BY ELAINE GOODMAN
Daily Post Correspondent

The Santa Clara Valley Water District might finally get back from board member Rebecca Eisenberg thousands of pages of investigation reports, following an appellate court ruling in the case.

The California Sixth District Court of Appeal on Dec. 31 upheld a lower court decision that ordered Eisenberg to hand over the documents. According to the water district, Eisenberg took the documents without permission from a room at district offices.

The district, also known as Valley Water, sued Eisenberg in April 2024 over the documents.

The appellate court decision applies to a preliminary injunction issued in January 2025 in Santa Clara County Superior Court. The preliminary injunction is just one step in the case, which is still ongoing in superior court. A hearing is scheduled for Thursday. 

Eisenberg, of Palo Alto, was elected to a four-year term on the Valley Water board in November 2022, taking office the following month.

Trouble soon followed. Valley Water said they were getting complaints from employees that Eisenberg was belittling and harassing them. She allegedly made racially discriminatory statements about a fellow board member.

For her part, Eisenberg complained to the district about retaliation and being discriminated against because she’s a woman. She said previously that the probe into her behavior was in reaction to concerns she raised about sexism at the agency.

Report stemmed from investigations

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.

While the investigators found that several allegations against Eisenberg were substantiated, Eisenberg’s complaints were not, according to the appellate court decision.

In January 2024, Valley Water told board members they could go to a key-card access room at its offices in San Jose to read the reports. 

Board members were told in an email that the reports had to stay in that room, the water district said in court filings.

But when Eisenberg went to review the reports, she allegedly removed them from their binders, took them to her car and drove away.

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.”

In her response to the district’s lawsuit, Eisenberg admitted that she took the reports. But she said only the executive summary of each was labeled “confidential.” 

She said the district has the reports in a digital format and can print out more copies if it wants to. She said she offered to pay for the printing costs of the copies she took, and pointed out that she had made notes on them.

Ruling appealed

Shortly after filing its lawsuit, Valley Water asked the court to order Eisenberg to return the reports, even before the rest of the lawsuit was resolved. The judge agreed. But instead of turning over the reports, Eisenberg posted a $25,000 check with the court as security for the reports.

The district then asked for a preliminary injunction to get the reports back. The judge granted the request; Eisenberg took the matter to the Court of Appeal.

In making their decision, the appellate judges looked at two issues. The first was whether the water district seemed likely to win its case in Superior Court. The second question was whether the water district would be harmed more by not getting the documents back than Eisenberg would be by giving them up. 

The judges said the answer to both questions was yes, and therefore they upheld the lower court’s order.