There’s a common refrain among some local politicos in Alexandria: If there’s a garage door opening, Del Pepper is there.
No matter whether it’s just a handful of residents at a civic-association meeting or a small public forum — the city council member in Northern Virginia, unmistakable with her Midwestern mannerisms and reddish hair, would show up — just as she had done since first getting elected in 1985.
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“If there was an invitation, I went to it,” said Pepper, 84, who officially retired Jan. 1 after a record 36 years on the council. “It was my way of getting to know how people felt about things — what they really were experiencing and what they want and why they’re so involved.”
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It’s also how Pepper, ever the shrewd politician, managed to keep getting elected, say many of her colleagues and constituents. Even as Pepper evolved over the decades — from a relentless voice for preserving the city’s neighborhoods into a more reliable pro-development vote — she kept seeking out supporters and opponents alike.
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“She was everywhere, and on top of everything,” said Rob Krupicka, who campaigned for Pepper before serving alongside her on the council in the 2000s. “She attended more meetings and more public events than multiple people combined.”
And she never slowed down. Through her final days on the council last month, Pepper still personally visited every site in the city up for a land-use vote, docket in hand, and still zipped around town in her gray Toyota Camry, somehow getting from Point A to B faster than everyone else.
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A seat on the Alexandria City Council is officially a part-time position, but unlike many of her colleagues, Pepper never held another full-time job while in elected office. That made her “the eyes and ears of the council,” Krupicka said. “Del became a real trusted person to get a perspective on what was going on.”
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‘I’m a Pepper’
Pepper seemed as if she was raised for a long career in local politics. She got her start as a Nebraska elementary-schooler, going door-to-door for her father — a longtime member of the Omaha City Council — and later managed a regional Democratic headquarters during Lyndon B. Johnson’s presidential campaign.
She and her husband, F.J. Pepper, moved to Alexandria in 1968 and settled in the city’s West End, in the same building they still live in today. It took only a few years as a mayoral aide before she decided to run for office herself, a rarity for women at the time.
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“I really didn’t intend to stay this long,” she said, about a dozen election cycles later, “but there was just one project after another I really wanted to have my say in.”
At first, that say was often a firm no. Pepper charged against Jack Kent Cooke’s efforts to bring a football stadium to the Potomac Yard area, famously calling him a “billionaire bully.” And, according to many longtime residents, she almost single-handedly killed proposals for a road connecting two of the city’s major arteries, Duke Street and Eisenhower Avenue.
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During the 1991 election season, she told The Washington Post that “neighborhood preservation” was the most important issue the city faced. “High-density development,” she warned, “could cause intolerable rush-hour traffic congestion and negatively impact the neighborhood character.”
Fellow council members from over the years said it was Pepper’s populist tendency to connect with neighborhoods — and then amplify their complaints or concerns about development projects at City Hall — that helped make her so popular. If her brand was “being there,” it also meant that she could come back to campaign there later, often dressed in a scarlet soda-ad T-shirt that declared, “I’m a Pepper.”
“People trivialize that, but it speaks to a commitment she has to public service and a feeling that council should be visible and accessible,” said Mayor Justin M. Wilson (D), who has served alongside her since 2012. “We’re not an ivory tower. We’re out and engaging with the public constantly.”
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Then-council member David Speck often clashed with Pepper and her populist style in the 1990s and 2000s but recognized that “decision-making on important things needs somebody like Del,” he said. “I think we all benefited from that role that she played.”
It showed in election results: In the at-large race for six seats on the council, Pepper was the top vote-getter — and thus, chosen as vice mayor — three times.
‘What I call a moral compass’
In her nearly four decades on the City Council, some things have remained consistent for Pepper.
She was always a stalwart voice for the West End, a part of the city sometimes neglected in citywide conversations, and an advocate for Alexandria’s seniors. She championed all things green, helping shut down the Mirant coal plant in Old Town North and creating the first-ever environmental charter in Virginia.
A coal power plant was shuttered for nearly a decade. Hundreds of residents are getting a peek at its future.
But she surprised nearly everyone when she cast a key vote in 2012 to redevelop the city’s waterfront — a major departure from years of voting down most development projects from the dais.
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Pepper recalled that she had been undecided for weeks on the issue, a classically Alexandrian civic battle that seemed to have divided the city. When she voted yes at the conclusion of a heated 11-hour meeting, the project’s angry opponents vowed that it would mark the end of her political career.
But Pepper — who, of course, handily won reelection later that year — had no regrets.
“I just had to do it,” she said. “It’s what I call a moral compass. If you don’t have that moral compass, you’re really in trouble. … I was determined to take up that opportunity to see what it could be like.”
Some observers say that vote marked a kind of turning point for Pepper, in which she began to stray from her established role as the defender of neighborhoods and voted to greenlight more development projects — including some she was never too sure of herself.
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Pepper conceded that she never wanted to approve putting a halal chicken slaughterhouse on the industrial Colvin Street — “the armpit of the city,” as she called it — but did so anyway because city officials feared a discrimination lawsuit.
“Sometimes we sympathized with residents who were frustrated when Pepper would voice support for their position, then cast her vote with the majority anyway,” the Alexandria Times wrote in an editorial about Pepper’s legacy. “We think she would have been even more effective had she voted more independently.”
Some of her loudest critics also openly wondered whether she should have retired years ago. There are no term limits in Alexandria, and Pepper has long since become the oldest and longest-serving member of the body.
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With nearly four decades under her belt, Pepper is believed to be the longest-serving local elected official in the region, according to Robert Lazaro, the executive director of the Northern Virginia Regional Commission.
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While singing her praises at a Dec. 14 meeting, Pepper’s fellow lawmakers all noted how old they were when she was first elected: One was a toddler when she first came to the dais. Another was in grade school. A handful had not yet been born.
But even in the twilight of her political career, Pepper was still on the move, with places she had to be. Running late for her last legislative meeting, she hobbled over to City Hall, still impeded by a bone fracture in her left leg from the summer.
“Are you here for the meeting?” the security guard at the front desk asked as she strutted inside — slowly, but without missing a beat.
“Yes,” she said, “I better be here.”