Why Steve Thomas is running for County Supervisor

In my 40+ year working life, I’ve got over 20 years experience as a skilled electrician and gifted troubleshooter. I fix things so they stay fixed. I also help customers spend their money wisely. Part of this is asking about their future plans so that future additions are as easy as possible and less expensive than they might be if planning weren’t taken into account.  In the middle of that, I had a 10 year career as a stock market professional (1987 to 1997) that has given me an inside view of how the economy and the markets work (or don’t as the case may be).  We need more of those skills and understanding in government! 

Healthcare

Both Houses of the State Legislature passed Sheila Kuehl’s SB840 twice. The Governor vetoed it twice, in large part because he has accepted significant campaign contributions from insurance companies. Every dime an insurance company spends on healthcare, is in an accounting column called “Medical Losses.” As a profit driven enterprise beholden to shareholders, not patients, they are more concerned with making a profit than in providing your healthcare. Their job is to collect your money as premiums and spend as little as they can. 

County Employee Healthcare

The healthcare contracts from all the insurance providers have not been significantly looked at in close to 40 years. Many of the benefits are ones that the employees (the premium payers) are paying for but not using. Any for profit insurance company will happily charge you for something they know you won’t use. It’s pure profit. I feel very strongly that there are numerous County employees with a great deal of expertise in both healthcare and contracts and that significant savings are probable if the County employees are directly involved in reviewing these insurance benefits. They are stakeholders and deserve to have a significant role in matters that affect their healthcare benefits.

We all know the County has a serious revenue shortfall. In attempting to be fiscally responsible, the Supervisors unanimously voted to significantly change the retirees benefits and pass on to them future cost increases. Retirees are on fixed incomes and can’t afford these increases. They’ve also got 20 or 30 years of service with the county in which they had a contract about their future healthcare. This contract is now being broken without their having any bargaining stake in the issues.

If I get elected, I will do everything I can to bring these issues to a bargaining table in an attempt to be responsible and fair to all sides. 

The other part of the State budget crisis is this: The entire thing can be laid at the feet of the Governor, largely due to a single, very bad decision he made about eliminating the Vehicle License Fees (VLF) when he was first elected. If that tax were in place today it would be bringing in about $6 billion per year. When he rescinded it, it was closer to $5 billion per year. Over 4 years, that’s conservatively $20 billion in revenue that we’re not taking in and that’s most of the size of the hole in our budget. Californians should be livid with the Governor for placing his “cult of the tax cut” ahead of educating our children. This is a Governor who has asked for a Constitutional Amendment giving him the power to cut more, in an emergency he’s responsible for creating. Given the chance, he would further lobotomize our educational system.

Water

We’re on the verge of a water crisis. A new “peripheral canal” or water conveyance that diverts any significant flow away from the delta would be a disaster for Contra Costa County and the region. We clearly need to strengthen the levee system as a whole and should not be relying on individual property owners to be responsible for some of the weakest portions. If we have a serious levee failure, we lose the entire central California water supply. A major earthquake along the Hayward fault is long overdue. If this occurs during the rainy season when the “wet piles of dirt” we call levees are full, a major breach is highly likely. We need Federal and State money to fix this before there is a disaster that affects the economy of the entire State. 

Considering we are looking at probable water rationing this year, it’s time to explore dual piping systems with gray water recycling (for things like flushing toilets) for new construction. We clearly need to find creative ways to conserve water. 

Transportation

With gasoline prices going through the roof while people’s economic security is crashing through the floor, now is the time to extend public transit in ways that are smart and cost effective. 

Mortgage crisis

The housing bubble and mortgage crisis has hit Contra Costa and our neighboring counties hard. Legislation is working its way through Congress now, but is threatened by a Presidential veto. At a County level we can sponsor counseling workshops and prevent utility shut-offs to renters living in foreclosed homes. I’m open to any and all creative solutions that we can work out on a County level. 

I want the same opportunities for our kids and grandkids that our parents had.  I’m one of three children raised by a single mother.

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©2008 Steve Thomas for Supervisor