When District 4 Commissioner Vivian Thomas spoke to her supporters on election night after securing a landslide win for a second term, amid the obligatory thanks to various supporters for their efforts, she made the following statement:
“Somebody didn’t even deserve to have their name next to mine. I earned that privilege. And when someone gives you a pass because you pimped your dead mama, and pimped your child, and pimped your family, you don’t deserve to be next to those of us who worked for the position that we hold.”
These comments were part of a seven-minute video that was posted on Facebook but later taken down. No name was mentioned, but her challenger in the election, Robert Kolpak, knew immediately that she was talking about him. And he is not standing for it.
Kolpak told the Times Monday that he will file a complaint with the Henry County Ethics Board regarding her behavior, and he is curious as to whether such public language would be grounds for a recall, although he is not expecting it.
The Times reached out last week to the county’s communications department to ask Thomas for a clarification of her statement or any further comment. She gave no response by press time.
“She portrays herself as a businesswoman and a grandmother figure, but that is so unprofessional and was so uncalled for,” said Kolpak. “To attack my son and to say I was pimping him, and even to bring up my dead mother – there is a line not to cross. I know in politics it’s dirty, but I ran a clean campaign. There was no mudslinging. There was pointing out decisions she made but nothing with her family was brought up, and there is a lot of baggage that Vivian has.”
Kolpak said he did not take his campaign in that direction because he “wanted it to be about the future of the community and my vision for what I wanted the community to be.”
Thomas won last week’s election by a 3-1 margin, getting more than 74 percent of the vote.
Over the majority of Thomas’ first term, Kolpak was an outspoken critic of her decisions on zoning and other issues. He spoke frequently at Henry County Board of Commissioners meetings despite efforts by Thomas and some of her peers to silence him.
At one morning meeting in 2019, Kolpak signed up for public comment knowing that as a common practice it was near the end of the meeting agenda. He left the building for a few minutes to tend to personal business, and when Thomas saw that he was gone she made a motion to amend the agenda and move public comment to the beginning of the meeting so that he would be unable to speak.
“I think people run from politics now because of these kinds of people,” said Kolpak about her most recent actions. “The thug behavior shouldn’t be there.”
He added that the false statements Thomas makes and her wrong behavior are not reported by the local media so there is no way to inform the public about it.
About his ethics complaint, Kolpak said it may not result in a recall effort but “in the future people will know a little bit more about Vivian. I am going to be an advocate for this community and I’m going to keep holding them accountable. They can stop all of the public comment; I’m still going to show up and I’m still going to be involved.”
