By Kathleen Acuff

Los Altos Hills’ recent dismissal of its lawsuit leaves Los Altos School District officials only one small step from the right side of the courthouse door, at least as far as cases involving the district’s only campus in the Hills are concerned.

The town filed suit nearly a year ago in solidarity with Bullis Charter School against the district, the board of trustees and the three commercial preschools that had signed leases for space at Bullis-Purissima Elementary School in the 2004-2005 school year. By late September, the school district had spent nearly $50,000 defending itself against the town’s claims and approximately $260,000 in the charter school’s suit.

The charter school’s case was dismissed by summary judgment Sept. 9. Charter officials plan to appeal but had not done so at press time. Unless the charter school appeals the judgment and the U.S. Court of Appeals reverses the decision, the case is over.

“The charter school has had three law firms, three judges, three dismissals,” said Donald (Dino) Velez, a member of the school district’s defense team. “The only thing to win is the right to go back to Superior Court for a juryless trial. There won’t be a jury trial, because they never had a right to a jury trial, and they also waived that right.”

Velez said the district would likely ask the court to order the charter school to pay the costs of its defense.

Los Altos Hills City Attorney Steve Mattas returned the call the Town Crier placed last week to Peter S. Hayes, the attorney who handled the town’s case. Mattas said town officials “felt the lawsuit was no longer necessary to protect the town’s zoning interest due to the placement of other public education programs at the Bullis site.”

Velez said, “The town told us last summer they would dismiss their lawsuit if the extended-day kindergarten was there when school opened. It was, and a lot of their cause of action was moot with that.”

Mattas would not comment on whether town officials considered the autistic preschool program the district began operating at Bullis in October 2004 sufficient in itself to satisfy the zoning requirement. He did say that town officials have never thought the special education program required rezoning.

Mattas declined to say whether the presence of private preschools at Bullis violated zoning ordinances.

The two private preschools that operated at Bullis last year, J.B. Preschool and Creative Learning Center, are onsite again this year. Montessori School of Los Altos withdrew from its lease a few weeks after signing it last fall.

At the time, Montessori Director Hannelore Engelman expressed sympathy for the charter school directors’ desire to lease the campus and stated in an e-mail to several local newspapers, including the Town Crier, that she wished to withdraw from the contract to make way for the charter school.