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New Thousand Oaks mayor knows the drill
City's new leader outlines his goals
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Dentist Tom Glancy works on Norris Drewery 80, while Glancy's wife, Karen, assists. Glancy has been practicing dentistry in the Conejo Valley for almost 20 years. He was recently elected mayor of Thousand Oaks.
Outside of his dental practice, Tom Glancy has another job: mayor.
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More from Conejo ValleyMonday through Thursday, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., Dr. Tom Glancy tends to patients, repairing teeth damaged or destroyed by accidents, illness or neglect.
“It’s like hobby work, handwork,” said Glancy, who specializes in implants and reconstructive dentistry. “It’s fun. With implants, it restores them to more normal comfort and function.”
Outside his dental practice, Glancy has another job.
The dentist became mayor earlier this month when colleagues on the Thousand Oaks City Council elected him to the mostly honorary position, just more than a month after he won election to his first full term on the council.
“I really love Thousand Oaks; it’s a really neat town,” Glancy said the day after he presided over his first meeting. “I take the job of being a council member very seriously. I don’t think it’s just showing up for a meeting every other Tuesday night.”
It means attending Eagle Scout ceremonies and events honoring volunteers, and fulfilling the role of public servant in Ventura County’s second-largest city.
Glancy’s foray into politics was a reluctant one. His colleague, Councilman Dennis Gillette, asked him three times to apply for a seat on the city Planning Commission before he finally relented. From his position on the commission,
Glancy jumped to the City Council when the council appointed him to a vacancy created by the resignation of Councilman Ed Masry in 2005. Masry died shortly after he stepped down.
While Glancy has said applying for the council seat was a logical progression, he was hesitant about the more political nature of the position.
“I was perfectly content to stay on the Planning Commission,” the father of four said, linking his aversion to the politics of the seat to a perspective shaped by three decades in the military. “I’m very plain-spoken and there is not time for subterfuge or lies.”
As a kid, Glancy wanted to go to military school. He also entertained the idea of attending the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis.
“I like the military, and I love airplanes,” he said.
Instead, the Georgia native attended high school in Coral Gables, Fla., where his family moved shortly after his birth. Growing up, Glancy had a window into dentistry thanks to his mother, who worked as a hygienist.
When it came time for college, Glancy headed west to attend the University of Colorado, where he majored in English and chemistry.
Upon graduation, he enrolled in the University of Missouri at Kansas City School of Dentistry.
In his freshman year of dental school, Glancy enlisted in the U.S. Navy. During his senior year, Glancy earned his pilot’s license. He served in the Navy for 30 years on active and reserve duty before retiring as a captain.
After graduation, Glancy moved to New Mexico, where he met and married his wife, Karen. During the day he practiced dentistry. He also operated a charter-flight business, flying primarily at night.
“I haven’t done much flying since I got on council,” Glancy said.
The couple moved to California in 1980 so Glancy could attend a master program for his specialty at the Veterans Administration in West Los Angeles. Karen, an artist, also works in the dental office as a dental assistant and has actively supported Glancy’s civic engagement.
When he gets home from council meetings, “Karen will say ‘I think you missed a point,’ or ‘Good job,’ ” Glancy said.
The two sail, dive and hike together. Four years ago, they tackled Mount Whitney.
With his involvement on the council, “all of those activities have drawn down,” he said.
In his new post as mayor, Glancy, 67, said he wants to maintain and improve public safety.
One specific goal is the relocation of the Lake Sherwood fire station to the Westlake neighborhood, or the construction of a station in that area to improve response time.
Another goal is the completion of the senior master plan, a blueprint for services and programs for older residents.
He said he also plans to champion “mom and pop” businesses and hopes to attract businesses to bolster revenue for the city.
Posted by elephantpower on January 6, 2009 at 6:56 a.m. (Suggest removal)
I'd like to ask Glancy why he voted to cancel the daycare contract for Roots and Wings, an excellent program, and substitute a government run, inferior program with NO infant care experience. Glancy believed Jacqui Irwin whose argument was that Roots and Wings is heavily subsidized. Well, Neighborhood for Learning, the new contractor, is a STATE program, soon to be killed because it is ineffective and bloated.
