‘The Kid’ Is Back at City Hall With New Causes : Government: When officialdom first noticed Robert L. Richardson, he was an 11-year-old campaigning to save some trees. Now he’s a 29-year-old councilman.

In 1972, a group of 11-year-old boys marched to City Hall and demanded that Santa Ana officials abandon plans to chop down a dozen camphor trees surrounding Willard Intermediate School.

They gathered at then-Public Works Director Ron Wolford’s office and declared their dedication to saving the expansive trees. Their leader, a skinny fifth-grader, impressed Wolford with his argument and sincerity.

“The kid was something else,” recalled Wolford, who is now a city engineer. “He was their spokesman and he was eloquent in their plea to help the trees.”

The kid, now 29, was Robert L. Richardson, the newest member of Santa Ana’s City Council. Besides fighting for those trees, which still stand along Ross Street, Richardson is credited with helping revive Santa Ana’s flagging school district and defeat a controversial ballot measure that called for all future jails to be built within the city limits.

“When I was a kid, I watched Santa Ana’s Civic Center get built, and I thought that’s where I wanted to work and that’s where I wanted to be,” said Richardson, whose mother moved his family from Indiana to Santa Ana when he was an infant.

Now Richardson works at the Civic Center, not only as the representative of Santa Ana’s eastern and central neighborhoods but also as a staff member for County Supervisor Roger R. Stanton. He recently resigned from the Santa Ana Unified School District Board of Trustees after defeating incumbent Ron May for the council seat in November. As the freshman member of the often divided council, Richardson has promised to directly confront Santa Ana’s top problems, overcrowding and crime, which have overwhelmed the district he represents. He has already called for stricter limits on neighborhood overcrowding.

“When I knocked on doors and talked to neighborhood groups during the campaign, all people talked about was crime and overcrowding,” Richardson said. “People want to stay in Santa Ana, but a lot of change is needed for them to continue doing that.”

City insiders say Richardson is not only politically savvy and accustomed to tackling tough problems but also is one of the county’s up-and-coming political leaders.

“I think he’s going to emerge quickly as a leader on the council,” said Mayor Daniel H. Young, who endorsed Richardson in the November election. “He’s going to come on real fast and hard. He did an extraordinary job on the school board so I’m sure he will do the same on the council.”

Richardson says his three-year tenure on the school board has given him a taste of the sort of pressure that lies ahead on the council. After Richardson was elected to the board in 1987 with a new coalition that included Audrey Yamagata-Noji and Sal Mendoza, school trustees hired Rudy Castruita as the superintendent.

While Richardson was on the board, the trustees struck a better relationship with the district’s 4,000 employees; established Santa Ana 2000, a partnership among the school district, the city and local businesses, and began a controversial policy of condemning privately owned land for new schools.

Castruita credits Richardson with visiting classes and taking time to talk to students.

“Rob’s No. 1 strength is his ability to work with others,” Castruita said. “He’s able to work on tough issues with his peers and he is able to compromise when it’s needed.”

Even former Councilman May admits that his former competitor gets things done.

“He’s as politically savvy as any young man I’ve come in contact with,” May said. “He’s a thorough person who’s competent and consistent.”

Since the election, May has chosen not to criticize Richardson. But during the campaign, May suggested that Richardson’s duties as a councilman would conflict with his obligations as a county employee. May also derisively asserted that Richardson was a “bureaucrat” who would pay more attention to businesses than low-income neighborhoods within the ward.

Richardson does not believe any conflict will occur between his county and city posts. But he said he resents May’s assertion of insensitivity to low-income people, particularly since he grew up in the city’s downtown area.

“I’ve grown up in Santa Ana, and I’ve gone to the schools here, so I have a good understanding of all the different people who live in the city,” Richardson said. “I never categorize people on the basis of skin color, age, marital status or anything else like that. That’s intolerable.”

Supervisor Stanton also defended Richardson, who began working for him in November, 1989.

“Rob could have opted to trot off to South County with a $200 briefcase and work there instead of for me,” Stanton said. “Instead, he’s chosen to stay here and work with his friends and neighbors.”

By all appearances, though, Richardson looks like a businessman with a taste for brightly colored ties. He often begins his days as a $55,000 aide to Stanton with a series of meetings with county officials and ends them at neighborhood association gatherings, where he gulps cups of extra-strength coffee. During his days off, Richardson, a train buff, visits railroad depots. He has visited about 750 depots around the country and has photographs to show for it.

Richardson, the first college graduate in his family, earned an honors degree from UCLA. He married his college sweetheart, Vivien Villapando, whom he met when they worked together at the university library. A Filipina, she became an American citizen while he was campaigning for City Council.

Richardson began his career as an employee in Santa Ana’s economic development department.

Though Richardson is considered highly polished in city political circles, with a mind for economics and complicated urban issues, city insiders say he is also known for boyish charm and expression. Richardson’s friends say that to this day he cannot get through a conversation without saying at least one “gosh” and an occasional “darn.”

“When he was a kid, he wasn’t afraid to speak about what was close to his heart,” city engineer Wolford said. “Now that he’s on the council, I’m sure he’s going to show the same kind of concern.”