Richmond City Attorney Dave Aleshire has notified the city that he will resign on Dec. 31, according to the city council’s Tuesday meeting agenda.
Aleshire, who has been Richmond’s top attorney since July of 2022, has been noticeably absent from city council meetings since the council reconvened in September after its summer break.
He informed a council ad hoc committee that deals with legal services, which includes Mayor Eduardo Martinez and Districts 3 and 5 council members Doria Robinson and Sue Wilson, earlier this month of his decision, according to the agenda report. The council will formally address the issue at its regular Tuesday meeting while also setting up the city’s interim legal services.
According to the report, the ad hoc committee is recommending that Aleshire’s Oakland-based firm, Aleshire & Wynder, continue providing counsel on challenging projects where “his expertise, experience and historical knowledge will be best used” while the firm assists with a transition to new legal representation.
Richmondside reached out to Aleshire for comment but did not hear back by publication time.
If you go:
What: Richmond City Council meeting
When: Tue., Dec. 16, 3:30 p.m. closed session; 6 p.m. regular meeting begins.
Where: Richmond Civic Center, 403 Civic Center Plaza
More info: Agenda, Zoom information
The council will also vote to authorize recruiting to hire a permanent city attorney, a process to be managed by the ad hoc committee of Martinez, Robinson and Wilson, alongside interim senior Assistant City Attorney Heather McLaughlin, who works for the city as a regular employee.
McLaughlin (no relation of former city council member Gayle McLaughlin) is a familiar name in Richmond. She has been a city attorney for Richmond since 2021 when she succeeded former Richmond City Attorney Teresa Stricker after Stricker resigned in November of that year.
Resignation follows city revisions of Alshire’s contract to better clarify responsibilities
Aleshire’s resignation comes after the council conducted a comprehensive evaluation of his performance and approved a revised contract in June clarifying roles and responsibilities within the city attorney’s office.
That June revised contract essentially sought to clarify the division of responsibilities between Aleshire and city staff. Under the updated agreement, the city attorney was asked to hold regular office hours at City Hall, attend monthly meetings with in-house attorney staff, and provide monthly confidential written updates to the City Council on major projects and high-profile litigation. The agreement emphasized that while Aleshire would serve as city attorney, daily supervision of in-house city staff would be handled by the Chief Assistant City Attorney Shannon Moore, with them “working as a team.”
According to his website, Aleshire has been a city attorney for 15 other California cities, many of them in Southern California: Banning, Bell, Signal Hill, Palm Springs, Irvine, Cerritos, Norwalk, San Dimas, Lawndale, Irwindale, Rancho Palos Verdes, San Jacinto, Suisun, and Perris.
On Tuesday the council will consider accepting Aleshire’s resignation while approving a $150,000 legal services agreement with his firm to handle specific projects through 2026. This is a reduction from the current contract, which the council adjusted almost a year ago on Dec. 17, 2024.
During that meeting, the council approved a $154,626 budget amendment on the consent calendar to cover unpaid invoices from Aleshire & Wynder dating back to fiscal year 2022-23. The amendment brought the firm’s total fiscal year 2024-25 contract to more than $1 million, though the effective annual amount was $925,000 after accounting for services provided by two attorneys who left for other firms.
Moore, who has been filling in for Aleshire regularly since September, is set to be appointed as interim city attorney. Moore would receive a 15% salary increase, bringing her annual compensation to $341,391.58.
Does Aleshire make a career out of freelance City Attorneyship? This article doesn’t inform us one way or the other about Aleshire’s performance on any cases he handled.