Nobody on the staff, no City Council member or School Board member (the new lessee) bothered to check with local state representatives. If they had called former Senator McClintock's office, or Assemblywoman Audra Strickland's office, or the new Senate District 19 Senator Tony Strickland, they would have been told that First Five is on the chopping block.
First Five (Carl "Meathead" Reiner's) is the proto-type for Universal Preschool, and they run Neighborhood for Learning. You remember NFL--the program that gets FREE RENT from the Conejo Rec and Park for baby massage classes and breast feeding bonding room and friendship rooms courtesy of the taxpayers.
Also, NFL was in the Star last year with their "Puente" program, an outreach for the illegal Mixteco workers, an indian group that generally is illiterate, doesn't even speak or read Spanish. This group has a high rate of disease and domestic violence, per another Star article. Are they the new group of parents that NFL intends to serve at the revamped TO preschool site? NFL is requiring parents to volunteer, yet Brenda Hunter admitted at a public meeting that NFL does not require tuberculosis screening, fingerprinting, or background checks of their parent volunteers. I watched several Roots and Wings parents react with horror at this admission.
Posted by elephantpower on January 6, 2009 at 7:09 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Tonight is the vote at CVUSD on the partnership proposed with TO City Hall, Neighborhood for Learning, and the Conejo Valley School District. Please come tonight to the CVUSD Board room around 7 pm and speak or submit a card protesting this. If there are enough people explaining that this will cost the district much more than they hope to gain, then the board will back out of the deal.
The 2 preschool sites are furnished by the private company, Roots and Wings. The City thinks they have a deal with the owner to buy $350K of equipment, books, and peripherals for only $75K. (They raised it from their $35K offer.) This still is chicken feed.
The School District says they will NOT play ball if this proposal costs them anything. Well, I'd say that coughing up over $250K from the CVUSD, in addition to the $125K that the City promised, is far from "No Cost" to taxpayers.
And why did Glancy agree to pay the Director of NFL, Brenda Hunter, (and another NFL staffer) an additional $65K from now until July to shepherd the transition? Hunter already is on the State payroll through First Five. NFL staff gets paid through tobacco tax, but gets their bene's from the State. Yes, the bankrupt State of California. Why did the TO City Council give away this $65K of local taxpayers money to 2 women who are already getting paid from the State???? The contract says that Hunter will get paid whether or not she is actually at the pre-school site during the 6 month transition. This is outrageous!
Tom Glancy, what were you thinking? The only one to vote against this was Claudia Bill de la Pena, the smartest person on the City Council.
Posted by elephantpower on January 6, 2009 at 7:18 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Glancy should have placed a call to the Republican Central Committee Headquarters across the street from City Hall. Tom, you know where the office is. You asked the local Republican Party to endorse you in November's election. And this is how you pay back the party, with a Universal Preschool run by a doomed organization???
This 3-way government partnership is absolutely against Republican values. Glancy voted to ruin the business of a small woman owned company, and put in place a bloated government bureaucracy.
Owner Sherri Laboon has been burdened with huge lawyer fees, since no one is looking out for her interests. She was called to an emergency meeting on Christmas Eve, and pressured to negotiate a deal with transferring her employees, and selling her equipment at a loss. Thank goodness she had a lawyer present. Thank goodness nothing was signed, especially the "hold harmless" clause the City slipped in there, which would have prevented her from suing. Why is the City worried that she will sue?
Is this a self-serving conspiracy? Seems that way, since the contract says that City Employees will get priority at the daycare. Isn't that illegal? Now the School District wants to add a similar priority clause for their employees. That smells like quid pro quo, since the new CVUSD Board members won seats courtesy of the endorsements of the teachers' union. The DA needs to look at this.
Parents at Roots and Wings are leaving already. They have no trust in a government run pre-school. Parents who have infants were shocked when Brenda Hunter admitted to them that NFL has NO infant care experience.
NFL staffers know that their days are numbered. They are doing this to try to secure jobs after First Five and Neighborhood for Learning are dismantled. Voters will have a new initiative before them to change the tobacco tax funding, and move it over to health services for children. This will pass. Democrat leader of the Senate, Senator Darrell Steinberg, is supporting this. The Republicans have been wanting this for years. Democrats have finally seen the light. NFL is a dead duck. It will be gone in less than a year. Sooner, if voters say so, and make the initiative effective immediately after the vote. This could be as soon as June.
