Petition Process Open for Additional Board Candidates

The ballot for the American Booksellers Association’s 2013 Board of Directors [1] elections, which will be sent via e-mail to main store members at the end of March, will feature the names of three director candidates approved by the Board:

• Sarah Bagby of Watermark Books and Café [2], Wichita, Kansas
   
• Annie Philbrick of Bank Square Books [3], Mystic, Connecticut
   
• Robert Sindelar of Third Place Books [4], Lake Forest Park, Washington

Under ABA’s Bylaws [5], bookstore members may submit petitions to have additional director candidates placed on the ballot. Should a bookstore member wish to submit a petition, the following rules 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 to be sent to ABA membership.

In keeping with the 2011 Bylaws amendment [6] that established two-year terms for ABA’s president and vice president, this year’s ballot will include Steve Bercu of BookPeople [7]in Austin, Texas, who has been named by the Board to serve a two-year term as ABA president, and Betsy Burton of The King’s English Bookshop [8]in Salt Lake City, Utah, who has been named to serve as ABA vice president/secretary.

If any bookstore member is working to circulate a petition, BTW would like to know. [9]