldn't look like sour grapes after. 

My prior experience with your office from 2022 to 2025 was horrible. Absolutely aweful.  The sheer volume of systemic procedural chaos combined with one exceedingly gross individual and a collection of others that seemed clueless about relevant statutes and their own jobs made it horrid --  and I was only doing a minor remodel and then a Jr ADU conversion.

Without getting into a lot of detail now -- one main gist of this is about the fact i was told there were no ADU/JrADU options for my home initially in 2021/2022 because I was in the coastal zone. Yet nobody told me I could in fact do an interior conversion of a bedroom when in fact, that's all I wanted to do and I made that clear in each call or inquiry.

Because of that, I designed a "wet bar" into an "office space"  on my initial remodel so I could rough my plumbing in hwen I was doing the remodel and then wait on the zoning permission for the ADU whenever that was finally decided -- even though that state made speicial efforts to ask all counties to make it ministerial in 2016 -- 6+ years prior at that time. 

During my initial permit review process for my remodel with wet bar,   all clearly noted on my drawing, Elizabeth Gonzales, Supervising Planner,  sent my designer an email with Jim Tullis cc'd 

1. Error in Property Owner name - The email subject contained the name of the prior homeowner who we purchased the home from in 2021, 16 months earlier.   The permit had been filed under our names -  and it had been owned by us for 16 months and at that point we had paid taxes on it with a proper tax bill. It was impossible to understand how a permit submitted under our name, with drawings and details containing our name and a tax bill containing  our name was overlooked for prior owners name.  We asked to have the correct at some point in the process.  When the permit was finally issued many months later -- it was issued in the prior owners name.  How does that happen? Do you all realize the level of "we have no processes" that screams?
   
   

2. Unnecessary Inquiry given facts stated - the Drawing stated intentions clearly.  Gonzalez question about an alternative intended use was over reach. What did she expect us to say, "oh gosh, you caught us. yes, we lied on our drawings we'll rescind our permit". ?   If  we were in fact caught later breaching zoning / use, you all would have  only needed our drawings to declare the violation. Thats it. Our drawings were our drawings. HOWEVER, the question sure comes in handy now...
   
   

3. False statement of fact/relevance about ADUs - In her email, Gonzalez wrote, “This parcel is located in the Coastal Zone; and therefore, an ADU is not allowed and a guesthouse would require a Coastal Administrative Permit.   Please clarify what the remodel is.” --
   
   YET this statement was made by Gonzalez  when both an internal ADU and an internal JrADU was permissible given no change in footprint or home use, correct? And our drawing showed this was all inside our home, correct?  nothing detached, correct?  So why the mis information?

Because of incorrect information prior to filing our permit in 2021 and 22-- and because of Gonzalez reinforcement of what I believe to have been a false fact in october 2022 --- we slow rolled through our project becuase the rental potential for a large bedroom suite with no kitchen / kitchenette was far lower than that of an adu -- and I kept hoping that ADU ordinance for coastal would come through during construction so I could just do what we wanted all at once and not need to just rough in and box out for a wet bar and then redo when the ordinance cleared. (we were NOT getting rental income when we should have...)

1. In 2024 I called HCD to check on ADUs for coastal and was told there was still no position. I surely asked bout internal conversions and there was no proper response.  By then it was EIGHT YEARS after the state's 2016 mandate, and seemingly, you can't blame it on coastal commission as they had seemingly worked with other counties on the coast years prior. 
   
   

2. In 2024 I contacted Glenn Church's office  and ask his office to look into it. They came back with the same info and no date for an ordinance.
   
   

3. In 2024, frustated to wits end I went into permit office personally to demand an understanding of why I could not put an ADU/JRADU in an existing space, I spoke to a permit tech who said it was not doable. I asked for the Department Head’s name and business card. A woman brought me the card and I told her what I was doing. That woman said that in fact it was doable with just a building permit.  I was  both happy and shocked.  How could everyone have been so lost all teh times I asked prior..
   
   That woman who told me it was doable that day in the permit office was none other than "Elizabeth Gonzalez"  --- the same person who wanted to make sure we weren't doing it 2 years prior, in writing via an over reach request on an email with the wrong owners name on it. 

But it gets worse... 

1. Gonzalez then handed me two documents from EHB -- one for potable water and one for sewer reqs.  The problem? the doc for potable water is fully fraudulent and the one for sewer reqs is questionable several ways.  Both hide statutory facts and conflate things that would have chilled ADU permit applications and/or been used to decline them.
   
   

2.  Then I was confronted by an older caucasian woman in permit review who took a  word I put on my permit that was not statutory -- "kitchenette" -- and she told my 10x10 kitchen was TOO BIG for my 440sf jr ADU. I was giving my future tenants too much of a kitchen. 
   
   

3. Then I had Jess Cortez at North County fire tell me a 2nd address and a fire inspection of exterior was required when NEITHER are required for an internal conversion.  We had 17 email volleys over a year. I asked for managerial help several times -- you all blocked him for the address but let him force an inspection on us for 190.
   
   

4. Then there's the horridly confusing recycling report/document due at the end of each permitting process that no human being could actually fill out given the instructions provided and nature of info on receipts from the dump.
   
