City Attorney Dave Aleshire worked through the holidays from the ski slopes at Mammoth, obsessed with jamming this poorly designed project through a sale to Terminal One Development LLC before the end of 2022. See Terminal One Single-Family Housing Development In Richmond Sent Back To The Drawing Board, December 14, 2022 and Laconia Writes to Intimidate Butt and Livingston Over Terminal 1 Criticisms, November 20, 2022.

Unfortunately, in his zeal to get the deal done, Aleshire violated the Brown Act and the Richmond City Charter in the process, putting the whole effort and the City at risk.

Two Brown Act challenges have already been filed, and a court challenge to the execution is immanent. Despite the fact that the Charter requires the mayor to sign all contracts, the city attorney called in the vice-mayor to sign the Terminal One Development LLC, a Charter violation that may kill the sale. See Demand to Void Illegal Contract and Rescind Deed and

But even more troubling is the city attorney’s failure to conduct any due diligence on the purchaser, Terminal One Development LLC, a shell company managed by the mysterious Zhenwu Wu, a Chinese national who resides near Atlanta GA. No one in the City has ever run a credit check on obtained an audited  financial statement from Mr. Wu. We have no idea what his previous development experience is or what his assets are despite the fact that the City took back a $9,250,000 mortgage on the property, selling it for only $500,000 down. A public records search reveals only one asset of Wu, a home in Georgia worth less than $1 million with a tax lien on it.