As a member of the Mattapoisett Republican Party and a lover of books, Paul Criscuolo said that he decided to run for the open seat on the Library Board of Trustees to get more involved with the community.

“I saw that Democrats have been doing such great work for the town for years,” he said. “I tried to get people involved, I said we really need to take on some of the burden of helping to run this time and to help people do things,” he said.

Criscuolo has worked in sales at a variety of companies including Allied Domecq and Southern Glazer’s.

He said that he graduated from Colorado University with a degree in economics and a minor in African and Middle Eastern Studies and now works in consulting.

“I’ve had a varied career, and I've done a lot of things for the community and been involved in my churches,” he said.

Criscuolo said that he hopes to use the variety of skills he has gained from his experience to help provide funds for the library.

“If you want to talk about getting money to do the roof there's a way to go about that,” he said. “Maybe it's a way of approaching the Select Board in a way that hasn't been done before, or maybe it's doing some lobbying for the library.”

Criscuolo said that he also served as a police commissioner.

Criscuolo said he hopes that library programming can help with lower literacy rates in young students.

“The idea of loving to read and to read different stories or to read things that interest you or to learn from it, that's what I hope we can instill,” said Criscuolo.

Criscuolo said that he believes keeping up to date with technology is imperative to attract patrons to the library.

“There just has to be an investment in technology,” he said. “The investment in the library is a wise one for our community.”

As for the controversy surrounding the removal of books, Criscuolo said it is important to communicate.

“We can yell at each other all we want, but we need to talk to each other,” he said. “There's got to be common ground and there's got to be common thought, there's a lot to be learned from each other.”

Criscuolo said that the library’s greatest strength was how it offers something for everybody.

“I plan to do everything in my power to be sure that [the] library serves our community and all the ways that bring out the best and Mattapoisett and unify us as a town,” he said.