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After two Mountain View Los Altos High School District trustees clashed over an appointment to a city transportation committee, the board has found a path forward.
Trustee Catherine Vonnegut first voiced her concerns about board President Thida Cornes’ participation on Mountain View’s Active Transportation Plan committee on June 8. She requested the board talk committee appointments at the following board meeting, held June 15.
Following the discussions, Cornes will continue serving on the committee, which helped put together the city’s plan to enhance local streets for cyclists, pedestrians and wheelchair users. The plan proposes projects and policies that support active travel with the goal of creating a transportation network that is “safe and comfortable for all users regardless of age, ability, income, race, or language, according to the draft plan.
After considering Vonnegut’s concerns, district trustees agreed that as long as the committee continues to meet, her appointment to the assignments will be voted on by trustees at the end of every year.
Vonnegut told the Mountain View Voice previously that she raised the issue after she received a letter that Cornes sent about the city’s Active Transportation Plan to three Mountain View City Council members who serve on the city’s Council Transportation Committee.
In her correspondence, Cornes suggested improvements to Mountain View’s draft Active Transportation Plan, including stronger implementation plans and clearer metrics for success. She signed the letter as an MVLA trustee.
Vonnegut told the board that she took issue with the letter because it wasn’t presented to or approved by the board before it was shared.
“The letter in itself is fine,” Vonnegut said. “It’s just that we hadn’t said that you would send it as part of the committee, because we didn’t realize you were still on the committee.”
Cornes’ Active Transportation Plan assignment was excluded from the list of committee assignments the board voted on annually in 2024 or 2025.
“It should have appeared on subsequent assignment lists if the board chose to do so,” Vonnegut said at the June 15 meeting.
Cornes responded that she was approached by city staff halfway through 2023 to join the committee for a three-year term, which she said the school board approved. The committee met in 2023, 2024 and 2025.
“After each meeting, I reported back to the board during board reports, which is how trustees typically provide updates on committee assignments,” Cornes told the board.
The committee was not included in the list of assignments the board voted on in December 2025 because staffing changes stopped the committee’s regular meetings, she said.
But Vonnegut also had “philosophical and conflict of interest” concerns with Cornes serving on a board for the city because of overlap with other elected officials. Vonnegut mentioned Mountain View Mayor Emily Ann Ramos, who had to step down from a nonprofit advisory board after she was appointed to the Mountain View City Council, and suggested that Cornes’ assignment could represent a similar conflict.
Her colleagues and district staff were not swayed by that argument. Members of other school districts, like the Mountain View Whisman School District, and various community organizations are also on the transportation committee, Superintendent Eric Volta told the board. Other groups include Canopy, which is dedicated to building urban forests, and a handful of local transportation organizations.
Vonnegut told the board they have the next six months to consider the concerns she raised before they again vote on the assignments for the following year.
“For now, I’d really rather just move on and vote to update the list, but (I) have expressed my concerns about protocol and the possibility for the future,” she said.
