On August 16, 2011, the City of Richmond seized the initiative to resolve lingering legal disputes with Upstream Point Molate, LLC. The City’s position is that the City has discharged its contractual obligations under the contract with Upstream and is ready to move on. Because Upstream disagrees, the City has filed a Complaint for Declaratory Relief in Contra Costa County Superior Court (Case # C11-01834).  

According to the city attorney:

• The City has carefully followed a course aimed at adhering to all of its agreements with Upstream, including the LDA and all settlement agreements.  The filing of this Declaratory Relief action is consistent with that goal.  After many hours of public testimony and study, the Council on April 5 determined to discontinue consideration of a casino use at Pt. Molate.  After the expiration of a 120 day period earlier this month, this action was filed to seek early judicial affirmation of the City's legal positions concerning Pt. Molate and the City's agreements with Upstream.
• This action seeks Court confirmation that the City has fulfilled all its obligations to Upstream at this time and that the City is free to move forward with other Pt. Molate proposals or third parties.
•  In view of increasing threats of litigation by Upstream, the filing of this action seeks the earliest possible judicial determination that the City: 1.) acted properly when it determined to discontinue consideration of the casino use, 2.) that the 120-day negotiation period has concluded, and 3) that the closing date under the City’s agreements with Upstream was April 20, 2011, rather than March 2013, as asserted by Upstream.  

On July 29, 2011, Upstream wrote to the City describing a rather vague proposal for a “non-casino alternative” described by Upstream in a follow-up August 10 letter as the , “… non-gaming proposal in an attempt to mitigate our losses and possibly allow for an alternative course to litigation. Our hope is that further discussion regarding our proposal will perhaps provide value to both parties and advance our respective missions. We submitted our non-gaming proposal to you under protest and with a full reservation of all of our existing rights.”