Phil Bobel, Assistant Director of Public Works for the City of Palo Alto, leads a tour of the construction at Mitchell Park Library and Community Center, including the teen center pictured here. Photo taken June 24, 2013 by Veronica Weber.
Phil Bobel, a Palo Alto resident who championed environmental sustainability and who spearheaded the city’s efforts to prevent creek pollution, reduce single-use plastic bags and adopt advanced technologies to treat organic waste, died on Jan. 31. He was 77.
A genial City Hall fixture for more than three decades, Bobel joined the Public Works Department in 1989 and retired in 2021, only to come back on a part-time basis to work on environmental projects. The city recently recognized Bobel’s contributions to local environmental stewardship by naming a street after him near the Embarcadero Road treatment plant.
According to a resolution that the City Council passed in his honor in May 2021, Bobel initiated numerous first-of-kind pollution prevention programs in the state of California, including local efforts to reduce plastic bags and plastic foam pollution. He was heavily involved in major capital projects such as the upgrade of the city’s wastewater plant and the Mitchell Park Library and Community Center.
He was also heavily involved in some of Palo Alto’s most complex and divisive environmental debates, including the 2011 battle over the future of local organic waste. That was the year that voters approved Measure E, allowing a 10-acre site at Byxbee Park to be used for a waste-to-energy facility. Bobel helped convene meetings between environmentalists who supported the new technology and conservationists who wanted to protect the Baylands site from new developments.
“He was very positive and full of energy all the time and he always had some new thing that he was wanting to push and make something happen on,” said Brad Eggleston, who was hired by Bobel 28 years ago. “When he was working on the project or a topic that needed progress, he would talk to everyone about it.
“He would catch you in the hallway and spend three minutes making a pitch to you about all the things he learned and the reasons we should do the next thing. And the next thing you know, we’d find out that he was talking to people throughout the city and throughout the community and there would be progress and things actually started happening.”
Born in Washington, D.C., Bobel received a degree in civil engineering at Stanford University and worked for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency before he joined the city in 1989, according to his obituary. Once in Palo Alto, he worked as the environmental compliance manager and later assistant director of Public Works, a position from which he retired in 2021.
During his retirement resolution, Bobel thanked all the people in the community who worked with him on various environmental initiatives. Former Mayor Peter Drekmeier is among the people who praised Bobel’s ability to collaborate with different segments of the community and recalled his ability to “make things happen.” He called Bobel a “once-in-a-generation employee.”
“It’s because people trust him – a very genuine person, very diplomatic, can work with businesses, nonprofits — any group. It was wonderful watching the masterful job he did getting the single-use plastic bag in place with almost everyone on board.”
Council member Pat Burt, who has known Bobel for decades, said during the May 2021 meeting that Bobel stands out “not only for his commitment, but the excellence and innovation he provides.”
“He’s just one of the best guys you’d ever want to meet,” Burt said.
Bobel remained committed to environmental sustainability well after his retirement. He was involved in the 2023 effort by the Peninsula Conservation Center, an East Bayshore Road institution that houses various nonprofits, to replace its gas powered HVAC systems with electric ones.
At a time when the city was focused on creating requirements for all-electric appliances in new buildings, Bobel touted at the time the importance of electrifying existing buildings,
“Obviously, were going to have to make some inroads on existing stuff,” Bobel, who serves on the board of directors at the Peninsula Conservation Center, told this publication in 2023. “It’s not going to be enough to just deal with new stuff unless you want to wait 100 years for everything to be replaced.”
Phil Bobel, Councilman Greg Schmid, conservationist Emily Renzel and Mayor Sid Espinosa tour Byxbee Park on July 1, 2011 . Photo by Gennady Sheyner
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