09-05-2025
Díaz advocates for immigrants, infrastructure in race for Frederick City Council District 2
César Díaz, a community immigrant advocate who has a job in information technology, is seeking to represent District 2 on the Frederick City Council.
District 2 encompasses the southwestern portion of the city, including the Golden Mile area.
Díaz, a Democrat, has lived in Frederick since the 1990s, other than a short time when he lived in Hagerstown. Díaz said he is originally from Puerto Rico.
He said he started getting more involved in immigrant advocacy after President Donald Trump won the presidential election in November.
He said he lobbied for pro-immigrant laws before the Maryland General Assembly and worked with migrant advocacy groups like Centro Hispano de Frederick and the RISE (Resources for Immigrant Support and Empowerment) Coalition of Western Maryland.
He also said he teaches computer classes at Centro Hispano.
"I've been a part of the Frederick community for over 20 years and as I got involved, people just started asking if I had ever considered running for office, and I hadn't really at all," he said. "But now, with the new district structure for City Council, it just seemed like the time."
He said the city should continue to work for its immigrant community. He is in favor of ideas like Mayor Michael O'Connor's proposed $20,000 fund for immigrant legal advocacy in the proposed fiscal year 2026 budget.
Díaz said advocating for city residents is part of the mayor and council's job.
"How you advocate takes a lot of different forms ... whether it's fire departments or police departments or better speed signs, but also if some specific part of the community is potentially going to have something that they need some help with, like the immigrant community might need with some legal advocacy, then I think that's a reasonable thing for the city to be budgeting for."
He said he wants to advance long-stalled projects in the western portion of the city, like the West Frederick branch library and Westside Regional Park. Though the West Frederick library project is managed by the county, the city donated the land.
"A lot of other things that affect the community affect the immigrants within that community," he said. "Services, transportation, capital improvement projects in this area — so it's more than just an immigrant issue. Immigrants are a large part of this community, and all those are issues of the community."
He said he wants to find ways to address ever-increasing traffic on U.S. 40 and throughout District 2.
"I live in the Hillcrest area," he said. "If you're coming in and out of that area there, traffic flow is not exactly the best."
He said some potential solutions could be more bike lanes, advocating for the county to expand bus routes, or improving road infrastructure in the area.
Both of Díaz's parents are artists, he said. His father made sculptures in Puerto Rico.
Public art, like the many murals spread out over the downtown area, should be spread out over the city, he said.
"I think it is an important factor that helps build that sense of community," he said.
As long as the city takes care of its public art, he said, it can avoid situations like when the city moved forward with a $1.3 million project to reconstruct the Community Bridge mural on a bridge in Carroll Creek Park downtown. The bridge was supposed to be maintained by the city, but was not for decades, leading to irreparable damage.
Díaz said he approves of the new district system implemented after the then-Board of Aldermen approved a new city charter in September 2024.
"I'm excited because I think having that individual attention to the districts, while still having the entire City Council and also having some of our members, I think can only be better," he said.
The primary election for City Council and mayor is scheduled for Sept. 9, and the general election is scheduled for Nov. 4.
No other candidate had filed to run for City Council in District 2 by Thursday.
July 1 is the deadline to file for candidacy.
