ABA Announces 2015 Board Candidates

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Petition Process Opens for Additional Candidates

The American Booksellers Association’s Board of Directors, which met last week in Asheville, North Carolina, just prior to Winter Institute 10, approved the ABA Nominating Committee’s recommendation of the following three candidates to stand for election to three-year terms (2015 - 2018) as directors on the ABA Board:

Koehler and Welch are coming to the end of their first three-year term on the Board and are eligible for a second three-year term. Mulvihill has not previously served on the ABA Board.

In a related action, the Board selected Betsy Burton of The King’s English Bookshop in Salt Lake City, Utah, ABA’s current vice president, for a two-year term as ABA president, and current Board member Robert Sindelar of Third Place Books in Lake Forest Park, Washington, to serve as ABA vice president/secretary. Their selection by the Board must be ratified by ABA membership.

Steve Bercu of BookPeople in Austin, Texas, will leave the Board in May at the end of his two-year term as president, following six years on the Board.

A ballot for the 2015 Board elections 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. The ballot will include space for write-in candidates.

Under the ABA Bylaws, any bookstore member may submit petitions to have the names of additional candidates for Board officers and/or directors added to the 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 and, to be valid, must name a candidate who meets the qualifications for office established under the Bylaws.
  • All petitions must be submitted by March 20, 2015, 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, 2015; 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 candidate’s name will be added to the ballot sent to ABA membership.

The members of the 2014 – 2015 Nominating Committee, responsible for recommending the Board director candidates, were Robert Sindelar (chair); former ABA President Becky Anderson of Anderson’s Bookshop in Naperville, Illinois; ABA Board member Jamie Fiocco of Flyleaf Books in Chapel Hill, North Carolina; Nicole Magistro of The Bookworm of Edwards in Edwards, Colorado; and Ann Seaton of Hicklebee’s in San Jose, California.

Bookstore members who are working to circulate a petition are asked to contact BTW for future coverage.