ABA Announces 2014 Board Candidates

Petition Process Opens for Additional Candidates

The American Booksellers Association’s Board of Directors, which met last week in Seattle just prior to Winter Institute 9, has named three director candidates to stand for election to three-year terms (2014 - 2017) on the Board:

• John Evans of DIESEL, A Bookstore, with locations in Brentwood, Larkspur, Malibu, and Oakland, California
• Jamie Fiocco of Flyleaf Books in Chapel Hill, North Carolina
• Matthew Norcross of McLean & Eakin Booksellers in Petoskey, Michigan

Evans and Norcross are approaching the end of their first three-year terms as directors and both are eligible for a second three-year term. Ken White of San Francisco’s Books Inc. is coming to the end of his second two-year term and is not eligible to seek re-election.

The names of Evans, Fiocco, and Norcross will appear on the Board ballot to be sent to ABA members via e-mail at the end of March, 60 days prior to the May 29 Annual Membership Meeting at the Javits Convention Center during BookExpo America.

In keeping with a 2011 amendment to ABA’s Bylaws that established two-year terms for Board officers, this spring Steve Bercu of Austin’s BookPeople and Betsy Burton of The King’s English Bookshop in Salt Lake City, Utah, will begin their second year as ABA president and vice president/secretary, respectively. Their names will not appear on the ballot.

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 requirements must be meet:

• 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 3, 2014, 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, 2014; 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 2013–2014 Nominating Committee is chaired by ABA Board member Valerie Koehler of Blue Willow Bookshop in Houston, Texas, and includes ABA Board member Robert Sindelar of Third Place Books in Lake Forest Park and Ravenna, Washington; former ABA Board member Tom Campbell of The Regulator Bookshop in Durham, North Carolina; Calvin Crosby of Book Passage in Corte Madera, California; and Kelly Justice of Fountain Book Store in Richmond, Virginia.

If a bookstore member is working to circulate a petition, we ask that you contact BTW so that we can provide news coverage in future editions.