Lemon Grove Councilmember Alysson Snow is looking towards the mayor’s seat in November, running against incumbent Mayor Racquel Vasquez and fellow Councilmember Liana LeBaron. Snow, D, 50, worked for a large law firm in 2008, and was working for a national corporate level executive client, and they were a large cause of the subprime mortgage crisis, and felt she should be working to help people who lost their homes, and moved on the Legal Aid Society of San Diego, working 13 years running its Consumers Protection Division. She helped people with student loan, medical debt, keeping people in their homes, and cars in their garage. During that time, she realized that most law firms did not work for the working class, so took groups up to Sacramento to speak to the legislature to make it easier for working class people to thrive in tough economies.
After “being in the trenches” for a couple of decades, Snow decided to run for city council in 2022.
“Now I am running for mayor because there is more that I can do,” she said. “The mayor sets the vision for the community, and I can really see Lemon Grove thriving and blossoming. We have some tough issues, and because of my unique skillset, I am a good fit for our community. My skillset is the ability to help people through difficult times, keeping people housed, and then promoting small businesses and businesses thrive. All that makes me a particularly good candidate at this point in time.”
Snow said right now, Lemon Grove needs a vision and a plan, and one of the things that is holding the city back is that Lemon Grove is trying to do this by itself.
“We need to do a better job in reaching out to other surrounding cities, the county, the state, and the federal governments and relationships to work regionally on our really tough challenges like housing, homelessness, and even our businesses. Becoming a tighter partner with the East County Chamber of Commerce, pulling down more resources from the East County Economic Development Council, working tighter with the California Jobs First Program to help get money for that disinvested communities into our disinvested communities,” she said. “I think we have been trying to do this alone with the revenue generated from our own city, but now it is time to expand and move beyond that. I think when we build those relationships, we will bring more support for our community, both financial and resources.”
Snow said Lemon Grove needs a clear vision of what it wants to look like.
“We have not been able to have a revised Downtown General Plan in quite some time, and we are now getting help hiring consultants to help us find out what the community really wants our downtown to really look like. But most of all, the people who live there really love the hometown feel of it. It is a small community surrounded by a large city. It has been a great place to raise kids, and I have raised my five kids here. On any given Saturday the hotspot to be in town is at the Lemon Grove Little League field. Our Little League is a big deal, and the cheese fries are bomb. Just making sure that the things that make communities feel like communities, bringing that back, and putting a lot of investment in our community and making it to where we should be.”
Snow said she is in full support of the one-cent Measure T tax ballot on the November ballot.
“El Cajon, Chula Vista, and La Mesa’s tax measures goes into their general fund. Those have all benefitted from that investment in their general fund. Many people ask me that La Mesa has been able to do X, Y, Z in their downtown, why don’t we look like La Mesa. La Mesa has generated $12 to $18 million a year. That is considerable extra money that makes the town look better,” she said.
Snow said she sat through a presentation in El Cajon, and the city’s measure is almost identical.
“We do have an oversight committee. We have a list of things about where this money goes to. We will have community members, as well as key principals and stakeholders involved in that oversight committee to ensure dollars need to go where they need to go,” she said.
Snow said Lemon Grove has done an extremely good job and been very transparent about its finances.
“For two years in a row we have won awards for our transparency. We publish in our agenda as part of our consent items and payment demands. We have the San Diego Taxpayers Associations endorsement of our tax measure, and that is not an easy thing to get, and we have done a very good job at being fiscally responsible. So, I do not have any concerns about this being targeted for one special thing. Plus, this is a 10-year measure, so to tie the hands of the people in the future for 10 years on what this money can be used for seems imprudent. Because we have an advisory committee, strict balances and measures in place, I think this will be an amazing opportunity for Lemon Grove to invest in itself, and get the nice things it wants and make life living here better,” she said
Snow said Lemon Grove was the only city in the county to meet its Regional Housing Needs Allocation (RHNA) goals this last year.
