Rebecca Eisenberg says Hello

A Bay Area resident since 1986, and a lifetime environmental activist, Rebecca is uniquely qualified to serve District 7 on the Santa Clara Valley Water District. With her deep ties to Stanford and Silicon Valley, Rebecca's successful career as an attorney, entrepreneur, and activist has spanned decades and roles. Over the past 30 years, Rebecca has worked as corporate attorney, financial journalist, start-up executive, community volunteer, and social activist. She has taken companies public, helping to create thousands of jobs, and has helped change the course of history through her writings and activism on women's rights, equitable taxation, equal opportunity, and environmental justice.

Why Rebecca?

Rebecca was recruited to run to serve District 7 of the Santa Clara Valley Water Board by a group of Democratic leaders and mentors including Judge LaDoris Cordell, a national expert on social justice, the legal system, and democracy. Backed by Judge Cordell, along with County Assessor Larry Stone, Former FEC Commissioner Ann Ravel, and two current Valley Water Board members who endorse Rebecca over the incumbent, Rebecca will bring much-needed integrity, transparency, fairness, collegiality, and competence to District 7.

Why the Water District?

Rebecca loves water. She grew up on the shores of Lake Michigan, and spent every summer in and on the glacial lakes of Wisconsin's beautiful North Woods. She is a lifeguard-certified swimmer, a skilled sailor and water skier, an energetic sailboarder, and a PADI-certified Advanced Open Water Scuba Diver. While in high school, Rebecca's scientific analysis of eutrophication in Lake Michigan became part of the academic archives of the University of Wisconsin. During a summer in Israel around that she same, Rebecca learned how Israel brings life to a desert by staying in a Kibbutz and working every morning in the world's leading Drip Agriculture factory. Rebecca's lifetime love of wildlife and nature inspired her study of biology and ecology (and statistics, economics and psychology) at Stanford, and drove her Harvard Law School, to seek a career in legal justice and social change.

With her passion for natural resources and her expertise in law, Rebecca is a perfect fit to represent District 7 in the Santa Clara Valley Water District.

Why now?

Here in the wealthiest county in the wealthiest state in the wealthiest country, individuals and families -- especially BIPOC women and children -- lack reliable access to clean drinking water. This is especially the case among Santa Clara's large and growing unhoused population, which has become an urgent crisis in public health and moral conscience. During the worst drought history, with no end in sight, communities and working families in Santa Clara's District 7 deserve relief from ever-rising water bills, and protection from impending climate events and the growing risk of floods. Although urgent action is needed to protect of families and communities, District 7's current representative is too preoccupied with defending sexual harassment allegations and internal complaints against him to spend any time serving the public.

Rebecca will act now. She will bring her 30 years of success in technology, innovations, finance, and law, and her solid track record of highest-integrity leadership to move us in a better direction. She will manage our limited water resources and taxpayer funds responsibly by balancing transparency and compliance with creative thinking and collaboration.

To protect our communities, Rebecca will strengthen existing infrastructure to withstand climate events that put families at risk. To minimize water bills, Rebecca redirect the billions of dollars currently earmarked for obsolete, ineffective, and environmentally damaging dam projects into proven water recapture, recycling and reuse systems. To build sustainable solutions, Rebecca will incentivize conservation, and invest in restoration, regeneration, and carbon capture. And because Rebecca values diverse perspectives, she will make community input and engagement her top priority.

Here in the innovation capital of the world, Santa Clara County is inexcusably behind. Working with her colleagues on the Water District Board, including the two current Water District Board Directors who endorse Rebecca over the incumbent, Rebecca will bring team orientation, integrity, transparency and respect to District 7's representation on the Santa Clara Valley Board. Involving constituents and the community in every decision that affects us, Rebecca will ensure that we all have access to clean water today and in the future.

We hope you will join us in supporting THE sustainable, high-integrity choice for District 7 of the Santa Clara Valley Water District - Rebecca Eisenberg.

Rebecca's Professional Background

Rebecca holds degrees in Decision Sciences from Stanford University, where she graduated with Honors and Phi Beta Kappa, and law from Harvard Law School, where she graduated cum laude and served as an editor of the Harvard Law Review.
‍
Since 1994, Rebecca has worked for some of the Bay Area’s earliest Internet companies, including serving on the IPO Deal Team for PayPal, and leading, as head of legal and finance, the public company merger of Flip Video with Cisco, called one the most successful mergers of 2008. Rebecca served as the founding General Counsel for several Tech companies in their earliest days, including Trulia, AdBrite, Flip Video, Vouch Financial, and Reddit. In several of these cases, her role extended beyond legal to heading Human Resources and/or Finance, especially at Reddit, where Rebecca served as the attorney and businesswoman who handled the successful spin-off, reincorporation, and recapitalization of Reddit to become the independent company it is today. Through this work, Rebecca helped create hundreds, ultimately tens of thousands, of well-paying, secure jobs, and helped insure that workforces at her company had access to stock options, good pay, and even more than ample pumping rooms (and sometimes even childcare!) for recent mothers and other guardians returning to work.

