In 2002, the County approved and certified a final environmental impact report for the Alamo Creek and Intervening Properties/Remaining Intervening Properties projects (collectively known as the “Integrated Project”), involving the development of 1,396 units in three subdivisions along Camino Tassajara near Danville. Shortly thereafter, the Town of Danville (“Danville”) filed a lawsuit challenging the County’s approval of the Integrated Projects under the California Environmental Quality Act. The following year, Danville again sued, alleging the County’s approval of the Integrated Project violated a 1994 settlement agreement concerning the 11,000-unit Dougherty Valley project south of Danville. In 2004, the County, Danville and developers Windemere BLC Land Company, Contra Costa RE Investors, LLC, successor in interest to Braddock & Logan Group II, L.P. (“Braddock”) Shapell Industries, Inc. (“Shapell”), and Ponderosa Homes, II, Inc. (“Ponderosa”), entered into a Comprehensive Agreement to Settle Litigation (“Settlement Agreement”) to resolve these lawsuits.  
  
The Settlement Agreement dealt primarily with traffic, childcare and park issues. Among other things, the Settlement Agreement required developers Braddock, Shapell and Ponderosa to use diligent and good faith efforts to cause the imposition of a $75 annual assessment on Integrated Project property owners to be used to maintain 15 acres of playfields at Diablo Vista Middle School Playfields (“Playfields”) to Danville’s playfield standards. Pursuant to this requirement, the County conducted an assessment ballot proceeding in 2005 on the proposed formation of a new zone, Zone 71, of Countywide Landscape and Lighting District AD 1979-3 (LL-2), and imposition of a $80 annual assessment, to include the $75 for the Playfields maintenance and an additional $5 for the County’s administrative and engineering costs. All of the ballots cast were in favor of the proposal, and the County began collecting the assessments on the Fiscal Year 2005-2006 tax roll. As of June 2009 approximately $169,000 has been collected.  
  
  
The Settlement Agreement required the County to make the assessment revenues intended for the maintenance of the Playfields (“Additional Maintenance Funding”) to Danville or, at Danville’s request, to the San Ramon Unified School District (“District”). In the proposed JEPA among the County, Danville, and the District, Danville would assign its right to receive the Additional Maintenance Funding to the District. The proposed JEPA would then set up a mechanism by which the County would disburse the Additional Maintenance Funding directly to the District.  
  
In return for receipt of the Additional Maintenance Funding, the District would be obligated to spend the maintenance funding only for the purpose for which it was collected, i.e., the maintenance of the Playfields to Danville’s standards, as opposed to the baseline maintenance that would otherwise be provided by the District. Attachment A to the JEPA sets forth Danville’s standards, referred to in the attachment as “Additional Maintenance.” Danville’s standards generally require a higher frequency of mowing, weeding, irrigation repair, fertilization, rodent control, etc., than the District’s baseline maintenance standards.  
  
The JEPA would require the County to disburse the Additional Maintenance Funding to the District twice per year, on January 15 and May 15. The JEPA would also require the District to report to the County and Danville annually by March 30 as to the District’s collection and expenditures of, and interest earned on the Additional Maintenance Funding. Additionally, all parties would be required to indemnify each other for liabilities arising from their own actions in performing their respective obligations under the Agreement.  

If the JEPA is not approved, the County would retain the Additional Maintenance Funding and the District would be unable to use these funds to maintain the Playfields to Danville’s standards, contrary to the intent of the Settlement Agreement.