Dave Marlow running for school board Position 1

Dave Marlow was born and raised in the Portland metro area, and after 30 years working in the engineering department for the Port of Portland, Marlow retired to Sisters 13 years ago. A frequent visitor to Sunriver for family vacations, on one visit they came through Sisters instead of going back over Mt. Hood, and they fell in love with the area.

Marlow is running against newcomer Eric Pronold and current board chair Don Hedrick for the four-year Position 1 on the school board.

Since arriving in Sisters, Marlow has been active in a variety of volunteer activities through Kiwanis, including the Sisters Middle School greenhouse and more recently setting up for the Buckaroo Breakfast for the upcoming rodeo.

Marlow recalled that a few years back, he read an opinion piece on teacher compensation by then Sisters school budget committee member Matt Cyrus. The op-ed argued the notion that Sisters teachers were being paid at roughly 15 percent above their "market value."

Marlow had spent several years working on compensation packages for his Port of Portland employee committee and he was intrigued. Since then he has become a regular visitor at school board meetings and frequently raises issues of concern during the "visitor communication" portion of the meeting.

One of Marlow's complaints is that "there is almost never any feedback from the board on the issues that he raises." He understands why there can't be a dialog during the meeting.

Marlow also spent one year on the school budget committee and "five or six years" on the city planning commission, "two or three of those years" as chair of the commission.

The planning commission stint was just after the sewers were installed and it was

"...a very crazy time for building," said Marlow. "I really enjoyed the work and the people."

Marlow would like to see some operational changes with the school board.

"The school board needs to be better at managing their business," said Marlow. "I don't want to say anything bad about Jim Golden because I think he is doing a good job, but there are no new ideas brought in from the outside business world. There is none of the promised community outreach that I have seen."

Speaking to his experience with the budget committee, Marlow said, "The district treats the statute that creates the citizen committee for a fixed number of meetings as an absolute rule when it is not. We never did get the training we were promised. The district portion of the committee can always overrule the citizen portion of the committee.

"But if I had a real soap box on why I am running," said Marlow, "it would be to get more vocational-technical classes in the schools."

Marlow also expressed frustration with the current teacher compensation practices.

"Why does the district give raises to teachers when they renew their credentials every three years?" said Marlow. "I would like to see a performance-based compensation plan. The district is required to enter into collective bargaining with the teachers, but our contract does not have to be the same as Bend or Redmond."

Marlow was as the oldest of four boys, with a single mom. He started out with vocational drafting in high school and found that to be an "evolutionary path" into engineering, design, and construction.

Marlow learned project management as part of the team that implemented the first computer aided design (CAD) system at the Port of Portland.

Married 41 years with two grown children, Marlow had an unlikely business in his garage for the last six or seven years. He sold ballroom dancing shoes on the Internet. His daughter actually started the business as an off-shoot of her dancing activities. She sold the business to her dad when she moved on to other activities. He got out of the business a little over a year ago.

Dave's wife, Sandy, has been active in the hunter/jumper community and recently donated a lot of her tack to Crystal Peaks Youth Ranch. The Marlows also have two horses that are retired from the Crystal Peaks herd, including Handsome, who is featured in one of Kim Meeder's books.