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The Zone 7 Water Agency is set to have its plate full over the next few years, with the construction of a third treatment plant, a joint regional groundwater well project with the city of Pleasanton, ongoing flood management work and an upcoming rate study that will decide water rates for 2027 to 2030.
Those priority projects and other important decisions will be made by a Board of Directors that will have at least three new members after the upcoming primary election.
The board is made up of seven directors who oversee the agency that provides flood control for the Alameda County parts of the Tri-Valley and serves as the potable water wholesaler for the area.
Four at-large seats are on the ballot, and current directors Dennis Gambs, Dawn Benson and Catherine Brown are not seeking reelection.
That means voters in Pleasanton, Livermore and Dublin will be choosing from among seven newcomers – Seema Badar, Alan Burnham, Jim Lehrman, Patricia Muga, Rishabh “Rish” Rao, Sean Roberts and Heidi Turner-Zika – and incumbent Director Sarah Palmer for the Zone 7 board.
The top four finishers will win the seats outright in the June 2 election.
Sarah Palmer
Palmer is the lone incumbent director who is seeking reelection. A Livermore resident for over 45 years, Palmer has served on the Zone 7 board since 2006.
A scientist by trade, Palmer holds a doctorate in biochemistry from University of Toronto and subsequently worked in the field of biochemistry. She also worked in the medical diagnostics industry before shifting to teaching in various colleges.
Palmer said her nearly 20 years of experience on the water agency board, along with her years of teaching and research, give her the “tools to understand the complex issues of California water” that include “water rights, surface and groundwater, dependent ecosystems and the premier needs of public health and safety for the Zone 7 service area”.
“I see myself as a water educator for the public and our elected and appointed officials,” Palmer told the Pleasanton Weekly. “My background in scientific research, teaching, and public service continues to guide my work, both locally and globally, including efforts with Rotary International to support clean water and sanitation in Haiti.”
She also said her being on the Board of Directors for the Association of California Water Agencies and on the executive board for the Alameda County Special Districts Association give her additional qualifications for the Zone 7 job.
At the Association of California Water Agencies, Palmer said she participates in water quality, agriculture, local government and finance committees. She also said she participates in several workgroups that focus on PFAS, microplastics, drinking water, and other policy and strategic plan development.
Additionally, she noted her previous experience as the president of the Delta Conveyance Authority and the chair of the Stakeholders Engagement Committee.
If reelected, Palmer said she will prioritize maintaining the agency’s AAA financial rating, continuing and upholding and enhancing high standards of accountability and transparency, and keeping up with the agency’s management of its groundwater.
She said she also plans to “stay ahead of advanced treatment solutions for emerging water contaminants”, work on a flood control plan that includes early warning systems of potential flooding, and upholding public health and safety.
“My goal is to help guide transparent engagement on projects impacting millions of Californians,” Palmer said. “It is my priority and passion to help ensure a safe, reliable water future for our community.”
To learn more about Palmer and her campaign, visit www.palmerforzone7.com.
Seema Badar
A Dublin resident who first moved to the Tri-Valley five years ago, Badar previously ran unsuccessfully for the Zone 7 board in 2024.
According to Badar, her decision to run for the board stemmed from her enrolling in the Dublin San Ramon Services District’s Citizens Water Academy, which she said really changed her perspective on regional water systems.
She said learning about the complexities of those systems and how under-appreciated they are “lit a fire in me and made clear that Zone 7’s work is too important to be left without engaged, informed community oversight”.
“I’m running because I believe this community deserves a board member who combines real civic accountability experience with a ground-up understanding of how our water system works,” Badar told the Weekly. “I’m running because residents deserve a clear, honest voice at the table — someone who will always put transparency and community advocacy first.”
Coming from a background in sociology, Badar has been involved in multiple nonprofit leadership and community service roles that have to do with civic oversight and financial accountability.
Some of her experience includes serving on a citizens bond oversight committee, where she reviewed how public dollars were spent and reported, and serving on the parcel tax oversight committee for the Dublin Unified School District.
She also currently serves as vice president of Fallon Middle School’s Parent Faculty Club, which fundraises money for the school.
“What sets me apart is that I don’t come to this role as an insider,” she said. “I come as someone who has always sat on the oversight side of the table — accountable to residents, not to agency inertia.”
Some of her priorities include advocating for PFAS remediation and ensuring effective, cost-conscious water treatment investments; diversifying the region’s water supply; ensuring Zone 7’s infrastructure investments keep pace with climate changes that could affect flood risks; and being a transparent fiscal steward.
