ABA Announces 2016 Board Candidates

Printer-friendly versionPrinter-friendly version

Petition process opens for additional candidates

The American Booksellers Association’s Board of Directors, which met last month just prior to Winter Institute 11, approved the ABA Nominating Committee’s recommendation of the following four candidates to stand for election to three-year terms (2016 – 2019) as directors on the ABA Board:

  • Kris Kleindienst of Left Bank Books in St. Louis, Missouri
  • Chris Morrow of Northshire Bookstore in Manchester Center, Vermont, and Saratoga Springs, New York
  • Annie Philbrick of Bank Square Books in Mystic, Connecticut, and Savoy Bookshop in Westerly, Rhode Island
  • Robert Sindelar of Third Place Books, with two locations in the Seattle, Washington, area and a third scheduled to open in spring 2016.

Philbrick and Sindelar are coming to the end of their first three-year term on the Board and are eligible for a second three-year term; Sindelar is also in the first year of a two-year term as ABA vice president, serving alongside ABA President Betsy Burton of The King’s English Bookshop in Salt Lake City, Utah. This is the first time that Kleindienst and Morrow have stood for election to the ABA Board.

Sarah Bagby of Watermark Books & Café in Wichita, Kansas, will leave the Board in May at the end of her second three-year term on the Board.

Four candidates, rather than three, are up for election to the Board in 2016 as a result of the membership’s approval of an ABA Bylaws amendment in October 2015 that increased the number of members serving on the Board from 10 to 11. The amendment was put to a vote in order to increase the opportunity for diversity among the Board’s members and to improve the association’s governance by avoiding the possibility for tie votes.

A ballot for the 2016 Board elections will be sent to ABA members via e-mail in mid-March, 60 days prior to the Annual Membership Meeting, which will be held on May 12 at Chicago’s McCormick Place 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 10, 2016, 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, 2016; 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.

Serving on the 2015 – 2016 Nominating Committee were ABA Board member Jamie Fiocco of Flyleaf Books in Chapel Hill, North Carolina (chairperson); ABA Board member Pete Mulvihill of Green Apple Books in San Francisco, California; Kelly Estep of Carmichael’s Bookstore in Louisville, Kentucky; Sara Hines of Eight Cousins in Falmouth, Massachusetts; and Peter Schertz of Maria’s Bookshop in Durango, Colorado

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