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BRENTWOOD — Ryan Raimondi, a linebacker on the Liberty High School football team, is running for mayor of Brentwood.
It’s not a joke, his football coach insists.
“Politics is his life, and he legitimately wants to change the world,” Liberty coach Ryan Partridge said.
Three months from his 18th birthday, the junior with a 4.5 grade-point average made the decision in February to run for the seat mayor Robert Taylor has held for four terms.
It is unclear who will run against Raimondi. The city won’t provide a list until the filing process is completed in August.
Maybe one of his opponents will be Taylor.
“I haven’t made up my mind and let the public know yet that I am not running,” Taylor said Wednesday afternoon. “He could have a strong opponent. That is called an incumbent.”
The minimum age in Brentwood to run for mayor is 18. Raimondi will turn 18 on July 8, five days before candidates can start filing for the election.
If elected, Raimondi will become one of the nation’s youngest mayors in history. Michael Sessions was 18 when he was sworn in as mayor of Hillsdale, Michigan in 1987. Kelvin Green also was 18 when he became the mayor of Archer City, Texas in 1995.
“It’s not that far-fetched or crazy to think that it could happen,” said Brian Raimondi, Ryan’s father. “A lot of people have reached out to him and said, ‘You know, the way we’ve been doing things hasn’t been all that great. Maybe a new, fresh perspective, someone who is not connected to the old-cronies and the old way of doing things might be worthwhile.’ ”
If Raimondi wins, he plans to graduate from high school in December, presumably after the football season ends. He would start his four-year term in January, using the first six months to acclimate himself before enrolling at Los Medanos College in Brentwood.
Raimondi said he would need to attend the two-year school for only a year because of his Advanced Placement credits earned in high school. After that, Raimondi said he wants to transfer to the University of California, Berkeley, or another local college to major in economics.
The mayoral job in Brentwood (population approaching 64,000) is a part-time position paying $1,439.26 per month, according to the city’s website.
But Raimondi has full-time ideas for his community. His website lists areas of action:
— Revising the city’s economic strategy plan.
— Infrastructure.
— Community outreach.
Raimondi said he would like to see more local companies and less housing development in Brentwood, giving residents an opportunity to work and live in the community rather than commute long distances.
“Brentwood is never going to stop growing,” Raimondi said. “But I hope to transfer our growth from housing to more commercial.”
He also wants to add communication technology that would help the flow of city traffic as well as lure non-profit organizations that provide resources for senior citizens and students, including a scholarship program for minorities.
Raimondi’s best friend, football teammate Jamie Feldermann, is the manager of his budding campaign.
They kicked off the campaign with a story in the local Brentwood Press on April 3. Since then they have tried to build a coalition even though statewide stay-at-home restrictions have kept them from doing door-to-door campaigning.
“We realized this is an opportunity for us to make an impact in this city, a city where we have lived for a long time,” Raimondi said. “And I could pursue my dreams, my dreams of serving people.”
To some, it might seem like an idealistic plan, but Feldermann saw his friend’s political activism at a young age.
“All the way back to middle school, he went around and made speeches in the community to influence a local measure that gave middle schools (running) tracks,” Feldermann said. “He’s very passionate about what he does. He’s lived here his whole life, and he has some really great ideas for making change.”
By the way, the measure for additional tracks passed.
Raimondi, who founded a Youth and Government Club at Liberty, attends conferences where bills such as minimum-wage reform are authored. He attended a conference in Fresno during football season last fall.
Afterward, Partridge said he and his player got into a discussion about politics.
“I started asking him questions of things I didn’t know, and he was so knowledgeable about politics in the entire country,” said Partridge, who led Liberty to a state championship in 2018. “He was teaching me so much.”
The two discussed the inner-workings of Congress, among other things.
While Raimondi enjoys playing football, academic goals remain at the forefront.
He is aiming for a 5.0 grade-point average on a weighted scale in the fall. But the football weight-training class he and his teammates take would prevent that from happening because it is not an advanced-placement course.
So Raimondi asked Partridge if he could be a teacher’s assistant instead of a student to reach his academic goal.
The coach agreed.
“He’s extremely sharp, brilliant, intelligent,” Partridge said. “I could legitimately see him in the running for president one day.”
Raimondi’s pursuit of serving others began a few years ago when his dad, a Navy veteran, mentioned the possibility of Raimondi attending the Naval Academy.
“I became really invested in the idea,” Raimondi said. “But then I realized, as I moved through high school and now, that it was not necessarily about going to the Naval Academy. It was about having the opportunity to serve people.”
And the mayoral election only months away, Raimondi did not want to spend years at Annapolis, Maryland, before serving the public.
“I could serve people as soon as I get out of high school and that’s exactly what I want to do,” he said.
Taylor, the current mayor, welcomes Raimondi’s candidacy, noting that he always jokes with youth and government students who shadow him that one day one of them could be mayor.
“If you’re 18 and you want to run, run,” Taylor said he tells them. “This is the first one that’s accepted it.”
Raimondi actually never shadowed Taylor. Instead, he just might step into the mayor’s job.
And if that happened?
“I’ll use one word,” Taylor said. “Wow!”
