GUILDERLAND — For the first time in years, there’s a race for the library’s board of trustees.

Four candidates — three of them incumbents — are vying for three seats.

In recent years, the board has had to rely on write-in candidates to fill out its ranks. But this year, four candidates filed petitions in time for last week’s deadline.

Treasurer James Denn, President Robert Ganz, Trustee Diane Rosenbaum-Weisz, and newcomer Carroll Valachovic will square off at the polls on May 16.

The top two vote-getters in the at-large election will each serve a five-year term; the candidate coming in third will serve a one-year term.

The board is made up of 11 unpaid members.

The Enterprise asked the four candidates about their backgrounds and goals, why they are running, and what is their favorite book.

The candidates were also asked their views on three issues:

— The budget: The library board has proposed a $2.66 million budget for next year, up about $238,000 or 9.85 percent from this year.

— Labeling books: Last year, a trustee proposed labeling books for young readers that contained sexually explicit material. The notion was rejected by the board after a large turn-out at a public meeting on the matter.

— Long-range planning: A five-year plan was developed, with community input, four years ago. The candidates were asked if the plan’s goals have been met and, if a new plan is needed, what should be included.

James Denn
"I’m sure all of the candidates are well qualified," said James Denn. "I welcome the opportunity to participate. I bring to the board a long history in the community...My children use the library. I recognize its value and seek to help it grow."
Denn has been on the library board since 2001 and served as its treasurer for three years. As treasurer, he said, he heads the finance committee and "works closely with the library’s director on day-to-day finances."
During his tenure, he said, "We’ve seen the library grow in its collections, its prestige, and its importance to the community."

Denn, who is 45, has watched the library’s progress for a long time.

His family has lived in the Guilderland School District since 1950, he said. He graduated from Guilderland High School in 1978, and went on to earn a bachelor’s degree in political science from the State University of New York College at Oneonta, and a master’s degree in public administration from Rockefeller College at the University at Albany.

He has worked for six years as the deputy executive director of the New York State Office of Science, Technology, and Academic Research.

He and his wife, Jil, have two children who are regular library users — Daniel, 17, and Aimee, 12.
Denn is currently in the midst of reading Barbara Tuchman’s The Guns of August. He enjoys reading about history and Tuchman’s book, centered on August of 1914, focuses on World War I and "a critical time in our history," said Denn, when Europe was heading to war.
On the library budget proposal, Denn said, "As treasurer, I took special pains, as did the entire board, to make sure the budget is both fair and helps attain the goals the community wants."

He is particularly excited about a new program on genealogy and local history, funded in the budget for the upcoming year.
"That’s important to show folks we’re not just a bedroom community but we have a long presence," said Denn.
On the trustee’s proposal to label books, Denn said, as a father of young readers, "I was one of the few board members who understood where John Daly was coming from. My challenge to the professional staff was, when they add to the collection, they work to ensure it is quality writing.
"I don’t want books labeled or censored, but I want books of redeeming value in our collection."
On planning, Denn said, "The library is poised to expand its role in the community, reaching even more people, particularly the elderly. That’s a very important group for the library to reach."
Denn said it is also important to "continue to serve the young people, to make sure they remain engaged in reading and learning; that’s critical for their future."
He went on, "As we go into the future, I believe the library will be of even greater importance to the community, to serve not only as a place where information is exchanged, but as a meeting place."

Robert Ganz
"I’ve always been involved in charitable and community-service organizations," said Robert Ganz. "I don’t think, in 30 years of doing that, I’ve had a more satisfying experience than serving the public library."
He went on, "It’s an important community institution, beyond books." This involves services ranging from "outreach on health information" to "inculcating a love of reading during story hours" for children, he said.
"We’re blessed in Guilderland to have a wonderful, wonderful library; its a joy to be part of it," said Ganz, who said he puts in about 20 hours a week as the board’s president.
Ganz said his wife, Dorothy, "single-handedly keeps up circulation at the library" because she’s such an avid reader. His three children and two stepchildren are "all grown and gone," he said.
His favorite book of recent years, Ganz said, is The Kite Runner, a novel by Khaled Hosseini, set in Afghanistan. Ganz said it "deals with issues of class, race, friendship, betrayal, second chances, and so much more."