As one of the first journalists to cover the Internet explosion in the mid-1990's, Rebecca was a frequent contributor and weekly columnist to many publications. Her bi-weekly column in the San Francisco Chronicle/Examiner's Sunday Business Section (“NetSkink”) reached 3 million readers, and her weekly column in CBS MarketWatch (“Nouveau Geek”) reached even more. She was a voluminous and celebrated commentator, in writing, in speaking, and on television, on the intersection technology, culture, and politics. Her articles ran in publications ranging from Wired to Entertainment Weekly to Ms. Magazine. On television, she was a regulator panelist on ZDTV’s Silicon Spin and an occasional host on PBS’s Internet Cafe. As a consultant, she advised clients as diverse as the Olympic Committee, Yoga Journal, and early Fintech startup Starmine.

Most recently, Rebecca operated a boutique law firm from her rental home in Old Palo Alto. At her firm Private Client Legal Services, Rebecca represented individual entrepreneurs and engineers in their negotiations with technology and finance companies, mostly surrounding compensation. Rebecca has always loved championing the underdog, and over her 30-year career, she has become a uniquely successful and skilled advocate for David/Davidas in their dealings with Goliath.
‍
Rebecca's Sustainable Investment Work

In 2021 Rebecca scaled back her legal practice to focus on public service and advocacy. Having liquidated her shares from a successful Internet company she helped launch in 2011, Rebecca carefully and thoughtfully re-invested all of her assets from unsustainable investments into solely positive impact investments. Through her investment fund dba Netskink investments, she has made angel investments in positive impact start-ups and funds, and through her Charitable Fund dba Rebecca Eisenberg Fund for Positive Impact, she supports nonprofits making a difference in climate action, environmental justice, affordable housing, anti-racism, and equality for women, girls, and LGBTQia+.  A member of the "100% Club" of Toniic, the community for Impact Investors, all of Rebecca's investments -for-profit and nonprofit - are guided by the UN's 17 Sustainable Development Goals, initially through a gender, racial equity and environmental justice lens.

Rebecca strongly believes that positive impact investments are both the most ethical investments, but also that over time they will prove to be the most valuable. In a time of urgent crisis, every action and investment makes a difference.

Rebecca's Record of Political Advocacy and Nonprofit Leadership

Aligned with her sustainable investment strategy, Rebecca's advocacy focuses on environmental justice, working families, climate action, ethical and transparent governance, police reform, anti-racism, and gender justice, especially winning back women's fundamental right to reproductive health care -- an problem that she thought she had helped solve through activism in the 1970's and 1980's. These days you can find her peacefully blocking streets with the Raging Grannies or rallying on Fridays for the Future with EngageOn Palo Alto. She supports and is a member of several local Democratic and Progressive organizations, including WILPF, the Working Families Party, DAWN, the Silicon Valley Jewish Democrats, YiMBY, and Emerge California, where she is a proud alumna.
‍
Rebecca has served on the National Boards of The National Organization for Women Legal Defense and Education Fund (Legal Momentum) and was a founding member of the Craigslist Foundation Board. Rebecca has written and spoken on matters of equitable taxation, environmental justice, and women's/LGBTQia+ rights locally and internationally. She is passionate about clean, transparent government, and has served in legal Voter Protection roles during almost every election, including leading voter protection at the Nevada Caucuses for her role model and former law school professor and advisor Senator Elizabeth Warren.

Rebecca's Family
‍
Most of all, Rebecca is a neighbor, spouse, daughter, and mother. She has two teenage children, one of whom is a computer science major in college, and the who attends Palo Alto High School, where he plays on Paly's award-winning Varsity baseball team. Rebecca's spouse of almost 22 years, Curtis, is a startup legal executive and a former Director of the Palo Alto Little League Board. Rebecca is an avid runner, walker and hiker, and loves to explore the area by foot, usually listening to audiobooks by NK Jemisin or Nnedi Okorafor. Rebecca cherishes travel, especially to explore our underwater world. A lifelong vegetarian and recent vegan, Rebecca loves animals, and her family shares their home with two rescue dogs and two rescue cats.

Rebecca Wants to Hear from You

Rebecca can be reached at rebecca at rebecca 4 water dot com. She welcomes and values feedback and looks forward to hearing your perspective on how the Santa Clara Valley Water District can better serve you, your family, and your community.