Mayor Tom Tomzak is ending his eight years as mayor next week.  He had a very great run as mayor…I say that because he gave me a bunch of material.  I especially enjoyed his feud with several antique store owners over holding Octoberfest on Caroline Street in front of their stores.  That generated a lot of emails and phone calls for me, which is great because I love getting a reaction from readers and it sucks because I really don’t like talking to people.  I kid.

I only met Mayor Tomzak once.  If I’m wrong about that then he can correct me.  He wanted a copy once of a cartoon I drew and he picked it up in the lobby.  I don’t really get to know politicians that well and I try to avoid them so I can keep my journalistic integrity.  I don’t pal around with them.  I met Bill Beck a few times while he was mayor and each time with him it was like he didn’t remember meeting me previously, which you’d think he’d remember the first time as it was at some sort of charity dinner thing and he called me out on the microphone while I was sitting at my table having an argument over religion with my date.  There’s a few city council members I’ve talked to over the years but I’m not going to name them because that’ll make one of them talk to me again.  Again, I kid.

Mayor Tomzak, congratulations on your retirement from politics and thanks for the material.