The Gold Coast Public Library Board of Trustees will host, at 7 p.m., Wednesday, Sept. 7, an informal session to afford interested residents to meet and question candidates for trustee positions as well as discuss with the board the proposed budget for the 2006 calendar year. The address for the meeting is the recently opened library at 50 Railroad Avenue, Glen Head, opposite the LIRR platform. A regular monthly board meeting will follow, and the public is invited.

The election of trustees and budget vote takes place the next day, Thursday, Sept. 8, from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., again at the Gold Coast Public Library, 50 Railroad Ave, Glen Head. Four candidates are running for three seats on the board. All residents of the district registered with the Nassau Board of Elections to vote in a general election are eligible to cast ballots. The Gold Coast Public Library District serves all residents of the North Shore School District outside of Sea Cliff.

The following statements were submitted by the candidates:

I, Tim Coville, a resident of Greenvale, have lived in the North Shore School District with my wife Caryn and two sons, Brian and Robbie, for over 12 years. Early on I put myself through college by serving as a paratrooper with the 82nd Airborne Division of the U.S. Army. I went on to graduate with highest honors from SUNY Albany. A Phi Beta Kappa member and licensed CPA, I earned my MBA in finance from NYU. I enjoyed a 20 year career in public accounting and bank controllership, which allowed me to work on five continents and to take my family on two multi-year assignments abroad. Satisfied with my business career and interested in new challenges, I returned to further studies and am currently in the ABD phase of completing my Doctorate in accounting at Rutgers University. I have been an officer of the Greenvale Civic Association for several years now; an organization I first became involved with while leading a successful challenge to a local developer's building plans. I remain happy to serve my community and believe my financial, accounting and business knowledge will be valuable to the Gold Coast Library. Please take time to vote.

My wife and I moved to Glen Head in 1985. Our two children attend high school at North Shore and St. Dominic's. I hold a BA in economics from St. John's University and postgraduate work for an MS in finance from California State Los Angeles.

As chief financial officer of a $70 million a year private food service company for 16 years, my responsibilities include all corporate accounting controls, audits, taxes, banking, insurance, budgets and computer systems. Previously I served four years as vice president and corporate manager for Barclays Bank directing retail branches and lending to privately held companies in eastern Queens.

Shortly after moving here I co-organized the drive to save the Glen Head Community Center and fields through acquisition by the town. I serve as youth coordinator of St. Boniface's CYO Basketball program for over nine years, responsible for management and operations. I have served on the North Shore Board of Education Sports Advisory Committee, was instrumental in reviving the North Shore Booster Club of which I am co-president.

A library is part of what makes a community. My finance and accounting background will serve an organization that collects tax money and those who pay the taxes.

I am Jeffrey D. Molbert, resident on Pound Hollow Rd. of the Glen Head and Old Brookville community for 27 years; S.U.N.Y. Binghamton; B.A. Philosophy, departmental award, C.W. Post, 1988; a sometime private investor in securities; currently also at Jericho Public Library, paging, data-entry, screening cultural films, leading audience discussion; Friends of the Gold Coast Library committee member; reader.

"Write what you know:" I read Dickens's Great Expectations at age 14, assigned reading, ninth grade English class. Twenty years later I began slowly, methodically plowing through the literary classics, sampling one work of each of the "great names," just to know, to have known. The exposure to these minds - to these worlds - tales, lives, themes, ideas, characters - to these elegantly crafted sentences, has left me changed - for the decidedly better, wealthier. I believe in the primacy of the life of the mind. To wit: we become our thoughts; they become real, solid, true. A library is and ought be an other community center, haven, a "place of growth and transformation."

The election outcome notwithstanding, I intend to volunteer time and energy toward these ends; if as trustee, to be responsive to public input, to exercise my very best judgment in addressing our needs on all issues as they arise.

I am a lifelong resident of the North Shore area and currently reside in Glen Head with my husband and two children, ages 5 and 3. Reading and libraries have always been a major part of my life and are already an important part of my children's lives. I have a background in public relations and program development which is beneficial to the growth of a community library. I received my MBA from the University of South Carolina and my BA from George Washington University. I believe that it is imperative for children and young adults to have a place where they can seek knowledge and enjoyment. The library can assist our educators in instilling a love of learning that will benefit our families for a lifetime. I wish to assist the North Shore area in developing a library that is not only a place to encourage literacy, but can be a focal point of our community. I look forward to serving the community and assisting in achieving these goals.