Tom names

Tom Names for the People
Toledo City Council, At Large

Invest in the people. The heart of Toledo resides in the neighborhoods. Give the people a chance to be proud of theirs. Provide name designation monuments at the entry to neighborhoods. Repair the roads. Use the Land Bank for property assessments and loans and for the demolition or recovery of abandoned properties and businesses. Encourage home ownership and community gardens. Invest in tiny housing projects.
Stop the homicides. Nurture children to become self-sufficient members of the community rather than criminals. A holistic approach is necessary through parents, guardians, teachers, guidance counselors, church leaders and extracurricular activity options. Increase the police force and crack down on crime. Teach citizens to respect the law. Restore the number of block watch groups.
Do not let the government burn your money. Toledo is an aging town on the brink of receiving a windfall in infrastructural and pandemic recovery money. Ensure the money is well spent to restore the infrastructure and benefit all the citizens, not just the special interests. The projects should be self-sustaining. In the past over 60% of neighborhood block grant money has been spent on bureaucratic administration.

public schedule

Tuesday, September 3 6:00 to 8:00 PM

Toledo City Council Candidate Forum

Stephen Douglas Center
1001 Indiana Avenue
Toledo, Ohio

Who is tom names

Education

Harrington Park Public Grade School, K-8
Northern Valley Regional High School at Old Tappan, New Jersey
Lafayette College, Easton, PA, Bachelor of Science, Mechanical Engineering
Columbia University, NYC, Graduate Courses in Nuclear Engineering

Professional

Previously registered professional engineer in ten (10) states
Previous member of the Construction Specification Institute (CSI)
Life member of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME)

Community Involvement:

Previous carekeeper for the city triangle at Woodville Road and Oak Street
Previous Secretary for the Toledo Mudhens Booster Club
Tree Toledo Chairman for Education
Monroe Street Church Community Garden
Supporter of Advocates for a Clean Lake Erie (ACLE)
Red Cross Blood Donor

Social Memberships, Subscriptions and Hobbies:

Toledo Museum of Art (TMA)
Toledo Symphony
Toledo Zoo
Toledo Mudhens
Bavarian Sports Club
Hungarian Club
Sons of American Legionnaires (SAL)
Moose Lodge
Old Retirees Golf League
Attends First Thursday Lectures covering Social Issues
Motor Cycle Riding, Sailing and Fishing

Why tom

Most people seeking public office have been successful in private practice. Tom Names has also been successful, but here are some reasons that uniquely qualify Tom to serve as the next Toledo City Councilman from District 5:

Tom purchased his house in District 5 in 1992 and has permanently resided in District 5 for 24 years. He is familiar with the neighborhoods. His sponsored family has gone through the Old Orchard, DeVeaux and Start school systems.
He is retired. His children are grown and married. He has no distractions to dedicating his time to the business of city council. He does his homework. He attends the First Thursday meetings covering social issues at Saint Paul’s Lutheran Church downtown Toledo and Technology, Entertainment and Design (TED) meetings at the Franciscan Center in Sylvania.
He is engaged. Tom subscribes to the Blade newspaper, follows the news, attends many city council meetings and writes opinions to the Editor of the Blade. He has attended special meetings of city council including an urban planning seminar, a training course on the new “bang for your buck” city budgeting software, and a tour of the Collins Park Water Treatment Plant.
He is a retired professional engineer. He has made a career of solving problems. He has unique technical experience, for example, on water treatment and infrastructure design that appears to be lacking in city council.
He is experienced with contracts. He has spent many years preparing technical specifications for materials, equipment and services that form the basis of contracts. He has negotiated contracts, recommended awards of contracts and overseen the completion of contracts. Many times this is a subject that city council must address.
He is an environmentalist. Many of his engineering projects have been anti-pollution designs. He supports the Advocates for a Clean Lake Erie (ACLE), participates in Tree Toledo and the Monroe Street Community Garden and prepared environmental initiatives for the downtown Toledo development plan.

Biographical Information

Tom Names was born in 1952 to Frank and Ethel Names on his Mother’s 25th birthday. Tom grew up in Harrington Park, New Jersey and is the oldest of three children. Tom graduated from Northern Valley Regional HS at Old Tappan in 1970 with honors and attended Lafayette College on a partial scholarship. During summer vacations Tom earned extra money digging ditches for a plumber, soldering printed circuit boards for a computer mfr. and lifeguarding at local swim clubs. Tom graduated from Lafayette College with a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering in 1974 and varsity letters in soccer.

In July, 1974 Tom joined Burns and Roe (B&R), an engineering consultant in the power industry located in nearby Oradell, New Jersey where Tom interned as a draftsman the previous summer. Most of the work was project oriented in the design of nuclear and fossil-fueled power plants and Tom filled many assignments including extensive field work at the sites. When work became slack in 1995, Tom left B&R and returned to Toledo to work at Solid Fuels Technology (SFT) and to be near his children who were living in Port Clinton with his ex-wife. In 2002 SFT dissolved and in 2003 Tom found work with Schmidt Associates in Cleveland, Ohio. Both SFT and Schmidt were smaller engineering firms that concentrated on smaller fossil-fueled power plants, especially on pollution reduction projects. This offered Tom the opportunity to assume more responsibility in engineering and management. In 2007 Tom rehired with Burns and Roe with the arrangement that Tom would only work on field assignments away from the home office. That lasted until 2014 when Burns and Roe was merged with Power Engineering and Tom retired. Over his career Tom has had assignments in Russia, Armenia, Kazakhstan, Indonesia, Thailand, and Turkey as well as many states in the United States. In 1995 he sponsored the Avanian family, a green card lottery winner from Armenia, to come to the United States.

