San Luis Obispo’s former chief building official is taking top-ranking city staff and the city attorney to court over allegedly retaliating against him for his complaints about inaction and intentionally causing emotional distress.
City Manager Whitney McDonald, Assistant City Manager Scott Collins, Community Development Director Timothea Tway, and City Attorney Christine Dietrick face the civil lawsuit from former colleague Michael Loew, filed on June 12. Loew resigned from his post as chief building official last year and is currently in the same role for the city of Lompoc.
Loew’s complaint alleges that staff directed him to not only create a fee collection system that preserved high revenues but also denied his department adequate funding to operate. He added that for months, staff ignored his concerns about the building located at 1150 Laurel Lane that once housed Bang the Drum Brewery.
“Plaintiff [Michael Loew] disclosed these concerns repeatedly and through appropriate channels,” the complaint reads. “In response, defendants retaliated. They stripped him of key enforcement duties, denied him budget resources his own fee-justification analysis proved were required, excluded him from safety initiatives, subjected him to a three-hour intimidation session in which the city manager accused him of being ‘immoral,’ and—11 days after an independent board of appeals unanimously upheld every one of his safety determinations—the city attorney issued a written directive instructing him to cease enforcement while his direct supervisor simultaneously issued him a written reprimand.”
Assistant City Attorney Markie Kersten told New Times that the city officials named in the lawsuit hadn’t been served with the lawsuit as of June 22.
“The lawsuit represents only unproven allegations of a former city employee that the city will challenge through the court process,” Kersten said via email. “Based on preliminary review of the complaint, the city maintains that it engaged in no wrongful conduct and asserts these allegations are without merit.
“The city looks forward to vigorously defending its position through the appropriate court process and will litigate this case through evidence presented in court.”
Michael and his wife, Jackie Loew, have a history of trying to hold authorities accountable.
After losing a street parking space in front of their house, the former chief building official filed records requests with the city, which revealed that city staff extended the painted red curb after receiving complaints from the Loews’ neighbor SLO City Councilmember Jan Marx. City staff later admitted the extension was a mistake and apologized to the Loews.
Jackie Loew sued both her former employers—Iowa’s Saydel Community School District and the Santa Maria Joint Union High School District—for alleged gender discrimination and a reported Brown Act violation, respectively.
Her federal lawsuit against the Iowa school district was settled for $85,000, according to Noozhawk.
Filed after she was removed as Pioneer Valley High School’s dean of students, Jackie Loew’s lawsuit against the Santa Maria school district is still active. The Loews claimed at school board meetings that Jackie was involuntarily transferred after she repeatedly reported discrimination and harassment of students.
She told New Times that they can’t comment on her husband’s litigation against SLO and referred to attorney David Secrest.
‘They … subjected him to a three-hour intimidation session in which the city manager accused him of being “immoral” and … the city attorney issued a written directive instructing him to cease enforcement while his direct supervisor simultaneously issued him a written reprimand.’
—Former SLO Chief Building Official Michael Loew’s complaint against the city
“Mr. Loew was retaliated against for raising public-safety and regulatory concerns in the course of his duties as a building official, including his decision to condemn an unsafe building, and was constructively discharged as a result,” Secrest said in a statement to New Times.
According to Michael Loew’s complaint, he had been alerting the city since November 2024 about the Bang the Drum building’s health hazards and that it was being used without valid occupancy authorization.
The Community Development Department deemed the building uninhabitable in a March 2025 notice, calling it unsafe for occupancy and blamed the property owners, Laurel Creek LLC, for neglect. At the time, the property, which also contained SLO City Church and a mix of residences and businesses, had flaws like unfinished exteriors, dirt roads, and large potholes.
Loew’s complaint said that staff retaliated against him that very month, subjecting him to the “three-hour confrontational meeting.” He alleged that City Manager McDonald ordered the removal of the SLO fire marshal’s placards from the building, which were placed there under the fire code because of documented safety hazards. The city went on to kick off Bike Month two months later, in May 2025, at Bang the Drum.
The complaint added that SLO’s then Fire Chief Todd Toggle announced at a May 2025 Construction Board of Appeals hearing that the building was too dangerous for firefighters to enter during an emergency. The board unanimously agreed the building wasn’t safe, and Loew deemed it condemned and placarded it.
Public records also show Loew’s frequent communication to the city about revenue brought in through fees. Prior to filing his lawsuit, he wrote to the City Council in November 2025 that staff directed him to develop a new methodology to preserve the roughly $1 million the city receives in annual revenue for the Building and Safety Department.
During a 2024 fee study, a city-contracted consultant studied SLO’s past spending data and found that the Building and Safety Department was under-resourced relative to the fees collected. The consultant’s analysis proposed reducing fee rates by 35 percent, Loew’s letter said.
“The logical and ethical next step was to fund the division to the level its own fee-justification model proved was necessary,” Loew wrote. “I submitted corresponding significant operating budget requests of over $500,000 (half of the calculation) to begin to align our resources with our mandated responsibilities during the 24-25 fiscal year. Those requests were largely denied.”
In his lawsuit, Loew said he identified roughly 2,000 expired building permits in SLO’s backlog since 2020 and began developing and proposing new fees to address those permits as part of the 2024 fee study. Though the City Council adopted those fees—around $1.2 million in potential revenue—Loew claimed he was denied resources and operational discretion to run the initiative.
He also believed the cost-of-service data presented to the City Council at the fee adoption hearing was inaccurate and inconsistent with actual department expenses, the complaint said.
Loew’s lawsuit demands a jury trial and a sum that exceeds $25,000 to compensate for reported emotional distress, stress-related physical illness, reputational harm, and mental anguish. ∆
Reach Staff Writer Bulbul Rajagopal at brajagopal@newtimesslo.com.
Correction, June 25, 2026 10:18 am: Correction: An earlier version of this story incorrectly described Jackie Loew's lawsuit against the Santa Maria Joint Union High School District. New Times regrets the error.
This article appears in June 25 – July 2, 2026.
