BY BRADEN CARTWRIGHT
Daily Post Staff Writer
The problems facing Valley Water aren’t because of drought, but rather because existing water is being mismanaged by the board and Director Gary Kremen, challenger Rebecca Eisenberg said Oct. 7 at the only debate in the race to represent Palo Alto, Los Altos and Mountain View on the Valley Water board.
Kremen is being irresponsible by trying to find new water sources rather than recycle what’s already here, Eisenberg said.
“We have enough water,” she said.
Kremen said Eisenberg must think that the entire state is mismanaging the water system then, because everyone is facing cutbacks from the drought.
The candidates were told not to name each other, but they traded plenty of attacks over water policy and their records.
The moderator told Eisenberg twice not to name her opponent.
“I have to mention him,” Eisenberg responded, “because I’m asking you to kick him out and replace him with me.”
Kremen stood by his record in eight years on the board. He said he got rid of a CEO who was corrupt, then he was the swing vote to hire the district’s first female Asian-American CEO and the first African American CEO after she retired.
Kremen said he jump-started flood control projects in Palo Alto along San Francisquito Creek, which are scheduled to begin next year after nearly 20 years of delays, and he helped hundreds of homeowners get lower flood insurance.
Kremen said he opposed water grabs by Southern California cities, and that’s why he is endorsed by Asm. Marc Berman, state Sen. Josh Becker, the entire Mountain View City Council and the majority of Palo Alto City Council.
In Palo Alto, Kremen took credit for negotiating a deal with Mayor Pat Burt to purchase recycled water from the city to use for more advanced purification.
Eisenberg said Kremen has neglected his responsibility to preserve the environment, and the district shouldn’t be looking at increasing its supply. Instead, the district’s $1 billion budget should be spent on recycling and recapturing existing water.
Eisenberg and Kremen sparred over Israel after Eisenberg brought the country up as a model for how to reuse water. Israel is in a desert and recycles 95% of its water, she said.
Kremen said he went to Israel on his own expense to tour the water system, and residents experience droughts and cutbacks there too. Comparing Valley Water to Israel isn’t fair because Israel has just one agency, while California has hundreds of districts, he said.
Eisenberg said Kremen’s support of the Pacecho Dam and reservoir expansion east of Gilroy will cause irreparable damage and a significant extinction of fish. Valley Water is being sued by environmental and tribal groups over the proposed project.
Kremen said the district is still doing an environmental review of the project, and he hasn’t made up his mind on construction. But the project scored well with the state to get a massive $448 million grant, and it would help protect vulnerable communities from flooding, he said.
The moderator asked the candidates about where their campaign financing came from. Eisenberg said she has raised $25,000 in the past three weeks, and her three biggest donors are executives working on sustainability projects.
Kremen, who made a fortune as the founder of match.com, is funding his own campaign and has hundreds of thousands to spend. He said self-funding is a good thing, because it means he won’t get money from special interests.
Kremen took a shot at Eisenberg for mentioning that she worked as the in-house lawyer on PayPal’s IPO in 2001 with former CEO Peter Thiel.
“Peter Thiel isn’t a great friend of mine — that Republican, anti-trans person,” he said.
Kremen said that in addition to self-funding, his biggest donors were trade unions. I think that they would be surprised to hear that his “mind is not made up” about the Pacheco Dam Expansion, because the entire reason that they support him is due to his promises to them that they will get jobs working on that misguided dam project.
Eisenberg seems risk averse, forward planning and frankly more competent.
The problem with Kremen is he embraces a lot of risk in everything he does, personally and politically. Those who take campaign cash from him, which is most every endorsement above, discount it with “Hee hee, oh that Gary, little bit of a timebomb, is he?” But it’s a potential liability for the District and the District’s assets when you have someone that rolls the dice so consistently. Not just mischevious, that train seems ready to jump the tracks, and those who have worked with him eventually reach the same conclusion.