Ganz, 55, grew up in Trenton, N.J. He received a bachelor’s degree in political science from the University of Rochester and a law degree from Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C.

He practices business law with the Albany firm of Ganz, Wolkenbreit, and Friedman.

Ganz was appointed to the library board in 2000 and elected in 2001. He named several accomplishments he is proud of in his six years on the board.
"I was the initiator of the Guilderland Library Foundation, which has been successful in getting grants," he said.
Also, four years ago, Ganz chaired the committee that involved the community in coming up with a "strategic long-range vision" for the library, he said.
"During the last year, I was able to lead the library through acquiring a piece of property that ensured our future," Ganz said, referring to property adjacent to the library on Western Avenue.
Finally, he said, "Last year, during the debate about labeling books, I was able as president to lead us through that difficult process....The community got to talk about something pretty important and we came to a clear community understanding."
Asked his own views on labeling books, Ganz said, "I’m very supportive of the concept of the freedom to read. We have to trust in our young people and trust in their parents. That’s the job of the parents — to supervise. The library is there to provide a wealth of information."
Ganz said that the upcoming budget is "very important." He went on, "We have a lot of things we offer — not just fluff, core important services. And people are not always fully informed of them."

For this reason, he said, one of the two most important additions to the budget is a part-time position for communication, which will help with links to the school community and town government.
The other fundamental new position, Ganz said, is one that will focus on adult outreach. "The more intellectually active our seniors are, the better their health is," he said. "We, in Guilderland, don’t believe in artificial lines."

Long-time Guilderland residents who have moved to nearby retirement communities like Beverwyck or Daughters of Sarah, which are outside of the school-district boundaries served by the library, will still be included, he said.
"We’re going to serve those communities...We need to reach out," he said.
Referring to the labor contract, Ganz also said that the library’s agreement with the union was "fair and equitable." He said, "It gives us peace and stability for four years."
He concluded, "I’m very comfortable the community will support the budget."
On planning, Ganz said, the initial study involved a random scientific telephone survey which found "even the people who did not use the library felt it was a valuable community service."
He went on, "The long-range plan is a document that has to be revised...We’ve not met every one of the specific goals and objectives. But in four years, nothing is off-base on priorities. It will be revised in moderate ways.
"The big issue for planning," he said, "will be gauging community interest on the costs of expansion."
The library is often crowded and space limits curtail some activities, Ganz said. "We need to start a process to think through expansion and how affordable it would be. No one wants to build a palace," he said.

Some ideas that might be considered, he said, would be a special room, with proper temperature controls, for local-history collections, or a gathering place for cultural performances.
When the Civil War Roundtable or NASCAR fans or Little League planners meet at the library, "circulation goes up," Ganz said. "These things go hand in hand."

Diane Rosenbaum-Weisz
"When I was a child and the bookmobile came to the neighborhood, it was the greatest joy," said Diane Rosenbaum-Weisz. From her perspective as a girl on Long Island, who could only visit a library if her parents drove her, she remembers the bookmobile as "a huge van with an enormous selection of books."

As a trustee now for the Guilderland Public Library, Rosenbaum-Weisz said she thinks beyond bricks and mortar. She’d like to bring the library into the community, she said.

She points to the outreach programs already underway at both ends of the age spectrum — Guilderland librarians read stories to children at Crossgates Mall and books are delivered to the homebound elderly.

But, Rosenbaum-Weisz says she’d like to see the library do more; for example, sponsor book-discussion groups at senior residence complexes.

Rosenbaum-Weisz, 51, was appointed to the library board last October, after coming in second the year before in a write-in campaign.
"I very much enjoy being on the board," she said. "The library plays such an important role in our community, beyond just having books as when I was a child. Now we’ve expanded with technology; it’s exciting to be part of making that happen."

In her time on the library board, she said, she has been an active member of the policies and procedures subcommitte, and she recently helped select speakers for a retreat on the role of trustees.

Rosenbaum-Weisz has a wide-ranging background. She earned her bachelor’s degree at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, creating her own major — in consumer economics and business. She went on to earn a law degree at Albany Law School, and then practiced law for 10 years. She had a general practice with a focus on personal-injury work, on the plaintiffs’ side.