NFL has not told the City of the School District that they are dying.
The present NFL Director, Brenda Hunter, is trusting that several teachers from Roots and Wings will work for her. Guess what? Several have left already. Roots and Wings has an infant care ratio of 3 infants to one teacher. NFL admitted they can't do that. Many Roots and Wings teachers have said they will go on unemployment, rather than work for a government pre-school. More burden to taxpayers.
Thanks for nothing, Tom Glancy. Turn in your Republican membership card.
Posted by elephantpower on January 6, 2009 at 7:36 a.m. (Suggest removal)
If you can't come in person tonight to 1400 E. Janss Road in Thousand Oaks at 7 pm to speak on Agenda Item III D, then email the 5 board members at
http://www.conejo.k12.ca.us/BoardofEd...
Or, call the Superintendent's office, 497-9511 and give Mario Contini a message that this will cost more than it will bring in. It also puts the District at risk for lawsuits to go into the babycare business. It also is outside the mission of the CVUSD, which is education for K-12 and an adult school. This program may also be illegal, since it is outside the stated mission.
If the district has to replace 100% of the equipment,pencils, computers, paper, books, cooking equipment, diapers, cribs, trikes, etc. that belong to Sherri Laboon (owner of Roots and Wings) it will be over $500K. Ask the Mario Contini where he will find the money this spring to buy everything before the July 1st opening day. If new parents sign up, and the CVUSD fails to open in July, you can bet there will be plenty of lawsuits from working parents who will be up a creek without the daycare that the District promised them.
Tell the Board to vote NO on this risky business. If City Hall wants to take over Roots and Wings, then they should bankroll this themselves. The contract wants the CVUSD to start paying $50K a year for janitorial services in 2010. The contract says the City will pay for the kitchen help for one year. Then the School District gets stuck with it. The contract states that the Lessee, the CVUSD is responsible for the utilities, which are sky high. There are large costs to this venture. The School district thinks they will be able to get matching funds from the State from grant money. Guess what? The State is broke. Grant money is disappearing.
At the very least, the School Board needs to hold off on this vote until the State has a budget, until the future of NFL and First Five is decided, and until the City and Roots and Wings has a decision on what furniture and equipment -- if any-- that Sherri is willing to sell. There is no need for a final vote from CVUSD tonight.
Posted by carefulnow on January 6, 2009 at 8:29 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Tom is a go-along, get-along type of guy. Don't expect him to ever show any independent thinking and you'll never be disappointed.
Posted by sokol_kiev on January 6, 2009 at 11:15 a.m. (Suggest removal)
You got that right, Carefulnow. The only T.O. Council Member who consistently bases her decisions and votes in the best interests of our city and we residents is Claudia Bill-de la Pena. Unfortunately she is often the lone voice of reason on our city council.
This is why I was so disappointed that the T.O. voters didn't take this prime opportunity in the last election to unseat Tom Glancy and Jacqui Irwin. Glancy, Irwin, Andy Fox and Dennis Gillette are nothing but corrosive to our city and need to be removed from office at the first available election opportunity!!
I encourage everyone to use their voice to speak up against these four everytime they make a decision or cast a vote which is detrimental to we residents and our city! If you can't attend a T.O. City Council meeting, then pick up your phone or your keyboard and directly convey to the council members your thoughts and opinion:
Dennis C. Gillette:
Email: dgillette@toaks.org
Tel: 805-449-2105
Andrew P. Fox:
Email: cnclmanfox@aol.com
Tel: 805-449-2101
Claudia Bill-de la Peña:
Email: claudia4slowgrowth@roadrunner.com
Tel: 805-449-2103
Jacqui V. Irwin:
Email: jacqi@earthlink.net
Tel: 805-449-2104
Thomas P. Glancy:
Email: tglancy@toaks.org
Tel: 805-449-2102
Posted by modaltheory on January 6, 2009 at 12:15 p.m. (Suggest removal)
We have a mayor in this town?
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