Tojo Thomas: Why You Should Vote For Me

By Tojo Thomas

I need your vote on June 5.  I need your vote because without it we can’t take back County government from the current brood of politicians, who have forgotten the most important truth about their jobs.

They exist to serve the people who elected them.  Not the other way around.

Together, we need to remind them.  Their jobs don’t exist so that their children can either get a county job with a fellow county Supervisor or benefit from county contracts to private companies where their children just happen to work. They don’t exist so that they can receive lucrative taxpayer funded retirement packages on top of their already generous pensions.  And they sure don’t exist so that they can attract large campaign contributions from special interest groups and then spend it on themselves at expensive, upper class health spas. We need to send a singular message to my opponent, who wants to spend another four years taking advantage of his powerful political position:  No thanks, Nate.

The politicians and their appointed government bureaucrats would rather protect their way of life than to address what should be the number one concern of county government: public safety in the face of the recent criminal justice realignment.  Rather than acknowledge their fiscal mismanagement, which has lead to the near collapse of the criminal justice system, the politicians have chosen to deal with the problem, not with rational policy and adequate funding, but with semantics and half-truths. 

My opponent has described their realignment plan as “ambitious” and “exciting,” when in reality it is a solution designed to cover-up mistakes and placate our fears.  Police officers and probation officers on the front lines instead use words like “myth” to describe the very same plan.  The bureaucrats are lying to us and it needs to stop.

I read the news every day hoping to learn how County government is addressing the serious issues that face us.  Instead, what do I find?  Sex tape scandals, sexual assault accusations against the Chief Probation Officer, and report after report of corruption, malfeasance and cronyism occurring in County government. It’s time to bring back some common sense and some good old-fashioned decency to the Alameda County Board of Supervisors.

My name is Tojo Thomas and I come to you as a working man who loves his family, loves his neighbors and loves his job. I would hope the same kind of success for every one of you.  Hey, I’ll be honest with you; I’m a simple guy who is simply running on a promise of strong ethics and integrity. No hidden motives.  No secret agendas.  No affiliations to any political parties and no special interests. I have no personal agenda except to see our neighborhoods thriving and our County government working hard to serve and protect.   Elect me to the Board of Supervisors and I’ll work to get the Board back on track.

Learn more about me at www.tojo2012.com.

Editor's Note: Castro Valley Patch asked both candidates running for the Alameda County District 4 Supervisor seat to submit a column, 500 words or less, before the elections on June 5, 2012.