Mary England, 12- year veteran of the Lemon Grove City Council is running for California State Assembly on a pro-business platform for the new 79th District, a district made out of chunks of previously existing districts including parts of Lemon Grove.
According to England, there are lots of reasons why she is running; the challenge of a brand new district, and the need to remove regulations she claims are killing businesses all over California.
Mary England, 12- year veteran of the Lemon Grove City Council is running for California State Assembly on a pro-business platform for the new 79th District, a district made out of chunks of previously existing districts including parts of Lemon Grove.
According to England, there are lots of reasons why she is running; the challenge of a brand new district, and the need to remove regulations she claims are killing businesses all over California.
“I don’t want businesses leaving California in 10 years,” she said. “We have lost a million manufacturing jobs.”
She pointed out that such job losses also impact the non-profits, because the situation dries up interest in volunteering time and the possibility of donations of money or items.
“People are being stretched,” said England.
A child of Los Angeles who came to San Diego at the age of five, Mary England has a long history of politics; for a number of years she was involved in the now-defunct Lemon Grove Chamber of Commerce, worked with Supervisor Dianne Jacob’s campaigns in the 1990s, and then was elected to the Lemon Grove City Council in 1998. In 2002 ,she lost in an extremely tight mayoral race with Mary Sessom.. While working on the city council, she was hired as CEO of the La Mesa Chamber of Commerce on May, 18 2008.
She was approached by Assemblyman Brian Jones (R- Santee) in February when the new district emerged, and after some thought, she decided to run.
“I didn’t wake up in February saying I need to go to Sacramento,” England quipped.
When asked what she wants to do as Assemblywoman, England stated that she want to have the Assembly adopt a checklist system to look at bills from top to bottom to check for any riders or small print that might hurt businesses.
She mentioned that the Lemon Grove Bakery has had to recently increase prices to cover cost due to an anti-trans fats law that bans certain oils within commercially baked food.
“I want to bring common sense to Sacramento,” she said.