She then went back to school, earning a master’s degree in social work in 1993 at the University at Albany School of Social Welfare. She has since worked at Parsons Child and Family Center and is now director of its guidance clinic.

She is married to Richard Weisz, a lawyer who is a member of the Guilderland School Board, currently seeking re-election. They have two children: Jessica Weisz, a junior at the University of Pennsylvania, and Joshua Weisz, a freshman at the University of Maryland.
About the proposed spending plan for next year, Rosenbaum-Weisz supports the budget, and said, "It reflects both reality — in terms of salaries and expenses — and it’s a reflection of where we want to go — money is built in for technology and the purchase of new materials."
Asked her views on labeling books, Rosenbaum-Weisz said, "I do not support labeling. Parents need to be involved in what their children can read."
She went on, "Labeling is so subjective." She quoted a United States Supreme Court judge who famously said, "I know pornography when I see it."
Rosenbaum-Weisz said, "To label is taking everyone off the hook. I’m not prepared to do that. Families need to be involved."
She also said that, as someone who works with children, she believes a label on a book denoting sexually explicit material would serve teens as "an indication to take it of the shelf."
About long-range planning, Rosenbaum-Weisz said, "I come from an environment where we’re always working on treatment goals and objectives. I see a long-range plan as a living document...It’s an evolutionary document; we always need to have it out. We should always be looking at the next step, at what we need to achieve and accomplish."
Asked about her own preference for long-range goals, Rosenbaum-Weisz said, "I see the library as an institution that works cooperatively with other organizations....Because bricks and mortar cost a lot, I’m always going to look at partnering."
Rosenbaum-Weisz said she reads "a lot" and is currently gripped by Azar Nafisi’s Reading Lolita in Tehran, written about the post-revolutionary days of the Islamic Republic.
"The premise," explained Rosenbaum-Weisz, "is a professor at the university has had to step out of her position and she is meeting with her former students to discuss literature," an act that could lead to her imprisonment.
"This speaks to a society where the ability to pick up a book of any kind is limited, especially for women," said Rosenbaum-Weisz. "We’re lucky we don’t live in that kind of world. Man, woman, or child — we can pick out any book we want and read it."

Carroll Valachovic
"I have financial expertise that I think would be valuable to the board," said Carroll Valachovic, who is a certified public accountant.

She’s making her first run for library trustee because she wants to give back to the community where she was raised.

Valachovic, 32, grew up in Guilderland, graduating from Guilderland High School in 1991. Four years later, she graduated from Siena College with a bachelor’s degree in accounting.

She is now a certified public accountant, working for a local accounting firm in Latham.
Valachovic worked in New York City for a while, which she considered "a fun thing," but was happy to return to her hometown a-year-and-a-half ago.
"I was looking around for something to do community-wise," said Valachovic. "Then I got a newsletter with a blurb that the library was looking for trustees."
Growing up in Guilderland, she said, "I used the library extensively." Valachovic, who is single, said she still uses the library regularly. "My mother’s there constantly," she said.

Valachovic spends a lot of time reading CPA journals, she said, but likes to intersperse that with reading fiction. Right now, she’s reading Honeymoon, one of a series of novels by James Patterson.
On the proposed library budget, which she has reviewed, Valachovic said, "I hate to see taxes go up, but where it’s going is an area that’s very hard to cut — it’s to pay people’s salaries....The only way to save would be to cut positions or give smaller raises. That puts you between a rock and a hard place," she said.
On labeling books, Valachovic said, "We find labeling a lot in society today, whether it’s video games or music. What you have to ask yourself is whose opinion is it that the material is not appropriate."
Valachovic said that, during the time she was a student in the Guilderland school system, some of the books that were required reading caused people to ask, "They made you read it""
"Sometimes, it gets taken out of context," Valachovic said of passages in books that are considered inappropriate.
She concluded, "Parents need to step in and be responsible for what their children are reading."
On planning, Valachovic said, "You always have to look ahead constantly."
As a CPA, she said, "For all my clients, I look at where they are today, how they got there, and where they want to be."

She said she doesn’t have any specific goals in mind for the Guilderland library.
"I’m not running on any sort of platform," concluded Valachovic. "I want to be part of the board to lend my financial perspective to whatever it is they want to do."