Cities and their reviewers

[btaylor]

Confused why the Board (if I'm understanding this correctly) does not at least hold the surveyor/engineer in charge accountable if it does not want to go after the City itself. It would be good for Ric or someone else to chime in to clarify, since there must be more to the story here.

I've approached the Board informally (i.e. not filing a formal complaint as of yet) about a couple of Bay Area towns destroying monuments and Dallas was pretty quick on the draw about contacting them to let them know about monument preservation. I'm waiting to see if I see any further destruction before I formally complain about it.

[mpallamary]

I hear you. I would welcome any input from Ric. I have lots and lots of emails and correspondence. When Ed said he was willing to help me, I took him up on his offer. I am hoping he will proceed.

I have lots of pictures and documentation. As I said, every time I complain, a complaint is filed against me.

Have you every heard of a city or county demanding that a private surveyor turn over his/her private survey records, when he/she has carefully and meticulously filed records religiously for 40 years.

Did I tell you the one about a record I prepared and just before it was filed, the city told the client to alter my document AFTER it had been submitted, to reflect some data that was false?

I have lots of similar complaints where documents had been altered, changed, and sanitized by the city, in response to applicants, creating serious problems with boundary lines. The list goes on and on. I could write a book!

[mpallamary]

Check this complaint out. It is 11 years old. Nothing was done. A modified version of my document was filed and it shows false information.

[btaylor]

So far up here what I notice is just total apathy from most cities, but none of us have done the route of a formal complaint as of yet (that I'm aware of).

The City of Palo Alto had a good LS who was very interested in monument preservation, and would even go out and excavate for old granite monuments if you calculated their locations and painted a 2'x2' square in the road for them to search. Unfortunately he's no longer there and they don't allocate funds for doing that - but at this point I think there are very few granite monuments to search for.

I believe the City of San Jose is also very good at recovering the older standard street monuments of the 1960s era (non-ferrous concrete monuments with brass plugs) if you paint them a location. Many of those are covered up and were not encased in cast iron sleeves with cover.

[mpallamary]

I hear you. Even after the Grand Jury, they did nothing and, because the Board doesn't do anything, where does one go?

I have maybe half a dozen complaints against the city for altering plats, changing plans, accepting fraudulent plans (knowingly) and similar actions. No one cares. Nothing is done.

[mpallamary]

Ed, can you help me here?

Thanks

[mpallamary]

Ed, can you help me with my complaint?

Thanks

[Gromatici]

Well I wish it only took 10 minutes to file a complaint. In my experience on the JPPC it takes a lot longer because you have to write a convincing letter, backed by evidence of specific violations of the law. If you’re dealing with the city what’s going to happen is: They are going to say “oh well engineer so-and-so or a Land Surveyor so and so reviews the work. Even if there isn’t one they will be able to say that and they’re under no obligation to prove otherwise to you as the Surveyor. If an investigation is ensued, it’s easy for them to hire someone they know, who wants to be in with the city, to say that they’re reviewing the work. I know it’s not supposed to work that way but the odds of the cities getting caught are rare. I did a submittal for one city of a record of survey that needed a endorsement by the engineer that it was not in violation of the subdivision map act. This was needed because I did a deed cut for a government agency. Typically the city will charge a couple hundred bucks to do this because they really just sign it unless they feel like it’s a violation. At one city the Engineer wanted $5000 to “review it”. I mean this is almost criminal behavior but how are you going to file a complaint against that?

[mpallamary]

Really, the system is corrupt. That's the bottom line.

[Edward M Reading]

Well I wish it only took 10 minutes to file a complaint. In my experience on the JPPC it takes a lot longer because you have to write a convincing letter, backed by evidence of specific violations of the law. If you’re dealing with the city what’s going to happen is: They are going to say “oh well engineer so-and-so or a Land Surveyor so and so reviews the work. Even if there isn’t one they will be able to say that and they’re under no obligation to prove otherwise to you as the Surveyor. If an investigation is ensued, it’s easy for them to hire someone they know, who wants to be in with the city, to say that they’re reviewing the work. I know it’s not supposed to work that way but the odds of the cities getting caught are rare. I did a submittal for one city of a record of survey that needed a endorsement by the engineer that it was not in violation of the subdivision map act. This was needed because I did a deed cut for a government agency. Typically the city will charge a couple hundred bucks to do this because they really just sign it unless they feel like it’s a violation. At one city the Engineer wanted $5000 to “review it”. I mean this is almost criminal behavior but how are you going to file a complaint against that?

Eric, The 10 minutes was assuming that you already had the documentation. Have you filed a complaint against an agency?