Tom’s daughter is married and lives in Florida. His son, is also married, lives near Cleveland and blessed Tom with a grandchild four years ago. The whole family including brother and sister try to get together on holidays at Mom’s house in Virginia. Tom also stays in touch with the Avanian family through Gayane, the mother, and her two children, Ani and Haik.

Tom owns a 14’ sailboat and a motorcycle. He golfs in the Old Retirees Golf League and gardens in the Monroe Street Church Community Garden. He is a member of the Moose Lodge and the Bavarian Sports Club where he flips potato pancakes during the German- American Festival. He subscribes to the Toledo Museum of Art, Toledo Symphony and the Mudhens and was a secretary of the Mudhens Booster Club.
‍
Tom has traveled around the country and the world, but considers Toledo a special place because of the “can do” spirit of the people. It is located at the crossroads of I-80 and I-75 and on the corner of Lake Erie with a huge untapped potential. Tom believes city government does not appreciate its people and resources. He is distressed that government and special interest groups make decisions behind closed doors that promote a divergent rich-poor class system.

Tom has volunteered in the past as a steward for the city garden on the corner of Woodville Road and Oak Street, but his work traveling has limited his volunteerism. Now that he is retired, Tom volunteers with Tree Toledo and relishes the opportunity to fully give back to the community as a dedicated Toledo City Councilman and make a difference. Tom offers fresh, independent ideas and an uncommon technical background for city council.

Resume

Click below to view my resume

Funding Projects

Discussion: Toledo is strapped for money to make ends meet. Federal and state trickle down money is being choked. Costs are escalating. Many people in Toledo are on fixed incomes and do not want to have an increase in taxes. Here are some ideas proposed by Tom Names:

The city will improve its grant application writing skills. Free money is good money. Each of the committees in city council will have a member searching for grants in that sector that might be applicable to the city. District council members will vet the grants for applicability to their district. Public input is expected. The city council will make the recommendations to the mayor. The mayor will be encouraged to employ personnel with strong grant proposal writing skills to make the proposals.
The city will sell land. People say that the city should not be in the real estate business, but Toledo owns land that could be put to better economic use. This especially applies to land bank properties that have an expense for upkeep. Neighbors with a concern about the appearance of the vacant lots should be encouraged to purchase the property or start a community garden. Alternatively, several parcels in a neighborhood could be put together for bid by developers for home building speculation. The properties will be converted from an expense into a source of revenue.
The city will sell some of the smaller parks that are under-utilized and difficult to maintain and concentrate on larger, distributed parks. The sold land will be zoned and developed for a mix of large, upscale residences.
Stop giving away tax abatements and start retiring the existing tax abatements. News stories tout the numbers of new jobs a company may bring to the city, but how is that working out? Where is the follow-up story? The mayor and the city finance department will be pressed for a cost-benefit answer. It is not fair to burden tax paying citizens with the city costs of deep-pocketed big businesses.
The seven hundred plus budget items for Toledo that were put on a priority basis for 2018 should be more thoroughly utilized. A hard look at where Toledo is getting the most bang for its buck should expose opportunities for cost savings. A stronger bias for neighborhood enrichment should be included in the analysis.
Toledo government needs to be reformed to be more goal-oriented rather than bureaucracy oriented where employees go to work, hide under the radar and collect a salary. The mayor should be pressed on ways employees are offering suggestions to cut costs or improve services.

Notes, quotes & amusing anecdotes

I was born in Manhattan, New York and was raised in northeastern New Jersey. I could see the Empire State Building from a tall pine tree in our yard that I used to climb as a kid. I have now lived in Toledo, Ohio, District 5 for over 24 years. Northwest Ohio has grown on me. Unfortunately, losing the Jersey/NYC accent is taking a little bit longer.
I have a Hungarian heritage. My father’s surname was originally Namesansky, but he changed it to Names when he was married. Consequently, I frequently get kidded about my last name. I usually reply, “When I had my son, my wife and I were considering naming him Nicholas. Then he could go through life being called Nick Names.”
I turned 67 years old last January, but I have “new blood.” I regularly donate the old blood to the Red Cross.
The Toledo Blade runs a society page covering large fundraising parties. I’m guessing there are about five to ten more spaghetti dinner type fundraisers for families that have lost a breadwinner or have a child that needs a special medical procedure than those gala parties celebrated in the newspaper. That’s My Toledo.
My two children are grown and my family has scattered, but we stay in touch and visit each other during the holidays. Around October we start e-mailing each other, asking what we would like for Christmas. Among the sundry items, I always ask Santa Claus for “World Peace.” That wish has never been delivered, but it doesn’t stop me from believing and asking.

Correspondence

I'm Listening

Have questions, complaints or ideas? Get in touch via email by clicking below:

EMAIL TOM

Thank you! Your submission has been received!

Oops! Something went wrong while submitting the form :(