The last Black building inspector in San Francisco

Love what you read? Love that it was free?

Mission Local will never have a paywall. All our articles are free for everyone, always. Help us keep it that way — donate to our end-of-year fundraiser to make Mission Local free for your neighbors.

Donate today!

Not long into his brief, wondrous life as a San Francisco building inspector, Onaje Boone was taken aside by a higher-up. It was, to Boone’s recollection, a strange and terrible discussion. 

Boone, 47, a former carpenter, a licensed contractor and a building inspector in both the public and private sector for more than a decade, was told last year that there were issues with his report writing. Specifically: They were too detailed. If the rebar is good, just write, “rebar good.”

This was not the sort of advice Boone expected to receive while being paid six figures to serve as a building inspector in a major city. 

“The code calls for so much space, so much cleanliness of the area, a certain type of waterproofing,” he says, going into minute details about lap splicing and other matters of some importance in a town situated between two major earthquake faults. 

“I write it specifically to what the code book calls out,” he continues. “Whatever was required was noted. I know how to write a report.” 

For Boone, “rebar good” was not good enough. He continued to write reports his way. And do inspections his way: As in, failing people who didn’t meet the code. There were a few.  

“What I was doing was the right thing. It was in black and white: It’s not what the plans say. How can my boss get mad at me?” he says, asking a question that’s both rhetorical and not rhetorical. 

“I always felt confident. I had the plans there.” 

But other people had plans, too. In early April 2025, Boone was summoned to the office of San Francisco’s chief building inspector. Up until the moment he walked in the door, he thought the meeting was to inform him he’d be getting a raise; that’s how off-guard he was. Instead, he was told he was being terminated after some 11 months, just two weeks before his probationary period was set to end, just two weeks before he would have become a fully vested Department of Building Inspection employee.

When he asked for an explanation, Boone recalls being told that he wasn’t owed one. He received a curt severance letter noting that his supervisor, Stephen Kwok, had recommended he be let go and that this recommendation “was based on your inability to perform the duties required at this department and is not a disciplinary release.” 

It concluded by wishing him “every success in your future endeavors.” 

Boone’s 11-month tenure as a city worker ended strangely. But, truth be told, it started strangely, too. During the interview process he recalls being asked, repeatedly, what he thought about diversity, equity and inclusion. 

He smiles. “I mean, what do you want me to say? I like to be included, you know?” 

By now, you may know that Boone is a Black man. You can see his picture. There are around 25 or more building inspectors at any time, and Boone, according to the Department of Building Inspection, was the only Black one. There are, incidentally, a similar number of electrical inspectors and plumbing inspectors. The building department confirms that there is presently one Black electrical inspector and one Black plumbing inspector. Boone, again, was the last Black building inspector. 

What you can’t see — but what the people asking Boone about DEI could — is his resume. He worked as a building inspector for the Coast Guard. He spent a decade as a special inspector, a private inspector with area-specific construction expertise whose work is required in addition to city inspections. He has more than a dozen certifications, including many from the International Code Council. In short, his qualifications far exceed those of the average-bear building inspector. 

Mission Local sent Boone’s resume, without his name, to a half-dozen current and former Building Department employees. To a man, they were impressed; here’s what three had to say: 

• “It’s unreal for him to have all this stuff; he blows everyone out of the water.” 
• “He demonstrates a lot of the technical knowledge this department sorely needs.”
• “Are those separate people? Is this all just one guy?” 

So, was Boone insulted when he was asked, repeatedly, about diversity? Yes. Yes, he was. But he was offered the job. He took it. 

Boone, almost immediately after being let go, caught on doing private construction inspections; he’s earning as much, or more, than he did as a city building inspector. He’s doing fine. But he says what he saw on the job here was not fine. It’s the rest of us he’s concerned about. 

Onaje Boone knows how to write a report. He also knows what a construction site should look like. He emphasizes that he was not looking to fail people: “If it’s stuff that can be fixed in a few hours, I’ll go away and come back. I try to work with contractors. It’s easy to miss something.” 

But it’s also easy to miss everything, especially if there are no ramifications. Boone recalls contractors who’d casually namedrop their ties to his superiors, but clearly “didn’t read the darn plans. They could not find the details on the plans.” 

When Boone talked shop with his colleagues, he was disturbed by what he described as a lack of knowledge of “basic elements” of construction. A number of his fellow inspectors did not see what he described as serious flaws, and they then turned around and asked him why he was failing so many inspections. 

