When Frank Richardson begun his campaign for city council, a race that ended on Sept. 11 with his defeat by incumbent Bernard Young, he thought he knew Baltimore.
A native son, he attended Townson University after spending two years at Baltimore City College.
As coordinator of the Hopkins escort van service, he learned how crime affected University students.
And as a resident of the twelfth district, he felt that those in charge of fixing the areas problems were not doing enough.
So Richardson begun a grassroots campaign, attempting to inject what he felt were fresh and high charging enthusiasm into a city council that he viewed as complacent.
The only political experience he had was in student government, first as a senator and then president of Towson's student governing body. But Richardson soon found himself establishing a report with the people.
"Voters felt comfortable. I always had people coming up to me saying, 'We believe in you. We believe in what you're doing.' There was a sense of excitement in my ideas," he said.
But although people were outwardly enthusiastic to his call for change, "It is hard to translate that enthusiasm to votes because people haven't made the connection that if they voted for me they would actually see results," Richardson said.
A vast majority of voters cast their ballots for incumbent Young, who did not return repeated attempts for comment. Richardson attributed his defeat to obscurity.
"I wasn't known. I didn't have name recognition. I didn't have a long campaign season," he said.
Richardson also pointed to the low voter turnout, which hovered around 28 percent.
"People's confidence is so low because incumbents have been disappointing for so long," he said. ""We need to remind people that this is how you participate in a democracy. You must vote to affect change"
While Richardson's platform focused mostly on crime reduction, he also focused support on engaging young adults such as Hopkins students in solving the city's problems.
"We need to stress education for youth and actively engaging youth in positive activities and creating solutions to the problems. [The] city council needs to prioritize youth."
In a city were 80 percent of voters are registered with the Democratic Party, the November election is considered simply formality. Therefore Young is, for all intents and purposes, the councilman representing the district, while Richardson returns to work.
"We are never going get a better candidate than Frank," coworker Eric Alan said. "He's a wonderful human being. He has great family roots. He is a good Christian."
Melvin Curbean, a coworker of Richardson, said, "Frank is fair minded person. It has been a pleasure to work under with for the last two years. He's always doing his best."
