Former Lemon Grove Mayor Mary Sessom was found to be in violation of the Political Reform Act and was fined $1,100 by the Fair Political Practices Commission.
Sessom, mayor of Lemon Grove for 20 years, was charged with two counts of not filing on time and her candidate committee charged with three counts of not playing the annual fee.
Sessom said she has already paid for the penalties incurred. She explained that she moved from one part of Lemon Grove to another in 2011 and had not received notifications about how much money was due and when.
There was a time when there were no filing fees charged, she said. Her forwarding address had long expired with the post office.
“I straightened it out after they told me and I paid it in full,” Sessom said.
The FPPC said that Sessom and her treasurer, Anna Sessom Baker, failed to timely file two semiannual campaign statements for the reporting periods in 2015 and 2016.
The violations came for the statements covering July 1 through Dec. 31, 2015 (due Feb. 1, 2016), and from Jan. 1 through June 30, 2016 (due Aug. 1, 2006). The penalty for the first violation is $204, the second $209, for a total of $413.
Sessom failed to timely pay her 2014, 2015, and 2016 annual fees of $50 apiece to the Secretary of State‘s Office as well. That carries a $200 penalty for each, totaling $600.
In its description of the violations, the FPPC noted that there was “no evidence of intent to conceal.”
Jay Wierenga of the FPPC in an email said that the matter is a pending settlement. No case is final until the full FPPC votes on cases at its monthly meeting. The FPPC will meet next on Thursday.
Sessom was a member of the Lemon Grove City Council for 22 years.
A 1974 graduate of Cal State San Bernardino with a law degree from Thomas Jefferson University, she is currently an instructor at Cuyamaca College.
She practiced law in San Diego County from 1979-98 and was a judge pro tem in the family law division of the Superior Court in El Cajon, retiring in 2002 to teach at Cuyamaca.
