Mountain View, Menlo Park, and Woodside Election Returns Tally

Voters across Mountain View, Los Altos, Menlo Park, Woodside, and Portola Valley weighed in on city council seats, school boards, regional water and healthcare districts, and municipal tax and charter measures on Tuesday.

Mountain View Council, Measures E and F, and Regional Districts

In the race for Mountain View City Council, IdaRose Sylvester leads early returns with 18.99% (4,528 votes), followed by Silja Paymer with 15.66% (3,732 votes) and Robert Cox with 15.41% (3,674 votes), according to Mountain View Voice. Erik Poicon trails in fourth place with 14.55% (3,468 votes), followed by Paul Donahue with 13.03% (3,107 votes) and James Kuszmaul with 11.07% (2,638 votes).

Mountain View voters strongly backed two municipal ballot measures:

• Measure F (Hotel Tax Increase): Approved with 79.55% (7,898 votes) in early election results, Measure F authorizes the City Council to raise the city's hotel tax from 10% to as high as 15%, generating an estimated $5.2 million annually for Mountain View's general operating fund, according to Mountain View Voice.
• Measure E (City Charter Update): Approved with 71.53% (6,981 votes) support, Measure E required a simple majority and enacts changes that city staff described as "non-substantive" and "non-controversial," including correcting typographical errors, improving internal consistency, and replacing gender-specific terms, according to Mountain View Voice.

In regional special district contests, Measure S for the El Camino Healthcare District—which faced no formal opposition—passed with 91.87% support, establishing a lifetime limit of four full four-year terms for board directors applicable to future terms beginning after Dec. 1, 2026, according to Mountain View Voice. Meanwhile, in the Santa Clara Valley Water District Area 7 contest, challenger and Los Altos City Council member Pete Dailey led incumbent Rebecca Eisenberg—who had faced controversies and been censured by the board—with 57.56% (22,258 votes) to Eisenberg's 42.43% (16,407 votes) in initial results released at 9:22 p.m. Tuesday, according to Mountain View Voice.

Mountain View and Los Altos School Boards

Three local school board contests also took shape in early Santa Clara County returns:

• Mountain View Whisman School District: Incumbents Devon Conley (35.06%, or 4,577 votes) and Bill Lambert (28.82%, or 3,763 votes) lead for the two four-year seats, ahead of Sundar Subbarayan—8 percentage points behind Lambert at 20.74% (2,708 votes)—and Quintin Riis at 15.36% (2,005 votes), according to Mountain View Voice.
• MVLA High School District Area 3: Thida Cornes leads with 56.69% (1,365 votes), followed by Sanjay Dave at 23.01% (554 votes) and Catherine Vonnegut at 20.31% (489 votes), according to Mountain View Voice.
• Los Altos School District Board of Trustees: Early returns show a tight four-way contest led by Bryan Johnson with 28.53% (5,872 votes) and Vaishali Sirkay with 25.94% (5,340 votes), followed closely by Brandon Stroy with 22.77% (4,687 votes) and David Poll with 22.74% (4,680 votes), according to Mountain View Voice.

Menlo Park Council Districts, Measure P, and School Board

In San Mateo County, initial Menlo Park results reflected vote-by-mail ballots received by Nov. 1, with additional results scheduled to be released hourly starting at 9 p.m. and mail-in ballots postmarked by Election Day accepted until Nov. 10:

• Menlo Park District 1: Wonman Lee leads with 75.5% (287 votes) over James Rohr at 24.5% (93 votes), with at least 177 vote center ballots outstanding as of 3:40 p.m., according to The Almanac.
• Menlo Park District 2: Drew Combs holds a 15-vote lead with 50.7% of the vote over Vamsi Velagapudi at 49.3%, according to The Almanac.
• Menlo Park District 4: Laura Melahn leads with 753 votes (63.49%) to Charlotte Reed's 36.51%, with 1,186 votes counted out of 4,505 registered voters, according to The Almanac.
• Measure P: Menlo Park's Measure P was narrowly trailing as of 9 p.m. Tuesday with 48% voting yes (2,668 votes) and 52% voting no (2,886 votes), a margin of 232 votes as reported by The Almanac.
• Menlo Park City School District: Newcomer Maya Herstein, a parent of three students in the district, leads with 3,244 votes (29.8%), followed by incumbents Sherwin Chen—seeking reelection to his third term—with 2,942 votes (27.1%) and Jed Scolnick—who aims to continue working on Measure U-funded projects—with 2,709 votes (24.9%), while Andrew Barnes received 1,977 votes (18.2%), according to The Almanac.

Woodside and Portola Valley Town Councils and Measure N

In Woodside, Dan Druker and Lyle Weaver were elected to four-year terms on the Woodside Town Council in an uncontested election held despite the candidates running unopposed, with Weaver replacing Brian Dombkowski in District 2 and Druker replacing Dick Brown in District 3, according to The Almanac.

In Portola Valley, Town Council incumbents were also reelected in an uncontested race to serve another four-year term focused on financial stability and public safety, according to The Almanac. Meanwhile, Portola Valley's Measure N—which the Town Council placed on the ballot to make Portola Valley a charter town and establish a real property transfer tax of $10 per $1,000 of a property's sale price—was leading with 64% of the vote as of 8:10 p.m. on election night, according to The Almanac. Funds from the transfer tax would be allocated toward townwide maintenance needs as Portola Valley addresses a $700,000 annual deficit projected to grow.