By Kathleen Acuff
Francis La Poll, on the Bullis Charter School Board of Directors since its inception and with a longtime association with the attorney who brought the charter’s first lawsuit against the Los Altos School District, is running for district trustee. Some local voters see a conflict of interest in his bid.
La Poll said he will resign from the charter board if he is elected to the district board, but his children will continue to attend the charter school.
Amy Gaffney, an active district parent volunteer, is one local resident who thinks La Poll’s involvement with the charter board is a problem.
“Francis is currently on the board of the Bullis Charter School and is involved in the school’s litigation against the district. This appears to be a conflict of interest,” she said last week.
Los Altos Mayor David Casas, a former school district trustee, and Dick Hasenpflug, for 18 years the chairman of the district’s Citizens’ Advisory Committee for Finance (CACF), have also voiced concern. Hasenpflug and La Poll served on the CACF together.
In an interview with Town Crier staff Sept. 21, La Poll said he has been opposed to litigation against the district since the subject was first discussed by charter directors in fall 2003.
The candidate signed a statement he brought to the interview that said his had been the sole vote against pursuing the first lawsuit.
When asked about remaining on the charter board, La Poll said it is “fun” for him to oversee the creation of a new school from the ground up.
His statement read in part: “While one of the petitions in the various proceedings was filed by a person who has a longstanding of-counsel relationship with the firm of which I am a member, no member or employee of our firm has been involved in any aspect of the litigation against the school district. Our firm has not received any fees for litigation involving LASD or, indeed, for any work performed for Bullis.”
The of-counsel relationship to which La Poll referred is with Stephen M. Vernon of Vernon Law Office, a long-time subtenant of Gilfix & La Poll Associates. La Poll said Vernon’s role became of-counsel Nov. 1, 2002.
Vernon did not reply to queries, but La Poll gave a signed statement from Vernon to editorial staff. The statement said Vernon has been in private practice since admission to the state bar in December 1978.
Vernon’s statement asserts that his law office, not Gilfix & La Poll, represented the charter school in May 2004 and did not share fees with Gilfix & La Poll or any of its attorneys. As the Town Crier reported at the time, court documents show the charter board’s attorney to be Vernon of Vernon Law Office, at the same address as Gilfix & La Poll.
Vernon filed the complaint of May 17, 2004, for “Bullis-Purissima Elementary School,” seeking a judgment that the district violated the California Environmental Quality Act and the “reasonable equivalency” provisions of Proposition 39 in offering the charter the portables at Egan Junior High School for 2004-2005.
An ex parte order in favor of the school district closed the case a week after it was filed.
A Gilfix & La Poll Web page (see http://web.archive.org/web/*/www.gilfix.com) from May 18, 2004, states: “Mr. Vernon leads the Gilfix & La Poll Associates’ Litigation Department …”
La Poll said the archived Web pages are from “a beta site put together by nonlegal staff” and are “not authoritative.”
