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Linda Cropp is detail-oriented. She knows her government like the knitting she unwinds with nightly and wears proudly weekly. She is able is to spout off tacts and figures about the future of her city like most mothers know the slightest mood shifts of their children. Just last week, she - the current City Council chair and a frontrunner in the upcoming mayors race - received Mayor Anthony Williams' endorsement to be his successor. While some have her billed as the predictable sequel to "Bowtie," Cropp appears largely comfortable with that legacy. She does let slip some ideas of her own.
A former schoolteacher and school board member, she makes it very clear that education is her priority. "The fact is that a lot of times people left the city because they couldn't send their children to the schools," she said. "If we want to bring people back, particularly the middle class, we're going to have to improve because they cannot afford to buy a house and to send their children to private schools." She would like to extend incentives to teachers to keep them in the District, and provide management training for principals to help them keep up with the demands of running a city school.
She said small businesses, being overrun by large developers, would get help, as well. "The way you deal with that is with big contracts, you mandate that a certain portion have to go to local small and disadvantaged businesses," she said....