David Cropper announces that he will run for City Council in Ward 1.
Jan 22, 2025
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
When David Cropper suggested meeting at the Mason-Dixon Cafe on Wednesday to discuss his candidacy, it proved an appropriate setting for two reasons.
Mason-Dixon is “where the locals REALLY eat,” and Cropper is a native son of the city. It also sits between the two Fredericksburgs Cropper has known. Across the street, not far from the cafe, were once a number of mobile homes, where Cropper grew up. A couple blocks in the opposite direction is the office of Cropper Home Sales, a real estate brokerage firm he founded and runs.
Cropper says his upbringing was “challenged,” but a chance meeting with Warren Buffet “showed me a different way of living.” He owes a lot, he says, to the city and is passionate about giving back.
Frustrated with partisan politics, Cropper enters this race with one driving ideal: “I want Fredericksburg to be about Fredericksburg again,” he told the Advance.
His campaign is shaping up around four issues that are tightly related. The first is workforce housing.
“There’s a difference between affordable housing and workforce housing,” he told the Advance. Workforce housing is “housing for the unheard middle class.”
“My point is getting people who work here, to live here,” he said. “If you’re a police officer or teacher,” a person shouldn’t have to trek to Caroline County in order to live just so you can work in the city.
Data centers also touch on this issue. The financial promise these bring can, if used properly, he believes, could go a long way toward addressing some of the city’s concerns. For example, a lot of the money that these centers will produce “can be used appropriately to help our workforce.”
He also understands the concerns people have with data centers, however. “Technology is always changing,” he said. “Just because we need them now, what’s going to happen if technology changes in a way that we don’t need them? What are we giving up,” he said, “to get back? Right now, I don’t know…. I’d like to see more oversight from the start. Be proactive, not reactive.”
Housing isn’t the only issue pushing people from the city, he believes.
Another concern is the schools, which Cropper would want to put more money into. “I want families to stay here,” he said, “and not move to the counties” because parents are concerned about their children’s educational experience.
The final major theme? Increasingly, he sees infrastructure as a problem the city is going to have to address. He pointed specifically to the rash of recent water main breaks. Certainly, he said, this is due to the cold. But it’s also true, he noted, that “the system is old and in need of upgrading.”