School candidates square off in forum

To judge by their public statements, the four candidates for two contested seats on the Sisters School Board have no major school-related disagreements. They believe the schools are doing a good job but face serious budget problems.

Ballots were mailed to school district voters Friday, May 2, and must be returned to the county elections office by 5 p.m. Tuesday, May 20. Most Oregon school districts are filling one or more board seats in this annual exercise.

Three of the five Sisters board positions are on the ballot. The occupant of Position 1, Eric Dolson, is unopposed. He was appointed last June to replace Heather Wester, who resigned. Dolson, 53, publisher of The Nugget, seeks re-election to serve the two years remaining in Wester's original term.

Position 3 is currently held by contractor Steve Keeton, who chose not to seek another term. Tom Coffield and Steve Matthews are competing to replace him.

Position 4 is held by Jeff Smith, the current board chairman, who is completing his first term. His bid for re-election is being challenged by Del Erlandson. A third candidate, Tom Harpham, filed and is on the ballot but no longer seeks the office and supports Erlandson instead.

Three candidates -- Coffield, Smith and Erlandson -- participated in a two-hour forum sponsored by unions representing Sisters teachers and classified employees last week. Matthews was unable to attend.

Budget and finance issues dominated the questions, and all three candidates agreed that Sisters' financial problems are real but less severe than those of many other districts. They endorsed the "local option" levy that Sisters voters approved two years ago, which will be up for renewal in late 2004. And they agreed that renewal of the levy will be crucial to maintaining the school system's high quality.

Their statements at the forum and in interviews with The Nugget are the basis for the following sketches of the candidates in the two races:

Coffield, 53, is widely known in the community as the executive director of SOAR (Sisters Organization for Activities and Recreation), a position he has held for the past eight years. He has lived in Sisters for 11 years, and his wife teaches at Bend High School.

He grew up on the coast and attended Oregon State University. He taught middle school in Forest Grove and high school in Lincoln City, working primarily as a vocational teacher. He left teaching to start a boat building and repair business in Newport, which he ran for 11 years before selling it and moving to Sisters.

Coffield has not run for public office in Sisters before but for five years he served on the board of the Newport port district, experience which he believes will give him an edge if he is elected to the school board.

As SOAR director, he says, he is "in the schools a lot -- so I have a knowledge of what's going on in the schools that a lot of people wouldn't have." He also claims "'quite a bit of experience in creating programs out of very little money and I thought there might be some ways I could help the school district do that."

Matthews, 60, is a retired educator who has lived in Sisters for two years but before moving had a cabin in the area since 1984. He earned an art degree from Montana State University, worked as a commercial artist for a few years, then obtained a master's degree from Lewis and Clark in Portland.

He was hired in 1969 as an art teacher and soccer coach, part of the staff that opened Aloha High School in Beaverton. He did a lot of work with, and research on, at-risk students, and in the late '80s took a two-year leave to obtain his doctorate in education from Oregon State.

Returning to Beaverton, he helped start Merlo Station High School, which became the largest alternative school in Oregon. The school in part reflects Matthews' view that standard high schools have grown too large and that, with the breakdown of the family unit, many students need a smaller facility where they can receive more personal attention.

The candidate says he is running because he wants to "pay back the schools for some of the things they allowed me to do. So I don't have an agenda, I'm not one of these people who's irritated about something. I am an advocate of small schools, which Sisters is blessed with. I think it's a wonderful school district."

Erlandson, 44, grew up north of Chicago, in Palatine, Illinois, and obtained a bachelor's degree in finance and marketing from the University of Arizona in 1981. He lived in Scottsdale, Arizona, for 18 years, working in real estate and investment banking, before moving to Sisters in late 1993. He and his wife have four children, two of whom are Sisters students, Justin in the second grade and Austin in the fifth.

Erlandson is probably best known as the owner and manager of Strategic Mortgage, but he also operates a second local business, Fishcraft Outfitters, which makes aluminum boats.

He has been involved with many children's programs in recent years but has not run for office before. He said he is doing so partly at the urging of others.

At the candidates' forum he stressed the need for the school board to be "creative" in coping with financial problems, drawing upon the expertise of the community. In answer to one question, he said that a successful high school graduate should be qualified to enter any of the state's public universities or to "pursue his passion" if he doesn't want more formal education. He added that every graduate should also "know how to balance a checkbook" and understand credit.

Smith, 57, has been on the faculty of California State University at Dominguez Hills for 28 years, where he teaches public finance and policy. He commutes by air during the academic year but is on leave this year. He and his wife have lived in Sisters since 1995.

Smith was an ecumenical graduate student: He holds bachelor's and master's degrees from Oregon State and a Ph.D. in political science from the University of Oregon. He is also a former college wrestler and wrestling coach who continues to take a strong interest in the sport at the high school level.

While now completing his first term on the board, Smith served on the school budget committee for five years before being elected. He told the forum audience he is proud of his leadership role in the board's recent search for a superintendent to replace Steve Swisher, who is retiring.

Smith said he is running for another term because he has "an uncommon passion" for education and believes "it is important to have an educator on the board." In answering questions, he expressed dismay at the erosion of local control of the schools resulting from the shift of financial responsibility to the state, but cautioned board members and school officials against "whining" too much about money problems.

"We have to play the cards we are dealt," he said.