The four remaining candidates running for two seats on the Port Washington Library Board on April 12 squared off at a forum last Wednesday, presenting the qualifications that they said made them best qualified to serve.
The race features three candidates running to serve for the first time and incumbent Trustee Nancy Comer, seeking to serve a second five-year term. Candidate Ronit Daniel dropped out prior to the forum. Trustee positions are unpaid.
The election will be held on April 12 from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. in the lobby of the Port Washington Public Library.
“I’m running for re-election because I’m selfish,” Comer said. “I love this library and I love that our community is proud of it.”
Comer said her longtime involvement with the library, service on the Health Advisory Council, and founder of the unique “Books for Dessert,” a book club for people with developmental and intellectual disabilities program, and her experience on not-for-profit boards and years serving on Library committees have given her the skills and experience to make a meaningful contribution to the library.
Comer said she believes the library’s biggest challenge is technology and keeping up with the digital age.
“We’ve all heard that libraries are irrelevant soon they’ll be gone, but not this one. Other libraries are struggling now to do what we’ve been doing for years, changing,” Comer said. “I want to help keep the library doing what it does best, maintain itself as one of our community’s most valuable resources. As well as aid its ongoing transformation to meet the challenges of the digital age.”
William Keller, vice president of finance and administration at Queens College, said he believes his experience in higher education, management consulting, investment banking, health care, and secondary school teaching business and government will help the library maintain and expand programs despite budget constraints.
“For the past 13 years I’ve been responsible for facilities management and construction at two major community colleges,” Keller said. “I can help our excellent library management team to ensure that the new children’s library center is done according to plan and hopefully within the budget. I have managed budgets for government and private sector companies and know how to do more with less. I’ve developed and successfully Implemented plans to increase revenues, obtain grants and partner with other organizations to increase services within a strict budget.”
Port Resident Jeffrey Siegal, an internet and phone application developer, writer, and blogger, said his extensive experience in the field of technology would be valuable to the board as it plans for the future of the Port Washington Library.
“What I’m bring is a ground floor perspective,” Siegal said. “I for the past several years I’ve been in the library day in and day out. So I see the state of the ordinary facilities. I have no clue what the women’s room looks like, but I can tell you that the men’s room definitely needs a lot of work.”
Siegal said at the forum that he’s impressed with the other candidates running but doesn’t believe you have to have a background in accounting and finance to be a good trustee.
“Quite frankly budget, accountants, they put me to sleep, but there are people who understand those things and I do understand a budget when I see them,” Siegal said. “Not everyone on the board has to have an accounting background. You need someone like me who’s going to ask some interesting questions. Do we replace everything with technology? What is the balance between technology and paper? These are questions that really concern me. Everything is not just dollars and cents but also a balance between the quality of the experience that we’re going to have here in the library, which is certainly a result of the expenditures but also where those expenditures where they go.”
Eric Kruger, who has more than 20 years of executive level financial management experience, is an certified public accountant and a former member of the Port Washington Fire Department. He is also a member of an executive committee for a New York City financial company and said he believes his background in budgeting and strategic planning will be useful.
“I think one of the most important aspects of strategic planning is being a good listener.
Finding out what the community needs and what they want,” Kruger said. “You have to have the vision to see not only what’s going to be needed today or tomorrow but down the road. So I think whenever you start out with a strategic plan what you really need to do is step back and really see what the requirements and demands are, and start with that as your foundation and start from there.”
Residents will also vote on April 12 on the $7.34 million library budget for 2016-17, which calls for a 1.35 percent increase in spending of $100,000.
The proposed budget calls for a 1.39 percent tax levy increase, which library officials said is within the state-mandated tax cap.
