BY BRADEN CARTWRIGHT
Daily Post Staff Writer
A four-year feud between Valley Water board member Rebecca Eisenberg and her own agency has escalated as voters in Palo Alto, Mountain View and Los Altos are deciding whether to reelect her.
Valley Water released a report on Friday about Eisenberg’s treatment of former District Counsel Carlos Orellana, who she called a liar and accused of bribing judges.
Eisenberg filed a federal lawsuit against Valley Water today (Oct. 12), alleging that she’s been retaliated against for opposing a dam project and exposing gender bias.
Eisenberg, a Palo Alto resident, said the report was released to harm her re-election bid against Los Altos Councilman Pete Dailey.
“I filed this federal lawsuit to stop ongoing retaliation and lies, and I’m confident justice will be served in federal court,” she said in a statement yesterday.
The feud goes back to December 2022, when Eisenberg was elected and accused former CEO Rick Callender of lying on a $2.8 billion loan application to expand a reservoir east of Gilroy.
Eisenberg allegedly said Valley Water should be led by a woman of color and hire women-led contractors. Flooding issues are happening because men “love to build things” using concrete, she said.
“Both male and female members of staff have directly expressed to me fear, concern and trepidation about past and potential future interactions with Director Eisenberg,” Callender wrote in a memo to the board on Jan. 23, 2023.
Valley Water hired an investigator to look into Eisenberg’s complaints and those of the employees. The result was two separate reports of more than 2,000 pages combined.
In January 2024, Valley Water told board members they could read the reports but not take them from the office. But video showed Eisenberg driving off with the reports, and Valley Water sued her to get them back.
In March 2024, the board censured Eisenberg — a formal expression of disapproval. The board said removal of the reports “violated employees’ legitimate right to privacy and has resulted in an environment of fear of retaliation.”
Eisenberg accused Orellana of bribery at a meeting on Jan. 29, according to the latest report.
“The only reason you ever win in court is because you pay off judges,” she said, according to the report.
Eisenberg also called Orellana “the most incompetent lawyer ever.”
Investigator Kym McCourt said Eisenberg violated Valley Water’s ethics policy by engaging in “abusive conduct, personal charges or verbal assaults upon the character or motives” of a Valley Water employee, and “belligerent, personal, slanderous, threatening, abusive, or disparaging comments” during a meeting.
Eisenberg said in her lawsuit today that she complained about Orellana’s financial and ethical misconduct.
She said Valley Water investigated Orellana, but she wasn’t allowed to see the results. Orellana resigned in June shortly after the investigation was complete, she said.
Valley Water’s board will discuss the report on Eisenberg at tomorrow’s meeting.
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