You can bet that somebody in Mountain View government has an investment in this thing. Follow the money.

This could cause more flooding in West Sunnyvale where the canal empties into Stevens Creek.

Just another example of how our incompetent elected officials and/or employees work it out.

The following comments have been moved from a duplicate thread, which has now been closed:

Council member Jac Siegel, a retired aerospace engineer, called the Permanente flood protection project an example of "political engineering." "political engineering" aka, a completely unnecessary waste of money. Keep on keeping on mountain View city council...you're doing an excellent job! BTW...McKelvey park was just fine, nicely laid out with dozens of heritage trees and REAL grass. I'm pretty sure the lights could have been upgraded the sans destroying the entire park. How much will be spent to remove the heritage trees, remove the real grass, dig up the entire site, remove hundreds of thousands of pounds of soil (which btw, is going to create a LOT of noise and major heavy truck traffic along residential streets) all to put in a water retention basin, which is clearly NOT NEEDED? Again, excellent job Mountain View City Counsel. Thankfully w have the ability to clean house via our votes for city counsel, soon enough. Maybe you could not to destroy the city - any more than you already have - prior to the next election. Thnx.
by MVResident67 Jun 21, 2013 at 9:17 am

Sorry for my typos...not enough coffee combined with not enough sleep.
by MVResident67 Jun 21, 2013 at 9:20 am

"Council member Jac Siegel, a retired aerospace engineer, called the Permanente flood protection project an example of "political engineering."

Of course he's had no problem supporting other types of political engineering like banning plastic bags, licensing cats, banning fast food restaurants, etc.

I grew up in a house that backed up on the creek in that area. I remember lots of tadpoles and toads and minnows swimming around. I once even saw a small trout just above the bridge at Portland.
The "Tunnel of love" at Blach (there were two parallel to each other) was always an exciting cave exploration trip, an the spillway at the diversion valve had an always open hatch that let us climb down the ladder to see it from the inside and even crouch walk through the tube to where it comes out behind the houses on Eastwood. It was such a great place to play as a small boy. Its just a water highway for the most part now.

@Political Insider, if you do not agree with him on the project, you should fight him on that. If you _do_ agree that this project is nonsense, and I suspect you do, then you should maybe take a break from complaining about the issues you still don't agree on and get with him on this issue.
If you share the same view on an issue, you're just a road block if you won't "Cross the isle"
There will be plenty of chance to snipe at him later I'm sure, but it looks petty if you share the same view on the issue at hand, but still can't stop sniping.

@ Original Neighborhood Kid.

Whats to fight about. I am just pointing out his hypocrisy. I don't believe he really knows what he is talking about.

It doesn't take an engineer, simple common sense says: If your home lies in their (questionable) danger zone, and you're worried about it, A) move, or B) buy your own %@!#!%* flood insurance.

It does not seem that Mr. Clements has his calculations together, and the article seems biased towards downplaying the dangers of a flood in the area, which the proposed flood protection is supposed to prevent. Thousands of properties can be affected otherwise.

Fact is that the current design is based on studies that have been scrutinized, revised, and so on, and the city of mountain view has also commissioned a study which confirmed the findings. Rather than going by heresay from some expert who's now just showing up in the last hour, I'd encourage people to check out the actual documents for this project, which include answers by the experts (NOT Mr. Clements) to the criticisms. Please see here:

Web Link

If it needs to be built, as the experts say (read the reports) do it now. Don't wait until after the next 100 year flood hits.