Candidate for
Council Member; City of Carlsbad

My name is Thomas K. Arnold and I would like to serve the citizens of Carlsbad as our next City Council member. As the first announced candidate for the 2008 election, I believe I have the vision, integrity and leadership to be your voice on the Carlsbad City Council. You've read my North County column in San Diego Magazine; I have coached your children in Boys & Girls Club basketball and Carlsbad Wave soccer, and I have tried to teach them to respect their neighbors, their environment and, most importantly, themselves, through the YMCA's Adventure Guides Program.

I'm ready for the next step. With our city fast approaching buildout, we are at a critical crossroads. And as we transition from managing growth to managing maturity, we need the vision, leadership and big-picture perspective of a successful business executive as well as a veteran journalist with 25 years of experience covering politics, government, land use, transportation, education and other critical issues not just in Carlsbad, but also throughout the greater San Diego region.

I was born on March 2, 1958, at Mercy Hospital in San Diego, the only son of two German immigrants. I was raised in Point Loma and attended Sacred Heart Academy and, later, University of San Diego High School. My first taste of politics came when I was just 13 years old and I walked precincts for Pete Wilson when he ran for mayor of San Diego. While attending San Diego State University, majoring in business management and minoring in journalism, I wrote a music column for The Daily Aztec. While still in school, I launched a monthly music magazine, Kicks: San Diego's Only Rock 'n' Roll Magazine. I later managed 1960s pop star Gary Puckett on his early 1980s comeback.

Throughout my 20s and early 30s, I supported myself as a freelance writer, broadening out of my music roots and into politics, government and features. I was a regular contributor to San Diego Magazine, the San Diego Reader and the San Diego County Edition of the Los Angeles Times. I took a brief hiatus from journalism to help in the campaign to elect Roger Hedgecock mayor of San Diego, and later took a second break to do some consulting for San Diego City Councilman Bruce Henderson. But my career was in journalism, and I wrote extensively about such hot topics as transportation, land use, education and airport relocation. In 1986 I wrote a two-part series about freeway congestion in which I predicted much of what has since happened along Interstates 5 and 15. I was a credentialed reporter at the 1996 Republican National Convention; I covered city hall, and city politics, in municipalities ranging from San Diego to Oceanside, from Vista to Chula Vista-and, of course, Carlsbad. I got married in 1991 and that same year took a job with Video Store Magazine, the nation's leading home entertainment trade magazine. I continued to write for San Diego Magazine and the San Diego Reader.

I had spent a lot of time in North County as I was growing up. I still remember riding my bike along Carlsbad Village Drive back when it was known as Elm and dead-ended just east of the freeway. My wife, Diana, and I were ready to start our family, and one Sunday afternoon trip to Carlsbad was all it took to convince us to buy there. We bought our first and only house, on York Road, in May 1994, and have lived there ever since. Our first son, Justin, was born in October 1995; he was followed by Conner in March 1998 and Hunter in May 2002.

I am now publisher and editorial director of Home Media Magazine (Video Store Magazine's successor) and work both out of my home office and at our magazine's headquarters in Santa Ana. I also cover home entertainment for The Hollywood Reporter and USA Today, and write a monthly column about North County, "Northern Exposure," for San Diego Magazine. All three of my sons attend St. Patrick Parish School, where I am currently president of the Parent Teacher Group. I spend most of my free time with my family. I have been going camping monthly with the YMCA's Adventure Guides program since 2001, serving one year as Medicine Man for the Red Hawk Nation. I have also coached countless youth sports teams, from Carlsbad Wave soccer to Boys & Girls Club basketball and T-ball. I spend most of my free weekends exploring Carlsbad, running along the beach, hiking with my boys through Hosp Grove or Calavera Hills, antiquing with my wife along State Street-and at times treating the family to brunch at La Costa or the Four Seasons.

My guilty pleasure: a chorizo and egg burrito at Lola's.