   

5. And then there are other concerns with inspectors doing inspections with NO experience in the trade they are inspecting  and in one case, he couldn't discern information about non load bearing partition walls  when his only prior experience was in commercial framing ?

At the end of my permit process I encouraged Elizabeth to use the documents I created with the statutes on them to create a cheat sheet for others and those in the office so nobody else had to work as hard. I did all the work for you all for JrADUs.-- and I did it without realizing she was the one who had made sure we knew it wasn't legal just 2 years prior...    

1. Why aren't those facts on your website now? it's been 18 months or so since I went thru that hellish process. Why aren't they on your website?

2. Why doesn't your website clearly delineate between internal ADUs and JrADUs and ADUs in detached building? 

3. Why does your website only focus on detached ADUs?  

4. Why does it (still) misrepresent water system requirements?  And in really odd fashion, why did the EHB post two pdfs listing every well customer in the county by home address under the ADU page?

5.  Does that make any sense at all? 

6.  Do you all believe there are people on a well system who don't know they are on a well system or who the contact is for their well system? 

7. Does that make any sense at all?

It would be hard to describe a more dysfunctional system and collection of confusing and inverted processes -- and they are all so bad, one must wonder -- is this all by design? as it seemingly has been for  almost a decade after the state asked for support?  This can't be random can it? and if it is, is that better or worse?

As some of you may or may not know, Glen Church was sent a pretty sharp legal demand last week and then another longer and sharper one was sent to EHB -- not only for the docs I just mentioned but a laundry list of things that are extremely serious and concerning including the engagement in a 20 year hoax that also may have  included HCD employees one way or another.  

I'm not one to bash government employees.  I appreciate the work people do. But this? 

What we went through was egregious and grossly abusive -- and when it's all put together -- it really starts to look like it's county employees vs the rest of us. 

Given what I've just presented, can you state otherwise?

I'm in the process of preparing a Civil Demand for HCD to supplement the two others that have already gone out. It's possibly more brutal than both of those and those are not kind documents.  Nobody deserves to pay hefty taxes like we are to get what we are getting in return. This was beyond obscene.  

Elizabeth, i have just a few simple questions right now. if you choose not to answer them they'll come via the demand -- but if you do I can try to incorporate them in and possibly make things look a little better for a tiny portion of it... 

1. Can you explain how or why your email included the name of the prior owner even though that was no where on our permit application or in tax records?

2. Can you explain why you asked us to confirm our intentions when they were stated clearly on the document and what benefit you felt you'd obtain from a confirmation?

3. Can you explain how it was that you were the one who told us in writing that we had not alternative use for that space in 2022 but in 2024 you were the person who said we could?   Did you get new education from someone between 2022 and 2024 that might explain it? if so who was that from and when?

As  you all may or may not know, there were a lot of other problems with our home purchase that exposed state wide real estate brokerage and legal lobby fraud.  

1. As you may or may not know, that forced us to file 6 lawsuits and that allowed us to engage with and expose 4 Monterey County Judges in gross malefeasance.
   
   

2. As nobody knows, we've been able to identify the chief architect of the legal lobby and brokerage fraud --  a man engaged in CA law from 1949 through 2006 -- and we can see an ethnic group today that seems to be a controlling force in the ongoing fraud as well as the people in the legal lobby and brokerage industry sustaining it all .  

What i'm trying to say is this.  

1. All the torture the professionals nad governemnt has been putting us through for the past few years and others around here who were just trying to engage in small business for decades is about to get deeply exposed. Deeply.
   
   

2. Think books, screenplays, movies, documentaries, investigative journalism hits, etc. 
   
   

3. As east coasters, what we stumbled into is like an altered universe for most not from California and i'm not sure how much you all realize it's messed up.
   
   

4. And there's nothing I can do about any of this now other than to try to get answers to the concerns I have open and hope to encourage change BEFORE the mass of 40 million Californians and 100 of Millions of others are tuned into to all this for weeks or months or years trying to follow all the corruption and inversion stories.
   
   

5. And then there's this to add -- just this weekend, the same neighbor who needs help with me with the flooding coming from above us, was  targetted in a bathroom remodel scheme without permits -- a bait , switch and upsell scam that took advantage of him as an elder. Thankfully his brother and I stepped in and stopped them -- while cc'ing three monterey county AGs on emails with them -- and do you know what they did ? with AGs on the email they demanded an 18k balance due for 2k in work (thats not a typo)  And that may be something else we'll need help with that just came up.... 

So, somehow, we are going to have to get you all to address a legal demand while simultaneously submitting quite a few more requests for support about dysfunction in the community and concerns about our water system that just keeps adding to the stories.   

Elizabeth if you can get back to me with answers to those three questions, it would help out. -- and in closing, i have to tell you -- it wasn't until TONIGHT when I went back looking for that email that I realized it was you who asked the improper question and assured us the laws were not what they were in 2022. Prior to tonight, I had slotted you in as the hero in the ADU permitting process b/c you were the only one who told us the truth and helped us get our permit. That was an odd last minute twist for sure, but maybe you can explain it somehow that makes your 2022 email look less bad.  

Thanks 

Bryan Canary

PS - as if now, it looks like i might be starting an online newspaper that specializes in investigative journalism exposing government and commercial corruption.  the need is simply too large to overlook.