Court may reconsider Neal legal decision Court may reconsider Neal legal decision (September 03, 2004)

District now calls it a financial agreement

Alameda County Superior Court Judge Ronald Sabraw has granted a request by the Pleasanton school district to reclassify its disputed agreement with two developers as a financial as well as a construction document.

The ruling involved no actual hearing on the legal skirmish between the developers - Signature Properties and Standard Pacific Homes - and the school district and Pleasanton city government. Sabraw ruled earlier against the school district in its bid to gain a court hearing on an Amended Cooperative Fee Agreement that it claimed committed the developers to pay anything over their estimated $8.5 million in costs to build Neal Elementary School in the Vineyard Corridor. The developers said they never signed such an open-ended agreement.

Although Sabraw earlier called the agreement unenforceable because it failed to reference State Education Code Section 17406 that exempts projects like Neal from public bid requirements, his new ruling allows the district to emphasize the financial aspects of the agreement, which might not be subject to Section 17406.

Attorney Louis Leone of the law firm of Stubbs & Leone of Walnut Creek, the school district's outside legal counsel, asked Sabraw to hold a hearing on the financial provisions of the agreement.

Meanwhile, the developers' lawyers are expected to file a demurrer objecting to the school district's petition, officially known as the Third Amended Complaint. Another hearing before Sabraw has been scheduled for early December.

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