In the Association of Alternative Newsweeklies’ Annual Meeting Saturday afternoon, current AAN members voted on 10 seats on the board of directors.

Four of the board seats were filled by incumbents running unopposed: Rob Jiranek of C-Ville Weekly was elected Treasurer, Sioux Watson of Independent Weekly was elected Secretary, Mike Lenehan of Chicago Reader was elected Diversity Chair, and Jim Rizzi of Salt Lake City Weekly was elected Marketing Chair.

Erin Sullivan of Baltimore City Paper was elected Membership Chair, a post given up by Seven Days’ Paula Routly, and Byron Beck of Willamette Week was elected Convention Chair. Ellen Meany of Isthmus was elected to Design and Production Chair, a position that was created by members earlier in the meeting through an amendment to the association’s bylaws.

There were three at-large seats up for grabs: two full-term seats and a one-year term seat vacated by Penelope Huston Baer, who resigned from the board after announcing that she would be leaving the industry for a job with St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis. Five people were nominated for the seats, but Ellis Alvarez of Phoenix New Times dropped out before voting began, while Jeff Lawrence of Boston’s Weekly Dig bowed out when he was one of two remaining candidates for the last open seat. In the end, Donna Ladd of Jackson Free Press and Bill Bleakley of Oklahoma Gazette were elected to the two-year seats, and Mark Bartel of City Pages (Twin Cities) took the one-year seat.

In other business, the members approved a resolution to compile and note all the deaths in the AAN community at each year’s convention as a memorial.