After working to get a new member of the Cobb Board of Education elected last year, East Cobb resident Jerica Richardson has decided to run for public office in 2020.
Richardson, who lives in the Delk Road area, is a candidate for the District 2 Cobb Board of Commissioners seat held by 11-year incumbent Bob Ott.
She said she’s formally launching her campaign in August (her campaign website is here) and is running “because it is time that the community has a seat at the table.”
On her personal website, Richardson describes herself as a “hacktivist” who’s writing a book on the subject. In it, she urges those who are “tired of being ignored” to “pick up those dreams again and inch closer to being who you were meant to be.”
In an interview with East Cobb News, Richardson didn’t offer many specifics about what her priorities would be for now. She admits to being a “firebrand” who dates her interest in politics to the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, which took place when she was 12.
“Running for office has always been something that’s been in the back of my mind,” she said. “The impact our elected representatives have can serve as an empowerment tool for the community.”
Richardson, who works in an enterprise transformation unit at Equifax, serves on the Facilities and Technologies Committee, a SPLOST advisory board, for the Cobb County School District. She was appointed by school board member Jaha Howard, whose campaign she worked on and who was elected last year to represent the Osborne and Campbell clusters.
Richardson, who’s running as a Democrat in what’s been long-held Republican territory, is the only declared candidate thus far in District 2. It includes most of East Cobb below Sandy Plains Road, as well as the Cumberland-Vinings area and portions of Smyrna.
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Ott, a Republican and the dean of the five-member Cobb Board of Commissioners, has not yet indicated whether he’s running for a fourth term. He’s also downplayed speculation he’s interested in running for commission chairman, or possibly mayor of a proposed City of East Cobb should such a referendum be on next year’s ballot.
Current chairman Mike Boyce and South Cobb commissioner Lisa Cupid have announced their candidacies for chairman next year.
Richardson and her family moved to Atlanta from New Orleans in the wake of Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Her brothers attended Walton High School. She graduated from the North Springs arts and sciences charter school in Fulton County and earned a biomedical engineering degree from Georgia Tech.
She said that community “disconnections” between citizens and their elected officials promoted her to consider running. Who are those individuals?
“People who live and work here and who want to see Cobb grow,” she said.
As for specific issues, Richardson said “I’m keeping my finger on that. I want to be very careful how I look at these issues.
“It’s not about me being any kind of savior,” she said. “It’s about bringing people together. I want to be a real representative.”
Richardson declined to comment on what she thinks of Ott’s record, saying that “my campaign is fresh, and he hasn’t made a decision.”
Among the challenges she sees are those the commissioners are dealing with now, including getting a long-term handle on budgeting, taxes and public safety.
She said she will have more detailed comments on policy issues when she unveils her campaign next month.
“There’s a lot there,” Richardson said. “How to articulate what direction we need to go is very important to me. Words matter.”
In mid-June Richardson filed a campaign declaration form with the Georgia Government Transparency and Campaign Finance Commission. Since then, she said her campaign has raised around $10,000 (the current reporting period must be filed by the end of September).
Ott’s latest campaign disclosure form, dated July 1, indicates he raised $55,000 in the second quarter of 2019, and lists the office being “held or sought” as District 2.
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