The Aftermath of Poor Strategic Assessment

From SF Gate.com
" ... Among the most bitter disputes between the two cities is over library services. Piedmont pays Oakland $350,000 annually for the use of its libraries. In 2011, Oakland, facing severe budget cuts, slashed library services and asked Piedmont to increase its share to $395,000 annually. After all, Oakland taxpayers pay $20 million a year, or about $50 for every resident, to support the libraries. Piedmont residents, by comparison, pay just $35 annually.
Piedmont said no, on the grounds that any California resident can obtain a free Oakland library card, and theoretically Piedmont isn't required to pay anything at all. After months of negotiations, Piedmont still pays just $350,000.  ..."

A Deal is a Deal
The well-to-do citizens of Piedmont always had very experienced lawyers who could out-strategized  Oakland's under-experienced lawyers with minimum effort. 

By assessing the data in terms of the Five Critical Factors, the Oakland lawyers would not have made the blunder of agreeing to a static number.   (Somewhere deep in our blogs, one might find the specifics behind our interpretation of the Five Critical Strategic Factors.  ... The basics can be found in the first chapter of the Art of War. Knowing how to use it for assessing the Big Tangible Picture is a special arcane skill that most members from the Cult of the Art of War do not possess. They are too busy memorizing all 300+ principles.)

Those who cannot think and strategize ahead regarding to connecting the specifics to the Big Tangible Picture, usually falter in their implementation.
  
Establishing a self-serving deal is 9/10th of the game.  ... Escaping with it is the other 10th.  ... 

In summary, "the letter of the lawful deal" overrides "the spirit of the deal."