“We are on our way. Building housing is a long process. You are looking at 10 to 12 years from idea to reality, and I am committed to that. It makes sense around our transit corridors. The way that Lemon Grove is laid out is ideal for that,” she said. “We want to promote more of that. The downtown district revision would have multi-use, and what I want to do is condos over there. We need more affordable housing for purchase. Right now, you need about $250,000 yearly income to break into the housing market inn Lemon Grove. The average salary in Lemon Grove is around $60,000 per family, so we are not promoting home ownership unless we get more affordable housing for purchase. The only way to get housing costs stabilized is by making sure people can purchase their homes. Condos are naturally more affordable than a regular single-family resident, coming in at about two-thirds of the costs.”
Snow said she would also like to see traditional starter homes being built.
“We do not need many mansions here. We need the two-bedroom, one bath stock house that people can start out in,” she said. “We have to go out and find a developer willing to do that. Lemon Grove is where I was able to start. I was on a nonprofit salary of $60,000 annually, and I was able to purchase my home in Lemon Grove because it was affordable. We need to bring that affordability back so people can make it here, and my grandkids will not have to move to Indiana. Families want to stay. Kids want to stay and build off that family bond.”
Snow said another large commitment is to help Lemon Grove businesses thrive.
“When I look through the county, we have one of the lowest permitting costs to start your business. We have some of the lowest rent, but it is still expensive. I am looking for more opportunities and ways to get small business support for our community,” she said. “Looking at incubator programs for our new small businesses, where in conjunction with the ECEDC helping people start out with a new product at the Lemon Grove Farmers Market. They start setting price points, and from there develop a business plan. Then deciding whether a brick-and-mortar business would be better, or online sales or other options would be better. Helping them learn how to promote and advertise and take their businesses from a small mom and pop and expanding that to help grow their businesses. We also have some new, great fabulous restaurants coming into town, but it is almost impossible to get buildings and financing in your first two years of operation when you open a restaurant. The ECEDC identified an opportunity to create its revolving loan fund to target these businesses that normally could not get financing, to get financing. Then we were able to use the East County dollars to go to the federal government, which it matched, and now be about $800,000 when it opens, and we will continue to expand as we augment that.”
Snow said connecting small businesses to these types of resources is crucial, as most small businesses are too busy trying to maintain their small business, that they do not have the time to search for these types of resources.
Snow said it is important to work with developers so that they understand what Lemon Grove wants.
“Doing community surveys and finding out what the community needs and what types of businesses they could support,” she said. “I would love an urgent care clinic in our community. We have the La Maestra version, but that is for low-income individuals. If you have regular insurance, I usually go to Fletcher Park Way, or sometimes it is easier to use SIMNSA Health Care in Mexico. I would like not to have to travel that far to get medical care for my kids. We need to figure out what kind of businesses we want and look to the commercial areas and go to the developers and ask them to look for the types of businesses the community wants and needs and be intentional about what we bring into our community. We have a lot of fast food, smoke shops, and there are things that we do not have. I would love to have a bakery again, an ice cream parlor.”
Snow said with the current list of candidates, the possibility of a dramatic change on the dais is concerning.
“We need a mayor that will show up, that is present, and willing to do the hard work,” she said. “The day to day in being in city government, most of it is not glamourous. Most of it is having meetings and conversations with people. Going to your SANDAG, water district, wastewater meetings, taking notes and figuring out what works for your city. I am very nervous and feel the call to work really hard to win. Because the alternative, my co-council member becomes mayor, she does not do the work. She did not go to her committee assignments for four years. Not only does that mean that we must pick up the work that she did not do, but it means for years that she was assigned to those seats, Lemon Grove did not have representation. While it is fun to get up in front of a camera, and to make platitude speeches, you must make hard decisions. It is not easy to be in a position of authority and sometimes you are not popular, and sometimes there are tough calls. We need someone who has a clear vision and a clear path, and the skillset necessary to be able to get by as a city that is right at the cusp, for a new vision in moving us forward. If we get someone in there who in four years has not learned how to take the time to be in city government, how to make relationships, have friends, to build relationships with your county representatives, those are very concerning. It is a tough job, and you need somebody who is willing to do the hard work to make it happen.”