“I’m not running to maintain the status quo. I’m running because I believe Zone 7 can do better on transparency, on long-term planning, and on engaging the community it serves,” Badar said. “I will show up prepared, ask the right questions, and always keep the interests of Dublin, Pleasanton, and Livermore residents at the center of every decision I make.”
To learn more about Badar and her campaign, visit www.seema4zone7.com.
Alan Burnham
A longtime Livermore resident and chemist who worked at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory for 35 years, Burnham said his experience and qualifications make him the best fit for the board.
This is Burnham’s second time running for the Zone 7 board after losing out in the 2024 election.
“Zone 7 is a business, and it needs to operate within the constraints of nature, state and federal regulations, and consumer acceptance,” he told the Weekly. “As a Zone 7 Director, I will work within those constraints to provide the water and flood control services the Tri-Valley deserves.”
Burnham first moved to Livermore in 1977 specifically for his job at the laboratory, where he spent most of his career. At the lab, he worked on a variety of energy and national security projects, including laser fusion. After retirement, he spent a few years teaching chemical kinetics at Stanford University.
Burnham said what makes him uniquely qualified for the Zone 7 position is that as an undergraduate, one of his first jobs was developing and publishing a new method for “measuring trace organic contaminants in drinking water”.
“I have the technical background, business and project management experience, and strong community connections needed to understand and make sound decisions on the complex issues facing Zone 7,” Burnham said. “I want to be sure we make sound choices in how to optimally invest our capital resources to address these issues.”
If elected, he said will prioritize water supply, flood control issues and water conservation issues.
“Many of the channels carrying water through the valley to the Niles Canyon are old and in need of repair, and that requires a continuing investment in damage prevention,” he said.
Burnham emphasized the importance of managing local water sources, groundwater and treatment facilities, which is why he said he supports Zone 7’s partnership with Pleasanton to replace the city’s contaminated groundwater wells as a critical regional project.
“For the longer range, we need to invest in the Chain of Lakes for local storage and improvements in the State Water Project, which supplies 75% of our water and has become increasingly unreliable,” he said. “The Chain of Lakes does not provide new water rights, but it helps store excess water from wet years for use in dry years.”
To learn more about Burnham and his campaign, visit www.alanburnham4zone7.com.
Jim Lehrman
Lehrman may be one of the newcomers to the Zone 7 race, but he is no stranger to the Tri-Valley or to the issues concerning the water agency.
Lehrman first moved to Pleasanton in 1988 and comes from a 40-year professional background in geology and hydrogeology. He also worked in environmental site assessment and remediation for 30 years and spent the last decade leading an annual Earth Day creek cleanup along a stretch of the Arroyo Del Valle.
“I believe that I’m the only candidate who is a professional geologist and hydrogeologist licensed by the state of California with extensive experience in subsurface investigations involving the movement of water,” Lehrman said. “In addition, I have a great deal of experience in project management and group management.”
Lehrman said he is running for one of the Zone 7 board seats because he knows that is where he will make the most impact on several issues he has been following over the past few years.
“I’ve written letters to the editor of our local newspapers, made public comments at meetings of the Pleasanton City Council and Zone 7 Board of Directors, and started a petition to protect Tri-Valley water,” Lehrman said. “But as an elected official … I’ll be better able to protect our local water supply and exert more influence over Zone 7 policies and cooperative efforts to improve the level of PFAS investigation, remediation, funding and cost recovery from responsible parties.”
He said some of his priorities will be to preserve and ensure good stewardship over the region’s groundwater quality and help with policies and actions on flood control, erosion prevention and water supply.
However, one of his main goals will be reassessing the proposed new groundwater wells regional project in Pleasanton. Lehrman said he would like to stop or at least delay the project because of the well’s “potential to further spread the titanic plume of PFAS, aka ‘forever chemicals,’ underlying the Tri-Valley”.
“I favor Pleasanton and Zone 7 working together to produce and treat water from Pleasanton’s well locations that were shut down due to PFAS,” he added. “This would go a long way to control and shrink the PFAS plume, remove PFAS from our groundwater basin and produce clean drinking water when needed, as in times of drought.”
Lehrman does not have a campaign website to date.
Patricia Muga
Muga is a real estate appraiser who will not only be seeking a seat on the Zone 7 board in the June 2 election, but she is also running for the California Assembly District 20 seat, challenging incumbent Liz Ortega.
