George Kotsinis: Candidate Profile

Back to Warren-Newport Library Board 6-year term

Note: Answers provided have not been edited for grammar, misspellings or typos. In some instances, candidate claims that could not be immediately verified have been omitted. Jump to:BioQA Bio City: GurneeWebsite: http://georgetomandnancy.info/Office sought: Warren-Newport Library Board 6-year term Age: 39Family: My wife, Becky, and I have been married for 14 years. We have three children, our daughter Angie (13) and sons James (9) and Leo (2). I also have a brother (Tom), who lives with his family in Northbrook, and a sister Eva, who lives in Northwest Indiana with her family near our mother, Angela Kotsinis.Occupation: Technical Account ManagerEducation: Bachelors of Arts from Indiana University Bloomington Majors: History and Political Science, Minor: PhysicsCivic involvement: Since last year, when the Library posted that there was a vacancy on the Board of Trustees, I was appointed to and have been honored to help our library as a member of the board. Prior to this, since my oldest child first started school in this community eight years ago, I have been actively involved in working to help maintain the high quality of the Gurnee schools. With my wife, I was part of the effort to replace the severely flooded Gurnee Grade School with a new facility funded through a taxpayer backed referendum.Elected offices held: Trustee, Warren-Newport Public Library District (2014-present)Questions Answers Why are you running for this office, whether for re-election or election the first time? Is there a particular issue that motivates you, and if so, what is it?I sometimes ask myself this same question, and, in the end, the reason I am running is that I honestly think I can help our Library to continue to be the world-class institution I believe it is. I grew up in Gary, Indiana, and watched as a once-strong community slowly decayed, partly from economic pressures, but also from failed leadership. There have been many issues in our local community lately which have arisen simply because too few good people are willing to put in the work to keep their community strong. Too few people are willing to run for local office, or to put in the work once they get there. We need strong leaders who are here to serve the common good, not impose their will or their beliefs on others. I am here to listen to anyone who will speak to me and to work with anyone who will work for the common good, and that is a rare enough combination in politics today. We have a strong and vibrant community, and our Library is the intellectual and cultural center of that community. I would like to see it stay that way.If you are an incumbent, describe your main contributions. Tell us of important initiatives you've led. If you are a non-incumbent, tell us what contributions you would make.I am an incumbent, but I am still very new to the Library board. When I joined the board almost a year ago, the board was deeply divided, and deadlocked on many issues. While many of those divisions remain, I would like to think that I have brought a voice of calm to our debates. In my short time on the board, we have managed to appoint both an interim director to fill in for our outgoing retiring director during our candidate search and also complete our selection process and successfully hire a top quality new executive director to lead the daily operations of our Library for the foreseeable future. I have also worked with the board to ensure that we are budgeting within our means while still prioritizing the core mission of library.Do you have a library card? How long have you had it? How often do you use it?Yes, I have a library card. I got my first library card for a class project when I was six years old and cannot think of a time since then when I have been without one. As to how often I use it, the better question would be when I don't use it. I read constantly, and usually have several books checked out at any given time, but I also check out movies and music, both as physical media from the Library and virtually through Hoopla and other library apps. I also use the research databases and related apps provided by the library, and love attending the many children's programs the library provides with my family.Space is an issue at many libraries. If that's the case at your library, would your solution be to expand the physical plant or make room by doing away with parts of the collection that technology has made less critical? Explain.Our library has only recently been remodeled and expanded, leaving us with plenty of room to grow into for the time being, so space is not currently an issue. While we still have many spaces in our new layout for physical books and media, we have also taken steps to ensure that we have 'future-proofed' where possible. Our library has a fairly large portion of its footprint dedicated to meeting and study spaces and to computers and tablets. We have also expanded our collection and services into the digital space with our library app and with services like Hoolpa and Zinio and with a fairly robust WiFi hotspot service we provide within the Library.What impact have economic and technological changes had on libraries? How does a library remain relevant? How should its role in the community change?Libraries have always been contemplative spaces where people can gather to learn and to grow. This fact has not changed since the days of the medieval "chain" libraries when early books were literally chained to their shelves because of the enormous value they represented. Today, our books no longer have chains, and, many times, don't even have paper and ink, appearing instead as bits and bytes on the ubiquitous devices so many of us now seem to carry in our pockets, but the fundamental role of the library has not really changed. It remains a place where members of the community, whether they are young children just learning to read, teens and young adults looking to study for school or just to expand their horizons, older adults learning to use the Internet for the first time, immigrants learning to speak English, job-seekers in need of help looking for their next careers, community groups in need of a meeting space, or just ordinary people who want to find a book to read or a movie to watch, the library provides all of these things, and it does so in a space which is not loud, or plastered with advertising or screaming at you to open your pocketbook, but rather in a place where everyone has come together in the spirit of learning and personal growth.What other issues, if any, are important to you as a candidate for this office?As with many in our community, my first interest is in restoring a sense of unity and focus to our library board. For the past year, too much of the news about our library has been about the Board of Trustees, and I feel that distracts from our core mission. Our community needs our board to be able to work together without the drama we have seen these past few months. Beyond that, I would like to see our library continue to embrace new and innovative technologies to better serve our patrons. I would also like to ensure that our library continues to maintain sound economic practices and remain fiscally sound in these days of relatively flat budgets. Finally, I would like to see our library make more of an effort to embrace some of the demographic changes in our community by offering more materials for non-English speakers where possible.Please name one current leader who most inspires you.Bill Gates, he took an idea, that computers should be for everyone, and built it into one of the largest companies in the world.What's the biggest lesson you learned at home growing up?Help others. Even when you don't have much yourself, there is always someone who needs help more than you do.If life gave you one do-over, what would you spend it on?I would have spent more time with my kids when they were younger and less working late at work.What was your favorite subject in school and how did it help you in later life?I loved History. It gives you a sense of perspective and scale in life and in all that you do.If you could give your children only one piece of advice, what would it be?Enjoy your life and live for today. Life is too short to spend all of your time worrying about what may happen tomorrow.