The Livermore Area Recreation and Park District has filed a claim against the East Bay Regional Park District over allegedly misusing shared tax revenue.

The two park districts have held a tax-sharing agreement since 1992. According to a statement by LARPD General Manager Mathew Fuzie, his district shares a portion of its property tax revenue with EBRPD for the acquisition and development of new regional parks, open space, and trails within LARPD’s service area.

“The agreement was meant to meet the growing needs of the community for regional parks, recreation, and open space, while maintaining the quality of local parks and services already provided by LARPD,” Fuzie said. “Since the agreement began, EBRPD has received $110 million in property tax revenue from LARPD’s service area. However, less than 20% of these funds have been used consistently with the agreement, with a large portion spent on projects outside of LARPD’s boundaries.”

Unexpected news

East Bay park district officials were surprised to learn of the claim, according to spokesperson Jordan Traverso.

“Especially after LARPD canceled a meeting scheduled for this April 4, for the two organizations to meet and discuss concerns about service expectations,” he said.

“Over the years, we have provided LARPD with extensive historical documentation, some dating back more than 30 years,” Traverso said in an email. “These records clearly demonstrate that EBRPD has invested more in the Murray Township area than the revenue received under the 1992 tax-sharing agreement.”

The LARPD encompasses most of the eastern half of Alameda County, a 243.5-square-mile area bounded by Contra Costa County to the north, San Joaquin County to the east, Santa Clara County to the south, and the cities of Pleasanton and Dublin to the west.

The East Bay park district has 45 days from the April 1 filing to respond to the claim. If the matter remains unresolved after that time, LARPD officials said they will explore further steps.

Ruth Dusseault is an investigative reporter and multimedia journalist focused on environment and energy. Her position is supported by the California local news fellowship, a statewide initiative spearheaded by UC Berkeley aimed at supporting local news platforms. While a student at UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism (c’23), Ruth developed stories about the social and environmental circumstances of contaminated watersheds around the Great Lakes, Mississippi River and Florida’s Lake Okeechobee. Her thesis explored rights of nature laws in small rural communities. She is a former assistant professor and artist in residence at Georgia Tech’s School of Architecture, and uses photography, film and digital storytelling to report on the engineered systems that undergird modern life.