![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/flood-1.jpg\" "\\"flood-1\\"\/")
\nThe 1998 flood damaged more than 1,000 homes. Photo by Palo Alto resident Terri McKinsey.<\/p>\n
\nThe 1998 flood damaged more than 1,000 homes. Photo by Palo Alto resident Terri McKinsey.<\/p>\n
BY BRADEN CARTWRIGHT
Daily Post Staff Writer<\/p>\n
Santa Clara County\u2019s flood control agency, Valley Water, wants to take the lead on addressing floods from the San Francisquito Creek, assuming responsibility from a collection of agencies that\u2019s been working on the project for decades.<\/p>\n
The Valley Water board voted Tuesday to send a letter to leaders of the San Francisquito Creek Joint Powers Authority to discuss Valley Water taking a leadership role.<\/p>\n
Residents ask for change<\/p>\n
The letter was pushed by residents of Palo Alto\u2019s Crescent Park neighborhood, who are worried about a repeat of a 1998 flood when 1,700 properties were damaged.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe very much need the resources of Valley Water of all kinds on this project \u2014 your engineering, construction expertise and financial resources,\u201d resident Xenia Hammer told the San Jose-based Valley Water board.<\/p>\n
Hammer was joined by residents Jeffrey Shore, Tom Rindfleisch and Hamilton Hitchings in asking Valley Water to step up.<\/p>\n
They\u2019re hoping Valley Water will build flood walls, widen the creek channel and replace the Pope-Chaucer Bridge that holds back water during storms.<\/p>\n
The project has been in flux since flooding on New Year\u2019s Eve 2022 happened in surprise locations.<\/p>\n
Agency\u2019s role questioned<\/p>\n
Valley Water board member Nai Hsueh replaced board member Rebecca Eisenberg, a Palo Alto resident, on the creek authority in March 2023 and has questioned her agency\u2019s role since then.<\/p>\n
The creek authority has representatives from five agencies: Valley Water, a San Mateo County flood control agency and the cities of Palo Alto, East Palo Alto and Menlo Park.<\/p>\n
Hitchings said it\u2019s especially important for Valley Water to take the lead following the July 31 retirement of Executive Director Margaret Bruce, who led the creek authority for the last six years.<\/p>\n
Hitchings and his neighbors spoke out after Hsueh proposed changing Valley Water\u2019s goal for San Francisquito Creek. She said Valley Water should focus only on funding a project, replacing a goal to protect from a flood that has a one-in-70 chance of happening each year. But Hsueh backed off that proposal in response to resident outcry on July 14.<\/p>\n
Eisenberg said she\u2019s happy to hear that Valley Water will work collaboratively with the creek authority.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis was not going in the right direction,\u201d board member Richard Santos said.<\/p>\n
Creek authority has missed audits<\/p>\n
Board member Jim Beall said he\u2019s concerned that the creek authority missed five years of audits, potentially impacting its eligibility for state and federal grants.<\/p>\n
Hsueh said the creek authority is a small agency. It has four employees and a $5.3 million budget, funded by contributions from each member agency. Valley Water has 884 employees and an $811.1 million budget, funded by water rates and property taxes.<\/p>\n
The Valley Water board voted 6-0 to send the letter to the creek authority.<\/p>\n
Creek authority board<\/p>\n
The creek authority\u2019s board includes Palo Alto Vice Mayor Greer Stone, San Mateo County Supervisor Lisa Gauthier, Menlo Park Councilman Drew Combs and East Palo Alto Councilman Mark Dinan. Their next meeting is on Aug. 27.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The 1998 flood damaged more than 1,000 homes. Photo by Palo Alto resident Terri McKinsey. BY BRADEN CARTWRIGHTDaily…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":436490,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[88,90,89],"class_list":["post-436489","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-jose","tag-san-jose","tag-san-jose-headlines","tag-san-jose-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/436489","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=436489"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/436489\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/436490"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=436489"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=436489"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=436489"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}