6 Vie For 4 Seats On Library Board

6 vie for 4 seats on library board

3 incumbents, 3 newcomers will be on the ballot June 14

BY JO COLLINS MATHIS
News Staff Reporter

Three incumbents and three newcomers will compete for four terms on the Ann Arbor District Library Board.

The incumbents are David Cahill, Edward Surovell and J.D. Lindeberg. The newcomers are Margaret Leary, Rebecca Head and Bill Finch.

Trustee Connie Powers said she is not seeking re-election because she has other commitments.

Surovell, the longest-serving trustee, was elected to the seven-member board in 1996. The president of Edward Surovell Realtors said he considered retiring from the board after serving two terms, but realized there are still things that need to be done. Surovell said his history with the library and the many decisions he’s helped make over the years are an asset to the board.

“And I think I have an awful lot to contribute,” said Surovell, 64, who has a large home library and describes himself as a “book person.”

Cahill, 61, an attorney in sole practice, said he is running again because he wants to continue the AADLs branch building program.

“Malletts Creek is the first of four new branches that I’m actively involved in,” he said, noting that he wants to help guide the Oak Valley Drive branch and eventually the replacements of the west and northeast branches.

Cahill, who drafted a resolution expressing the library’s concerns about the Patriot Act last summer, said he wants to continue to “preserve intellectual freedom and patron privacy”

Board President Lindeberg, 44, said he’s proud of the board’s many accomplishments during the past four years. He said he’s running again because the job is personally gratifying, and there is more to be done.

“We need to finish the branch building program, which is a $20 to $25 million program of making all our branches as nice or nicer than Mallets Creek,” said Lindeberg, owner of R.R.S.I., an Ann Arbor-based consulting and engineering firm. “And I want to see the strategic plan we’re going to pass this month get under way in its implementation.”

Newcomer Head, 55, calls the library a “community treasure.”

“In the strategic plan for the upcoming several years, one of the goals is to continue to be in the community and provide programs relevant to the community,” said Head, director of public health emergency preparedness for Washtenaw County. “I want to help shepherd the library as it works toward this goal.”

Leary, 61, is director and librarian at the University of Michigan Law Library.

“I am running because I believe public libraries are really, really essential to our community and actually, the whole nation,” she said. “I think they’re a critical part of a real democracy”

Leary, who was on the City Planning Commission for nine years and has worked on building projects at the law library, also said she’d bring experience to the board that would be helpful as the library expands its branches.

Finch, 38, teaches Latin at Pioneer High School.

“ I’m very much interested in ... giving something back to the community,” he said. “It seems to be a good thing to do. And also, they were talking about wanting to have a closer relationship, more contact, between the schools and the library. So it just seemed a natural.”

The four-year terms begin July 1 and end June 30, 2008. Candidates can withdraw from the race until 4 p.m. Thursday, and are unofficial until then. The election is June 14.

Contact Jo Collins Mathis at jmathis@annarbornews.com or (734) 994-6849.