ABA Announces 2013 Board Candidates

Petition Process Opens for Additional Candidates

The American Booksellers Association’s Board of Directors, which met this week in Kansas City just prior to the Winter Institute, has named three director candidates to stand for election to three-year terms (2013 - 2016) on the Board:

• Sarah Bagby of Watermark Books and Café, Wichita, Kansas
• Annie Philbrick of Bank Square Books, Mystic, Connecticut
• Robert Sindelar of Third Place Books, Lake Forest Park, Washington

Bagby is coming to the end of her first three-year term as a director and is eligible for a second three-year term.

The Board also named Steve Bercu of BookPeople in Austin, Texas, ABA’s current vice president, to serve a two-year term as ABA president. He will replace Becky Anderson of Anderson’s Bookshops in Naperville, Illinois, who is coming to the end of her two-year term as president. Betsy Burton of The King’s English Bookshop in Salt Lake City, Utah, has been named by the Board to serve as ABA vice president/secretary.

Their names and those of the director candidates will appear on the Board ballot that will be sent to ABA members via e-mail by the end of March, 60 days prior to the Annual Membership Meeting, to be held at the Javits Convention Center during BookExpoAmerica.

Under the Bylaws, in addition to candidates put forth by the Nominating Committee and approved by the Board, any bookstore member may submit a petition for a director candidate. Upon receipt of a valid petition, the ABA Nominating Committee will add the petitioned candidate’s name to the director ballot.

Should bookstore members wish to submit a petition, the following apply:

• A candidate must be an employee or owner of an ABA member bookstore. The member bookstore must be in good standing, and the individual candidate must have at least three years’ experience in a bookstore-member company.
• Each petition can present only one candidate.
• All petitions must be submitted by March 25, 2013, to the Chair, ABA Nominating Committee, c/o ABA, 333 Westchester Avenue, Suite S202, White Plains, New York 10604.
• The names on the petition in support of the candidate must reflect at least two percent of ABA Bookstore Members as of January 1, 2013; that is a minimum of 25 signatures. The petition must contain original signatures and the names, addresses, and telephone numbers of bookstore members in at least five states, with representatives of no one state constituting more than 50 percent of the total number of petition signatures.

Upon receipt of a valid petition, the Nominating Committee will add the candidate’s name to the ballot sent to ABA membership.

The 2013 Nominating Committee is chaired by ABA Board member John Evans of DIESEL, A Bookstore in Los Angeles, Malibu, and Oakland, California. The other 2013 committee members are Sue Boucher of Lake Forest Book Store in Lake Forest, Illinois; Casey Coonerty of Bookshop Santa Cruz in Santa Cruz, California; Board member Valerie Koehler of Blue Willow Bookshop in Houston, Texas; and Mark Mouser of University Book Store in Seattle, Washington.

If a bookstore member is working to circulate a petition, please contact BTW so that we can provide future coverage.