Yelp removed this review on behalf of Solano gov, so I will post it again.
Let me start by filling in some details. I am a US Army Veteran and I came to the Recorder's office to have my DD214 recorded. Actually, I had thought it had already been recorded & I came to pick up a fresh copy before heading upstairs to the County Veterans Service Office. This is an important detail because I believed that I had already recorded my DD214 5 years ago, because it is the first thing that I did at every county recording office in the Bay Area when I first arrived about 5 years ago. I then remembered that they wouldn't allow me to do so, & I gave up.
5 years later, 01FEB2017, I needed that copy from this same recorder's office that I could have easily ordered in less than 10 minutes if I was able to record it to begin with. Instead of being able to do that, I was given nothing but contempt after I asked to see the regulation/law/code/etc that said I needed to have both Member 4 and Member 1 copies in order to have them recorded. Recorder Clerk Sue had told me in an offhanded way "We already know we're doing things the right way, you can go look the codes up in the Law Library across the street. We won't give them to you."
When I came back from the wild goose chase in the Law Library (the Law Library clerk found absolutely nothing on DD214 recording), Recorder Office Assistant II Korrin Salas immediately recognized me and made a call to Clerical Operations Supervisor Avis Gildon, asking for advise on how to "handle" me as if I was some piece of trash that needed to be scuttled out the door and into a bin somewhere. I overheard Korrin make several comments while on the phone with Avis, such as "write him a rejection letter" followed by loud guffaws. I also heard Korrin use the word "idiot" several times, which I thought was extremely unprofessional. I eventually made my way back to the front of the line to inquire about the exact "code/law/statute/etc" that was preventing me from recording my DD214, which I had recorded in over 8 other locations without problems. I was told to have a seat while Supervisor Avis did some research, which was a bad sign as it showed she didn't know what she was talking about and had no sources. As I sat waiting, Korrin remarked to me in a snarky sort of way "Are you going to be spending the whole evening with us??" The only thing Avis Gildon needed to do was contact the County Service Veteran's Office which was literally one floor above her in the same building and asked them whether what I was saying was true.
As it would turn out, Korrin's comment was conspicuously predictive of exactly what happened. I had been sitting for approximately 1 hour and I felt it was about time to check up on the "research" that Avis was doing behind the scenes. First I made a call to a DD214 VA Representative that I found after about 1 minute of Googling and he told me what I already knew: I can record my Member 4 certified copy at any county recorder's office in the entire country without any additional documents. I relayed the VA Rep's contact information to the Recorder Clerk Martha, who relayed it to Avis, & then I waited another hour for more "research" to be done. Avis did end up calling the CSVO & they told her exactly what I had been saying was true. That call took 2 minutes; I wasted 2 hours for nothing.
After the 2nd hour passed, I was impatient with waiting. I made it clear that a complaint was incoming soon and I would be taking names. Right away Clerical Operations Supervisor Avis Gildon comes out and tells me that what they had told me before was false, and that I was entirely correct. Then Avis created another false excuse as to why she still couldn't record my DD214. She said that because it had one other VA hospital page stapled to it, that it could not be recorded, & that it was only a complete document with that page attached, so there was nothing she could do. I calmly removed the staple and solved that problem. Avis still pursued her original claim that the document was now missing a page and was no longer "as it was given to me". That was utterly ridiculous & she should go through with the recording without wasting any more of my time. After a few more stonewalling reactions, she finally went & confirmed with the San Francisco Recorder's office that my DD214 was properly certified and then recorded it. That entire section of time took another 1 hour on top of the 2 that I had already wasted.
My only consolation is that other Veterans will not have to play a waiting game or wage a petty war of attrition with their unpaid time to get their DD214 Member 4 copies recorded. I can only imagine the thousands of hours that have been wasted over 4 years when US Veterans were turned away and had to drive back & forth & search & spend time getting their other Member 1 copies before even attempting to record them at this office again. That's if they didn't all give up, like I did 5 years ago. read more
