Oakland general contractor J.R. Thornton used to show up at the city’s building department at 6:30 a.m. just to make sure he would be able to see a plan checker.
They were only open on Mondays and Wednesday for walk-in business. Planning department appointments were hard to come by — only eight slots were available per day. Both the planning and building departments were closed for lunch — a time when many homeowners or small business owners with busy schedules could make it down to city hall.
“For me, this is what I do, so I know how to navigate the system,” Thornton said. “But for the average person, who had to take time off work, it was really hard.”…