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Menlo Park Mayor Betsy Nash isn’t giving up on state Attorney General Rob Bonta. On Oct. 29, she sent a third letter inviting him to visit 80 Willow Road and learn more about the controversial mega-project.
Nash’s letter is the latest effort to sway Bonta’s hardline approach to Menlo Park’s processing of the development application, in which the state accused the city of violating state housing law in a July 29 letter.
Nash sent the letter to Bonta and three staffers on Oct. 29, and said she had not heard back as of Monday evening, Nov. 1. She also received no reply to her previous two invitations to visit the site, which she sent to Bonta on Oct. 16 and Aug. 25. Nash struck a similar tone in her latest letter.
“We are deeply disappointed that your office never asked the city about the background of the development application, and met with the city for only one hour just the day before sending the July 29 letter,” she writes. “The city believes it has processed the application in accordance with all applicable state laws.”
The Attorney General’s office did not reply to a request for comment by press time.
The development at 80 Willow Road, known by its developer as Willow Park, would include a 130-room hotel, more than 300,000 square feet of office space, 665 housing units, a preschool, retail space and buildings as high as 39 stories, or 458 feet tall. It would replace the former Sunset Magazine campus on the Palo Alto border.
The Attorney General’s office July 29 letter said Menlo Park likely violated state housing laws during the project’s application process by deeming the project ineligible for streamlined approval and for builder’s remedy protections, among other alleged violations.
Since then, N17, the project’s San Francisco-based developer, filed a lawsuit against Menlo Park using similar legal rationale as the attorney general’s office. Menlo Park officials have repeatedly maintained that the city complied with state housing law in a lengthy response letter refuting the allegations, City Council meetings and all three of Nash’s letters.
Nash’s Oct. 29 letter says the city has not received any communication from the attorney general’s office except for a reply to a city-initiated public records inquiry. The city’s Sept. 24 public records act request asks the state Department of Justice for records that match search terms for 25 people and entities connected to 80 Willow Road. They will be familiar to Almanac readers who have followed the saga and include Oisín Heneghan, the Irish founder of N17; Willow Park LLC, the Delaware-based shell company to which 80 Willow Road is registered in San Mateo County records; Vitaly Yusufov, the Russian businessman with Kremlin ties who is the reported owner of the property; Sunset Magazine, which was formerly headquartered on the property; and Deutsche Bank, which reportedly flagged the sale of the property to Yusufov, but later approved it.
The city’s records request is currently in bureaucratic limbo, according to documents provided by city spokesperson Kendra Calvert.
In an Oct. 21 response to the city, a spokesperson for the DOJ declined to “conduct a comprehensive search for ‘all’ records containing any of the 25 keywords listed above over an unspecified timeframe.” However, the DOJ wrote that it had commenced a “reasonable search for records” containing those search terms and anticipated to provide a response to the city by Nov. 6, 2026.
On Oct. 26, 2026, City Attorney Nira Doherty pushed back, arguing that the DOJ’s decision not to conduct a comprehensive search was inconsistent with the California Public Records Act. She requested a “prompt” response to all 25 search terms, covering records held by Bonta and three other top officials in the Attorney General’s Office. Doherty noted that the city was compiling records for its ongoing lawsuit with N17 and that the Attorney General’s Office “plays a central role” in the litigation.
The lawsuit between Menlo Park and N17 is ongoing.
In a newsletter to community members on Oct. 31, Nash shared a timeline for the lawsuit which she specified is subject to change: N17 is expected to file its main written argument by Nov. 18, the city’s written reply by Dec. 1 and the developer’s final reply a week later. A court hearing is expected on Dec. 14, and the judge is expected to issue a decision in January 2027.
A ruling in N17’s favor could expose the city to financial penalties, potentially totaling more than $6.6 million, according to AB712, the state law Menlo Park is accused of violating.
While the Attorney General’s office has stayed mum on the 80 Willow Road issue since sending the July 29 letter, a different state office weighed in on another controversial Menlo Park issue just days before the Nov. 3 election. On Oct. 30, the California Department of Housing and Community Development sent a letter to Menlo Park warning that the city would need to amend its state-approved housing plan — known as the housing element — if voters pass Measure P.
Measure P, which is on the ballot Tuesday, would require voter approval for major changes to eight downtown parking lots, blocking the city’s current plan to lease three of the lots for affordable housing development and replacement parking.
Read Nash’s Oct. 29 letter to the Attorney General’s office below.
I made a point of not voting for Bonta. I hope everyone else in Menlo Park did too.