Serena Cruz and Tom Walsh Jr.

Sometimes it's not what you do but who you are that gets you unwanted attention. Such is the case with this week's roguish pair. If there ever were a couple who should have should have known better than to land in this spot, it is Serena Cruz and her husband, Tom Walsh Jr.

In January, this up-and-coming power couple moved out of their North Missouri Avenue abode and began gutting the 1890 house to the studs. One problem: They didn't have a construction permit. Last month a city housing inspector who happened to be driving by saw workers carrying a structural beam into the house. A quick check showed that Cruz and Walsh had neither applied for nor received permits, so officials slapped a "Stop Work" order on the house Feb. 10.

Now, plenty of people forget to apply for permits, which carry a fee and trigger a visit from city inspectors, but these two aren't plenty of people. Cruz is a Multnomah County commissioner who, as we now know, spent much of the winter plotting same-sex marriages. She may have had other things on her mind, but that's not a convincing alibi for someone with her background. Cruz was once an aide to Erik Sten, the city's commissioner of housing.

Walsh has even less reason for skipping the necessaries. A contractor himself and a member of one of Portland's premier construction families, he grew up swinging a hammer and reading blueprints. But Walsh's genetic hardwiring failed him.

As Jackie Phillips, a spokeswoman for the city's permit office, notes, "State of Oregon building code requires certain work to be permitted and inspected," Phillips says. "If a permit was not required, we would not have posted a stop-work order."

To Walsh's credit, he's since applied for a permit and isn't making excuses. While routine demolition doesn't require permits, Walsh concedes that making structural changes--such as jacking up the foundation and placing new beams in the basement--is a different ballgame. "Most contractors would get a permit before starting any of the work," Walsh says. "This is embarrassing as hell. It's all my fault and really shouldn't reflect at all on Serena."

WWeek 2015