Charles Clemons, co-founder of TOUCH 106.1 FM, is launching a mayoral bid. At his 50th birthday party, held Sunday night at Hibernian Hall in Roxbury, Clemons announced he was running for mayor in 2013.

“I just feel like as a parent, and a grandfather, you’re either part of the solution or you’re part of the problem in the community,” he told the Reporter Monday morning.

Clemons, a Fields Corner resident for over 35 years, said he is in the process of picking a campaign manager and other staffers. He is a former Boston Police officer and a correctional officer.

Mayor Thomas Menino, who easily won re-election in 2009, has not announced whether he’s running for a sixth four-year term.

“I’m a marathoner,” Clemons said, noting that he walked from Boston to Washington D.C. in support of the Local Community Radio Act, which allows for thousands of new low power FM stations such as TOUCH 106.1. “I figured if I can do that, I can run for mayor.”

He founded TOUCH106.1 FM, which operates as a private nonprofit and has clashed with the Federal Communications Commission, with two others in 2005. He said he is leaving the radio station this week.

The bid would be his first run for elected office. “I believe that it’s my time,” Clemons said. “Everything has a season and a reason and this is my season.”

He said he plans to bring up issues like education, jobs and safety, which “normally don’t get on the radar all the time.”

SEE ALSO: From the Reporter archives, a story on Clemons from 2009.

Reaching back further into the archives, from 2008: 'Pirate' station emerges as 'voice of Black Boston.'