Carol Schwartz gets her petitions. Photo by Sarah Anne Hughes.

Rejecting speculation that she is somehow running as a “spoiler” to mayoral opponent David Catania and a “helper” to fellow adversary Muriel Bowser, former Councilmember Carol Schwartz answered the question “Why are you doing this?” with a simple response: “I want to be mayor.”

The ex-Republican politician, who ran for mayor four times under her previous party registration, today picked up nominating petitions from the D.C. Board of Elections to run as an Independent candidate. In a press conference outside One Judiciary Square, Schwartz called the accusation from Catania’s campaign that she’s playing a Sulaimon Brown-like role in this election “petty and distracting.” “Everybody who knows me knows that I am hardly a person who is not my own person,” she added. “You can call me lots of things. But not being my own person is not one of them.”

Her fifth mayoral run, however, is unexpected. Schwartz said even her best friends didn’t know she was planning to run, but added that there’s been demand for her return to political life since her 2008 defeat. “People stop me on the street,” she said. “Bus drivers say it. People call me and say ‘We miss you.’ Even some of the people who didn’t even like me say that they miss me. Maybe they miss having something to be mad at or something. This is a chance to bring me back and continue serving the District of Columbia.”

Highlighting the good that she currently sees in D.C., Schwartz said “I love seeing this boomtown,” citing her support of tax cuts. “What I don’t like seeing is many people being pushed out,” she said. “I think we can do affordable housing and continue our economic development.”

On school boundaries, the former Board of Education member discussed her education reform record and said she’d keep schools chancellor Kaya Henderson. When asked by a reporter how gentrification and demographic changes play into the boundary debate, Schwartz said she’ll “have to study that real hard.”

“I want to have good elementary schools everywhere in this city,” she said. “But I want boundary placement, too, because that integrates it some and that’s a very important debate.” She added that she’s been a long-time supporter of magnet schools.

Schwartz declined to discuss either Bowser or Catania.

Following the press conference, Schwartz said she planned to go to historic Anacostia to collect signatures. Part of her voter outreach strategy includes her vehicle.

“One of the things I love about my convertible,” Schwartz said of her well-known yellow TransAm, “it attracts attention and it lets people know that … I’m not afraid of any section of the city.”