Wilder won't run for 2nd term as Richmond mayor

The 77-year-old grandson of slaves announced his plans to retire during a meeting with Richmond city department directors, then issued a news release. He didn't disclose his future plans.

"I've done everything you can do," Wilder said in a brief, televised comment. He declined requests for interviews.

Wilder was elected mayor in 2004, the first popularly elected mayor of Richmond since the 1940s -and a decade after he left the governor's office.

During his time as mayor, Wilder's approval plunged amid poor relations with the City Council and the school board. By last October, polling by the Richmond Times-Dispatch showed only 35 percent of those surveyed would support Wilder for re-election.

His decision to leave office does not come as a surprise because of his sinking popularity, and he had not mobilized a re-election campaign. Several rivals, including a popular Democratic state legislator and an estranged longtime Wilder adviser, announced their candidacy weeks ago.

Wilder's mayoral troubles came to a peak last fall when he brazenly ringed City Hall with moving vans and a cordon of police to carry out an unannounced nighttime eviction of the school board during a fight about funding and accountability.

A court halted the chaos in a dramatic midnight hearing, then ruled this year that Wilder lacked the authority to force the education offices into rented space in an office building.

Last month, news reports revealed that Wilder had accepted $25,000 in personal car allowances while taxpayers spent $1.2 million to pay for the mayor's security detail, drivers and the city car in which he rides.

Since leaving the governor's office in 1994, Wilder retained some influence in the political world. He is an adviser to Democrat Barack Obama -who could become the nation's first black president -and has been highly critical of former President Bill Clinton.