Paul Goldman resigned as Wilder's senior policy adviser in 2006.

Paul Goldman helped L. Douglas Wilder become mayor.

He worked for Mayor Wilder.

Now, Goldman wants the job for himself.

The 62-year-old political consultant and lawyer is the first person to jump into this year's mayor's race.

But Goldman says he doesn't see his candidacy as running against his old friend.

"I'm running for Richmond," he said yesterday. "I'm not running against anybody."

Spokesman Linwood Norman said Wilder would have no comment.

Goldman, who moved into Richmond's West End on April Fool's Day six years ago, says he's tired of the city's political leaders ignoring the issues that matter most to residents -- better schools, lower taxes and leaner government at City Hall.

"I think maybe this is the time for someone with my kind of commitment to those kinds of things," he said.

He said his top priority would be carrying out the City of the Future plan for building and renovating schools, while providing equal access for disabled students. He created the plan for Wilder, but the mayor has periodically refused to provide funding for new schools until more old ones are closed.

"We can do it, we have the money -- it just takes the will," said Goldman, who's pushed Virginia's congressional delegation for changes in federal law to allow schools to take advantage of tax credits for rehabilitating historic buildings.

The city requires candidates to submit petitions of support with at least 500 signatures of registered city voters, including at least 50 from each of the city's nine election districts. The filing deadline is June 10.

The bid for mayor would be Goldman's second attempt at elected office after a long career of helping others, notably Wilder, who used him as a consultant in historic elections as Virginia's first elected black lieutenant governor in 1985 and the country's first elected black governor in 1989.

Goldman finished second to Bruce W. Tyler in a four-way scrum for the 1st District seat on Richmond City Council in 2006. Tyler is among a field of candidates who have admitted to thinking about running for mayor, but none has declared.

Wilder hasn't formally declared his intentions either, but he hinted strongly to the Richmond Times-Dispatch this week that he intends to seek a second four-year term in November.

Goldman helped rewrite the City Charter in 2003, when Wilder and former U.S. Rep. Thomas J. Bliley Jr. led a campaign to return the city to an elected-mayor form of government. The next year, he helped Wilder win a landslide victory to become the first elected mayor in Richmond since 1948.

He worked at City Hall as the mayor's senior policy adviser for a year, but he resigned in early 2006 after Wilder suspended him for working as a political consultant to the successful campaign of Gov. Timothy M. Kaine. This year, he ended a political blog he had been writing for WWBT-Channel 12. Now he's talking politics daily on WLEE-AM radio.

"If we want to bring real change to Washington," he said in an interview, "we ought to bring real change to Richmond."
Contact Michael Martz at (804) 649-6964 or mmartz@timesdispatch.com.