2008 ABA Board Candidates and Petition Guidelines

At its January meeting, the American Booksellers Association's Board of Directors approved the report of the ABA Nominating Committee, chaired by ABA Board member Beth Puffer of Bank Street Bookstore in New York City. The Committee presented the Board with the names of three director candidates for three-year terms (2008 - 2011) on the Board. (Under ABA's bylaws, each year three members of the nine-member Board come to the end of their terms.)

Booksellers nominated as candidates for the upcoming elections are Dan Chartrand of Water Street Bookstore in Exeter, New Hampshire; Michael Tucker of Books Inc. in San Francisco; and Ken White of SFSU Bookstore in San Francisco. Tucker is currently a member of the ABA Board and is eligible for an additional three-year term.

Booksellers leaving the ABA Board in June 2008 are Russ Lawrence of Chapter One Book Store in Hamilton, Montana, and Collette Morgan of Wild Rumpus in Minneapolis.

At its meeting, the Board also selected Gayle Shanks of Changing Hands Bookstore in Tempe, Arizona, as ABA President and Michael Tucker of Books Inc. in San Francisco, as ABA Vice President/Secretary for additional one-year terms, beginning June 2008. Their names and those of director candidates will appear on the Board ballot, which will be mailed in late March, 60 days prior to the ABA Annual Membership Meeting, for approval by membership. Return board ballots must be postmarked April 30, 2008.

Under ABA's 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; there is a time frame of approximately one month to circulate petitions to place names on the ballot. Upon receipt of a valid petition, the Nominating Committee will add the petitioned candidate's name to the Director ballot.

Should any bookstore member 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 12, 2008, to Chair, ABA Nominating Committee, c/o ABA, 200 White Plains Rd., Tarrytown, NY 10591.
• The names on the petition in support of the candidate must reflect at least two percent of the Bookstore Members as of January 1, 2008; that is, a minimum of 32 signatures. The petition must contain original signatures, the name of the ABA member bookstore, address, and telephone number.
• The names on the petition in support of the candidate must come from 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 petitioned candidate's name to the ballot for Board of Directors' elections sent to the membership. (To help BTW's coverage of the election process, if any bookstore member is working to circulate a petition, please let us know by sending an e-mail to [email protected].)
  

In addition to Puffer, this year's Nominating Committee included ABA Board member Steve Bercu of BookPeople in Austin, Texas; Paul Hanson of Eagle Harbor Book Company in Bainbridge Island, Washington; Linda Ramsdell of The Galaxy Bookshop in Hardwick, Vermont; and Alison Reid of DIESEL, a Bookstore in Oakland, California.