Despite his qualifications, Boone was never assigned his own district. Rather, he was a “floater,” who served as a substitute inspector. This, he says, should have been a cakewalk assignment. He was, after all, subbing for experienced inspectors who’d presumably kept an eye on the projects he’d be inheriting. 

“It was a disaster,” he says. Boone was horrified by the shoddy work he saw, which had been approved, sometimes on multiple occasions. “I was a substitute inspector; that means they got this far!” he says. The problematic construction situations he saw “are not something that just happened. This takes weeks of work to get to. You have to pour concrete, build walls. These things take time.” 

Not infrequently, Boone says he saw inspection notes indicating that an inspector shirked an in-person inspection and just had a contractor send him in-progress photos. Mission Local obtained one such report. On the permit tracking system available to the public, it simply says “sheetrock nailing.” But on the internal system, it says “photos for insulation, mechanical and rough frame.” 

This indicates that the inspector did not check on any of these elements; instead he ostensibly allowed photos to be taken before those elements were sealed behind the sheetrock. The problem here is evident: The inspector has no idea what’s really behind that sheetrock. 

And this, Boone says, happened a lot. “You’d get there, and there’s no history. How can I do a final inspection with no history: No framing, no insulation, no sheetrock?” he asks. “You look at the notes and it says, ‘pre-job walk. OK to take photos of everything.’” 

The building department says that “inspectors have the discretion to accept photographs for some minor items identified during an inspection while work is ongoing.” Inspectors we spoke with balked at this: There is nothing in the code, they say, about accepting photos. Building inspectors cannot tell if photos have been doctored. They cannot even tell if the photos provided are necessarily of the work site in question. 

After you’ve skipped the insulation, mechanical and rough frame inspections, all that’s left is a final inspection. The only inspection such a job would receive is checking that the screws were properly spaced in the sheetrock. “You’ve missed everything,” says a veteran inspector. “It’s the entire project.” 

Whenever Boone asked his coworkers about this, he recalls being told, “Don’t worry.” When he brought it up with his superiors he says he was told “Use your discretion.” 

He was already doing that: Boone failed “a lot of Irish guys and Chinese guys. Those are the biggest groups who are most represented at DBI. The ones who seemingly pass the most failable things.” 

Boone says he failed contractors despite numerous instances in which he was offered envelopes full of money, sometimes up to $1,000. His colleagues, he says, told him to “wait ’til Chinese New Year.”

None of them, he says “were stupid enough to tell me they took the money.” 

Numerous current and former inspectors tell Mission Local it’s not uncommon for builders to offer money, alcohol or gifts to inspectors, especially new inspectors.

“They want to feel you out,” says one veteran former inspector. “And once you’ve taken the money, you’ve sold your soul to rock ‘n’ roll.” 

The builders can be very insistent. One longtime inspector said he didn’t even realize that someone had shoved an envelope into his jacket pocket during a site inspection; he had to return and toss it over a gate. 

The building department acknowledges it is aware “that illegal overtures are sometimes made to staff.” Inspectors are instructed to inform their supervisors, who can ferry the issue up the chain to senior leadership, which may result in referrals to the city attorney or district attorney. 

So, that’s how it’s set up on paper. In the field, inspectors tell me, they are not incentivized to complain to superiors about contractors’ untoward activities, especially when contractors casually namedrop their ties to those superiors. 

Boone, for his part, says he never took the money. He countered offers by asking builders to, instead, phone his supervisor and say he was doing a good job. 

“I should’ve asked them to send an email,” he says with a wan smile. “Then there’d be a written record.” 

There are a lot of Irish people at DBI, a lot of Chinese people, and an increasing number of Latinx people. Boone, clearly, was not on any “team,” but this was the case both physically and metaphysically. 

During meetings, he says, inspectors were told to keep things moving, don’t slow down construction and don’t stop it. Boone understood what was being asked of him. He couldn’t help but notice that he wasn’t being told “make sure things are being done right” or “make sure they’re doing construction correctly” or even “make sure they are following the plans.” 

So he used his discretion. And now he’s not on the team.

There’s not much he can do about it. Probationary employees are vulnerable, and Boone’s union says it is essentially powerless here. “I feel this was unjust,” Boone says. “But people don’t really care about justice. So I’m letting it go.” 

Boone says he earned two more certifications while serving as a San Francisco building inspector. He’s taking his talents elsewhere. He’ll be fine. 

He wishes San Francisco every success in its future endeavors.