Valley Water voted unanimously Tuesday, Aug. 18, to propose taking over flood-control leadership on San Francisquito Creek, a move that could bring the agency's $811 million budget and 884 employees to bear on projects that have stalled for years in Palo Alto's Crescent Park neighborhood.
The 6-0 vote directs Valley Water to send a formal letter to the San Francisquito Creek Joint Powers Authority proposing the takeover. The creek authority's board, chaired by Palo Alto Vice Mayor Greer Stone, is scheduled to meet Aug. 27, when the proposal is expected to come up for discussion.
Four Crescent Park residents drove the action. Xenia Hammer, Jeffrey Shore, Tom Rindfleisch and Hamilton Hitchings appeared before the San Jose-based Valley Water board to ask the agency to build flood walls, widen the creek channel and replace the Pope-Chaucer Bridge, which backs up water during storms and floods neighborhood streets when breached.
"We very much need the resources of Valley Water of all kinds on this project — your engineering, construction expertise and financial resources," Hammer told the board.
The residents are still haunted by the 1998 flood, which damaged 1,700 properties across Palo Alto, East Palo Alto and Menlo Park.
Why now
The push comes as the creek authority faces a leadership vacuum. Executive director Margaret Bruce retired July 31 after six years leading the four-employee agency. Valley Water board member Jim Beall raised a more pointed concern: the creek authority has missed five years of audits, potentially jeopardizing its eligibility for state and federal grants.
The size gap is stark. The creek authority operates on a $5.3 million annual budget funded by its five member agencies. Valley Water's budget is roughly 153 times larger, according to the Palo Alto Daily Post.
Valley Water board member Richard Santos said the creek authority's progress had gone off track, and the board needed to act.
Long road ahead
Even with Valley Water at the helm, Crescent Park residents face years of waiting. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers plans to complete required analysis in the next two years, move to design work in 2028 and begin channel-widening construction in 2030, according to Palo Alto Online. That means at least five more years before construction reaches the Pope-Chaucer Bridge area.
The creek authority completed its first major project, "Reach 1," in 2019, building levees and widening channels downstream near U.S. Highway 101. The current focus, "Reach 2," targets the stretch between the Newell Road and Pope-Chaucer bridges. The Newell Road Bridge replacement broke ground May 21 as a $16 million project led by Palo Alto and funded largely by a $10 million Caltrans grant.
But the Pope-Chaucer Bridge cannot simply be removed. As Bruce explained in a May creek authority meeting, the bridge restricts flow upstream and accelerates it downstream. Removing it without first widening the channel or adding flood walls would expose downstream properties to worse flooding than they already face.
The creek authority's Aug. 27 meeting will be the first test of whether its member agencies welcome Valley Water's expanded role or resist ceding control.
