Haken will contest school board seat

There will be a Sisters School Board contest in the May 17 election after all. A last-minute filing by Sisters business owner Jeff Haken will pit him against former high-tech executive RobCorrigan.

The contested seat, Position 2, is being vacated byveteran Sisters Realtor Bill Reed, who is retiring after 13 years on the board.

Two other seats on the five-member board will be on the ballot but uncontested. Position 5 is occupied by Board Chairman Glen Lasken, who is running for re-election, and Position 1 is held by Nugget publisher Eric Dolson, who is not seeking re-election. The sole candidate for Dolson’s spot is Mike Gould, who runs a research and consulting firm for radio stations in smaller markets.

Corrigan, Lasken and Gould all filed early in the process. Haken put his name in on deadline day, March 17. He said he had decided to run some time ago but didn’t get around to filling because of business travels and other commitments.

Haken said he made a conscious if not totally comfortable decision to run against Corrigan rather than Laksen or Gould.

“I’m friends with Rob,” he said in an interview. “I hate to run against Rob because I like him. But we do have different views.”

Haken described himself as conservative, particularly when it comes to fiscalmatters.

“I believe everybody works hard for their money and I believe the money needs to be wisely spent, that’s the main thing,” he explained.

Does he consider Corrigan more liberal? “I would think so, yeah,” he replied. “It would be pointless to run against someone with the same views.”

The newest candidate is a co-owner of Haken Professional, a Sisters cosmetics manufacturing firm that sells to such national retailers as Wal-Mart and Walgreen. He also owns the downtown Garden of Eden gift shop.

Haken, 34, grew up in Banks and graduated from high school there. He attended Portland State University for a year and then joined his dad’s cosmetics business, based in Portland. The owners decided to move the business from Portland to Sisters seven years ago because of the former city’s increasing business taxes.

Haken and his wife, Jennifer, have three children in Sisters Elementary School — Alicia, 10; Brooklyn, 8; and Cierra, 5. A fourth child, Daytona, is 2.

Corrigan, 43, moved to Sisters about three years ago after two decades working mainly with technology startup firms in the San Francisco Bay area. He continues to be active in the field as a consultant. A native of Chicago, he holds a bachelor’s degree from Harvard.

He and his wife, Merry Ann Moore, have a daughter, Emily, in the third grade and a son, Drew, in the fourth. Corrigan is on the Sisters Elementary School Site Council, is a board member of the Sisters Schools Foundation and worked on the local option campaign.

Haken said lack of time has kept him from being involved in school affairs except as a parent in the past. But he has spent several years helping with the Sisters Community Church youth group, the Hangar.

“I’m finally in a place where I’m only going to work one or two hours a day at my main job…so I have time now,” he said. “I’d love to spend an hour a day in different schools, just observing and working with the schools. I don’t think you should be on the school board unless you can afford the time.”

Ballots for the May 17 election are to be in the mail near the end of April.