Portola Valley: Driscoll, Derwin, Merk elected to council Portola Valley: Driscoll, Derwin, Merk elected to council (November 16, 2005)

** All-male council comes to an end, again.

By David Boyce

Almanac Staff Writer

Portola Valley voters returned long-term incumbents Ted Driscoll and Richard Merk to their seats on the Town Council and chose newcomer Maryann Moise Derwin to occupy the third open seat in the November 8 election.

Elected to four-year terms were Mr. Driscoll with 1,251 votes, Ms. Moise Derwin with 1,211, and Mr. Merk with 1,159.

Challenger Sally Ann Reiss garnered 882 votes.

The council has not had a woman member since 2001, when Nancy Vian stepped down.

Ms. Moise Derwin takes over for Councilman George Comstock, who is retiring after one term on the council and eight years on the town's Architecture & Site Control Commission.

Ms. Moise Derwin, 51, who is married with two children, was a small business owner and a freelance writer. Over her 13 years in Portola Valley, she has been active in the school community as PTA president and co-chair of the Measure J school construction bond measure.

This will be the fourth term for Mr. Driscoll, an entrepreneur and 20-year resident of Portola Valley. He is a past member of the Planning Commission and the Architecture & Site Control Commission.

Mr. Driscoll, 52, said he had expected the current term would be his last, but he decided to run again to see through to completion the plans for a new Town Center complex, a still-evolving project that has been years in the making.

Mr. Merk, 60, is a retired general contractor and a 45-year resident with a particular interest in maintaining Portola Valley's traditions of open space and rural character that eschews street lights and traffic signals.

He has been a civic volunteer for 25 years, including 10 on the council and 13 on the Planning Commission.

The election results include all five precincts, plus mail-in ballots counted by election day. An unknown number of late-arriving mail-in ballots are still to be counted.

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