By Eliza Ridgeway

The Los Altos Hills City Council race for the November ballot may not be a direct referendum on forming a new school district for the community, but school concerns are chief among the top issues heating up the town.

The town’s reorganization committee drew up a poll with David Binder Research to determine community support for creation of a new K-8 district. Binder reported the results of the survey Sept. 14.

The totals showed 53 percent of Los Altos Hills voters support a new, locally controlled school district. The figure indicated the support has nearly doubled from the 28 percent support the Godbe Research survey reported in October 2004 for the town Public Education Committee. Binder surveyed 273 registered voters Sept. 6-10 and reported results with a plus or minus 5.9 percent margin of error.

According to Councilman Craig Jones, private residents paid for the poll because the city council has committed public funding only toward hiring legal and political advice.

“We’re gathering information for the county committee,” Mayor Dean Warshawsky, a candidate for reelection in November, said. “It’s important to check the pulse” of the town.

The town forwarded a petition to the Santa Clara County Board of Education, which, if approved, would give affected residents a chance to vote on forming an independent K-8 school district. The county redistricting committee will review arguments from the town and the affected school districts regarding redistricting.

John Vidovich, a candidate for city council in the November

election, issued a joint statement with Dick Hasenpflug, longtime member of the Los Altos School District’s Citizen’s Advisory Committee for Finance, last week declaring that school-related concerns are the primary issue of his candidacy. The joint campaign advertisement cited redistricting as “expensive, time consuming and unlikely to succeed. It is a waste of time and taxpayer money.”

City Councilman Breene Kerr, running for reelection, said earlier this year that he hoped residents would have an opportunity for a direct vote on the issue of town education, rather than having the issue become embroiled indirectly in the council race. The city council has thrown its support behind redistricting.

“John (Vidovich) shouldn’t allow himself to be an apologist for LASD,” Jones said. “If (he’s) going to be a one-issue candidate, (he) picked the wrong issue, because three-quarters of our residents are not satisfied on this issue.”