Campaign contribution checks of $1,000 are uncommon in off-year, non-partisan local elections, but one Whidbey Island candidate has received two such checks.

David Marshall, running for Whidbey General Hospital District Position 5 commissioner, has received contributions of $1,000 from both Susan Zaveruha and Dr. Thom Vader.

Susan Zaveruha, a nurse, is married to Dr. Paul Zaveruha, a surgeon who is one of the five elected hospital commissioners.

Dr. Vader, an anesthesiologist, works with Dr. Zaveruha in the hospital’s surgery department.

Marshall is trying to unseat nine-year incumbent Kristy Lang Miller for Position 5, which represents the area north of Oak Harbor on the hospital board.

Miller and Zaveruha are sometimes at odds on the board, Marshall acknowledged in an interview.

“Rather than trying to work as a team, they don’t function at the level they should function at,” Marshall said. “There’s negative energy because of personality issues.”

Marshall, whose wife works for Dr. Zaveruha, agreed that one of the major issues of the campaign is Zaveruha and how other board members relate to him. “He’s bright, opinionated and polarizing, to a certain extent,” Marshall said.

Marshall has denied Zaveruha will have any undue influence over him if he’s elected to the hospital board, or that his wife’s position working for Zaveruha would influence his decision making.

He has shown he will back up Zaveruha, however. Marshall protested from his seat in the audience when Zaveruha was asked to recuse himself and leave the room when the subject of funding Emergency Services came up at a recent board meeting. As director of Emergency Services, Zaveruha had a conflict of interest.

Marshall agreed there is a conflict of interest and Zaveruha should recuse himself from the vote, but he felt asking Zaveruha to leave the room during the discussion was going too far.

“Why’d he get kicked out of the room?” asked Marshall. “I have no problem with recusal.”

Marshall said the hospital’s policy on conflicts of interest is too strict as it applies to the elected commissioners. “It’s not the administration’s job to hold the commissioners’ feet to the fire on a conflict of interest,” he said.

He said he spent the $2,000 from Susan Zaveruha and Dr. Vader largely on campaign signs.

Kristy Lang Miller said the contributions made to her opponent are “a lot of money for a non-paid position.” She listed her largest contributions as $50 from fellow hospital board member Barbara Saugen, $100 from board member Roger Case, and “$200 from my mom and dad.”

Miller is one of the board members who advised Zaveruha against running for the board two years ago, because of conflict of interest concerns. Zaveruha decided to run anyway and won with a large majority of the vote.

“I don’t have a grudge,” Miller said. “I was looking out for the hospital’s best interest.”

Because Zaveruha is so active in the hospital and medical community, Miller believes his conflicts go beyond the Emergency Services budget. “There’s a whole laundry list of stuff,” she said. “He’s into everything.”

If re-elected, Miller said she will be able to continue working with Dr. Zaveruha on the board despite their differences. “I encourage differences of opinion,” she said.

Dr. Zaveruha said he had no role in raising campaign funds for David Marshall although he was aware of the $1,000 donations. “Wives can do whatever they want,” he said, referring to Susan Zaveruha. “My wife is very concerned where the hospital is going and she put her money to that end.”

Zaveruha said that by law, he can’t get involved in the commissioner race between Marshall and Miller. “I can’t comment on the two that are running, there’s a prohibition,” he said. “People have tried to enlist me but I won’t get involved in the process.”