While she does not have a campaign website for her Zone 7 board bid, Muga’s Assembly campaign website says she grew up in the Inland Empire with her five siblings and parents before graduating from the University of California, Los Angeles.
According to her website, she moved to Dublin in 2014 and her professional experience includes working in telecommunications, sales and administrative management. She also worked as a government relations assistant and, for the last 14 years, she also served as an election worker and vote center captain for Alameda and Contra Costa counties.
The Weekly reached out to Muga for comment but did not hear back as of press time.
Rishabh ‘Rish’ Rao
One of the younger contenders for the Zone 7 race is Dublin resident Rao. He positions himself as the only Generation Z candidate, saying he hopes to “bring forward-thinking leadership to the board”.
“Voters should consider me because I bring an unbiased, practical, and driven mindset to a role that directly affects their households,” Rao told the Weekly. “This isn’t about today’s water system. It’s about building one for residents 10, 20, 30 years from now.”
Rao comes from a business, analytics, operations and system design background. According to his campaign website, he founded Competition Robotics, which trains students for competitive robotics and Oswald LMS, a STEM learning management system that is built by teachers and is designed for STEM teachers and robotics coaches, according to the respective company websites.
While he might not have the same experience as other candidates, he said he makes up for it in his data-driven approach to issues.
“I am not a career politician,” Rao said. “While others may specialize in a particular field, my focus is on the entire system and its metrics. I care about the data, cost, and long-term plan.”
According to his campaign website, Rao has some background with Zone 7. His connection to the water agency goes back years when, as a student, he was recognized by one of the past boards for “excellence in water-related science and engineering”, which he said was an “early demonstration of his analytical approach to infrastructure challenges”.
“He brings that same disciplined, evidence-based thinking to public service — focused on operational excellence, long-term planning, and accountability,” his website states.
Rao said he is running for a Zone 7 seat is because he wants to bring a fresh perspective to the board and he deeply cares about the issues affecting the region’s water supply.
If elected, Rao said he wants to ensure the Tri-Valley has a stable, clean and reliable water supply; keep water rates as consistent and reasonable as possible while maintaining the agency’s infrastructure; and support “data-driven decisions” when it comes to upgrading and investing in the agency’s infrastructure.
His other priorities include educating ratepayers on how and where their money is spent and encouraging “responsible water use and innovative solutions for conservation and reuse”.
To learn more about Rao and his campaign, visit www.rishabh4water.com.
Sean Roberts
Roberts is another candidate who recognizes the impact the incoming board of directors will have on the region’s water supply and flood control, which is why he believes voters should consider him as their next representative.
“The next board will make decisions about PFAS treatment, how Zone 7 diversifies beyond a single import corridor, and how it funds flood resilience for a climate that no longer matches the one our channels were built for,” he told the Weekly. “Those decisions need members who can read a budget, ask hard questions, and plan past the next election cycle. That’s what I want to bring to the board.”
Roberts is a Livermore resident who currently works as a computer engineer and has spent over 25 years leading large infrastructure projects at places like the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center National Lab, Yahoo and GE Digital.
He said that apart from his engineering background, he was elected three times to the OpenStack Foundation Board of Directors and chaired its Finance and Tax Affairs Committee. He also said he spent time working for the city and county of San Francisco — specifically their elections commission on their open-source election system — and worked with the Foundation for American Innovation on government financial and election transparency projects.
“I’ve done board work before and treated it as a job, not a title,” Roberts said. “I understand the board’s role is policy and strategy, not day-to-day operations. I show up, I read the materials in advance, and I come with prepared questions.”
If elected, Roberts said one of his main focuses will be continuing the water agency’s work to build a third PFAS treatment plant and making sure all of the math regarding the facility is published for ratepayers’ discretion.
His other priorities include diversifying the region’s water supply; seeing the agency’s goals listed in the Flood Management Plan come to fruition; and working closely with the agency to ensure fair and equitable rate increases as the agency gets set to begin its next rate study.
“My commitment is to read the budget-vs-actual reports before every meeting, ask staff for documented proof that each capital project is hitting its milestones, and make sure each rate increase comes with a clear explanation of what it is buying,” Roberts said.
To learn more about Roberts and his campaign, visit www.robertsforzone7.com.
Heidi Turner-Zika
Turner-Zika works in information systems security for the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, according to her Facebook profile. She lists on the social media platform that she is also a mother, a wife and an animal lover.
Turner-Zika does not have any other searchable campaign websites or general information available online. She also did not return the Weekly’s requests for comment.
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