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Pete Dailey
Current board member | pete4water.com
Top priorities
- Flood preparedness for the most vulnerable areas
- Water conservation
- Humane waterway management
Public service
- Los Altos City Council member
(2022-Present)
Community involvement
- Valley Water commissioner (2022-Present)
- Lassen Park Foundation (2019-2023)
- Santa Clara County Emergency Operations Area Council member
(2025-Present) - North County Library Authority board member (2022-Present)
- Santa Clara County Housing and Community Development Advisory Committee (2026-Present)
- California Democratic Party Assembly District 23 elected delegate
Pete Dailey, a Los Altos City Council member, decided to run in the Santa Clara Valley Water District 7 race with the goal of providing North County flood preparedness, representation and humane waterway management.
The Santa Clara Valley Water District, also referred to as Valley Water, manages much of the area’s local water supply and spearheads Santa Clara County’s stream maintenance and flood protection.
The water district is split into seven geographic territories, with one director appointed by the voters in each area. Area 7 covers portions of Mountain View, Palo Alto, Los Altos, Los Altos Hills, Monte Sereno and Los Gatos, among other communities.
Dailey is one of two candidates vying for the District 7 slot on the seven-member board. He’s running against current District 7 Director Rebecca Eisenberg.
Dailey has been involved with the water commission for a number of years as one of his city council appointments. The commission advises Valley Water’s Board of Directors, assisting the board with its water policies. During that time, Dailey ran for chair of the commission and served in that capacity in 2025.
“I’ve shown four years of being a dedicated and successful public servant, passionate about water issues, knowledgeable about water issues,” he told the Voice during a recent interview. “I’m going to work for the residents to deliver on the promises of flood control and protecting our water supply and providing more humane and fiscally responsible treatment of the unhoused.”
What pushed Dailey to join the board was the feeling that District 7 was poorly represented. He said Director Eisenberg hasn’t been effective since she was censured in 2024, and the needs of District 7 – especially those related to flooding – were going unmet.
Eisenberg served on the San Francisquito Creek Joint Powers Authority before she was censured. The regional agency is focused on flood risk reduction and habitat restoration along the creek in Palo Alto, East Palo Alto and Menlo Park. It was founded in 1999 after a flood the year prior damaged more than 1,700 properties.
But since then, District 5 Director Nai Hsueh has served in her place. While Dailey said he admires and respects Hsueh, she didn’t represent the communities most affected by a potential flood – and with an El Niño year expected to bring more flooding and adverse weather, representation is needed more than ever.
“She doesn’t live in North County, she lives in Saratoga, and so the residents along San Francisquito Creek are not represented on the JPA by their elected representative on the water board,” Dailey said. “And that means that the person that’s in those discussions in the JPA isn’t bringing the lived experience of the residents to the JPA to make decisions.”
Now, Dailey said Valley Water is trying to back out of flood commitments in Palo Alto along the San Francisquito Creek and changing measurements of success from performance to funding dollars.
He said authority members are arguing over the “Reach 2” project. The project includes flood mitigation in the upstream segment of the creek between U.S. Highway 101 and the Pope-Chaucer Bridge, spanning Palo Alto, East Palo Alto and Menlo Park.
He said it should be handled just as the first phase of flood mitigation was handled. Known as “Reach 1,” the project included the downstream section of the creek south of U.S. Highway 101. It was wrapped up in 2019.
In addition to the residents, Dailey also wants to prioritize the unhoused when the board is making decisions about removing them from the district’s watersheds, creeksides and waterways. Instead of focusing on removing them from watersheds, he suggested that the district should prioritize reducing access to the areas, as it has done before.
“More investments like that would yield a wonderful return compared to spending millions of dollars a year abating these encampments,” he said. “So I’m proposing to take a more proactive and collaborative and humane approach that’s ultimately going to save money and reduce the burden on ratepayers.”
