Goines, Luskin, Pefley take Los Altos district Goines, Luskin, Pefley take Los Altos district (November 11, 2005)

Not a close contest for school board seats

By Molly Tanenbaum

The trio of Mark Goines, David Luskin and David Pefley will soon take their seats on the Los Altos School District board, after easily beating out the other four candidates on Tuesday.

The three newcomers, who will constitute a majority on the five-member board, share similar educational ideas and goals and even advanced degrees (each has an MBA). They celebrated together at a house gathering on Tuesday night after maintaining steady leads throughout the evening.

"I'm very happy to be among the winners and I'm excited to serve the 4,000 kids in Los Altos for the next four years," said top finisher Mark Goines, who tallied 23.2 percent of the vote.

Pefley followed close behind with 22.7 percent, while Luskin reached about 18.6 percent.

Francis La Poll and David Struthers were the next two highest vote-getters with 10.5 and 10.3 percent of the vote, respectively. Kitty Uhlir and Bruce Wiener trailed farther behind. Uhlir received 8.4 percent, while Wiener earned 2 percent of the vote. Even Tamara Logan, who withdrew her candidacy early on in the race, came through with 4.3 percent.

Goines, Luskin and Pefley will be sworn in next month. They will join Margot Harrigan and Bill Cooper -- whose terms expire in 2007 -- and will replace Jay Thomas, Duane Roberts and Victor Reid, whose terms end in 2005.

There were no incumbents running, but the candidates had varying degrees of involvement with the district and education in general. La Poll had extensive experience serving in public office as the mayor and vice mayor of Los Altos, though some voters were skeptical of his intentions due to his involvement with Bullis Charter School.

Struthers was the most experienced educator, having taught at Gunn High School in Palo Alto for nearly 30 years.

But in the end, voters decided to select candidates who displayed recent commitment to the district in addition to their backgrounds in business and finance. Goines, Luskin and Pefley all have children currently enrolled in the school district. Both Goines, an investor, and Pefley, a software company CFO, were involved in the Los Altos Educational Foundation, while Luskin, a high-tech marketing executive, has served as a PTA legislative chairperson at Loyola School and as a school site council representative. This was the first political campaign for all three.

"There are a lot of financial issues that will come up in the next four years which is why I think the community elected three people with MBAs," Pefley said.

The major issues facing the new board majority include increasing student enrollment, consideration of a new parcel tax, and deciding whether to reopen the Bullis school -- which upset many in the district when it closed in 2003.

"It looks like the funds are there," Luskin said, optimistic that Bullis will indeed reopen. "It looks like we can do that in two or three years."

Goines, Luskin and Pefley have all said that they are up for the challenge -- after they're done celebrating.

"My immediate goal is to take a couple of days off," Goines said.

E-mail Molly Tanenbaum at mtanenbaum@mv-voice.com

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