Fayette County voters head to the polls next week to decide which local resident will represent them in the District 72 Ga. House seat at next year’s General Assembly.
Above (L-R), Mary Kay Bacallao and Josh Bonner. File photos.
Incumbent Josh Bonner is seeking re-election for the seat that includes Peachtree City, south Fayette County, including Brooks, as well as, Senoia and Haralson and the surrounding areas of east Coweta County.
According to his website, Bonner has been married to Michelle for 18 years and has four children. He is the owner of Southeast Properties, Inc., a commercial property management and leasing firm serving the South Metro area.
He is heavily involved in serving the community and the nation. He is currently serving in the U.S. Army Reserves, and has three overseas deployments in support of the Global War on Terror. Additionally, He also serves as president of the Crossroads Christian School Parent Board and the treasurer for the Armed Forces Mission, a non-profit organization dedicated to eliminating suicide in our veteran community.
Bonner is a strong pro-life supporter and believes in protecting the Second Amendment.
He outlines his philosophy on his website.
“As a small business owner, I see first-hand the disastrous effects of government over reach into the lives of business owners and employees. Over taxation, Obamacare, and other liberal policies have a damaging and long lasting impact on our economy. As your representative, I will always vote against tax increases and all unfunded mandates that hurt our businesses and families. As a state, we should do everything possible to incentivize existing businesses to grow, new businesses to start, and out of state businesses to re-locate to Georgia. I am a supporter of the FairTax which taxes consumption not productivity,” he wrote.
Dr. Mary Kay Bacallao has been a professor at a university in Georgia since 2003, teaching courses in math, science, and technology for teachers in Douglasville, Henry County, Atlanta, and Newnan. She has been married since 1989 to Aldo Bacallao and they have four children.
According to her website, she was elected to serve on the Fayette County School Board in 2012 where she studied state and federal legislation related to education. What she noticed caused her to seek solutions. She began working with other school board members and education activists to find ways to stop the federal takeover of local schools. This group became known as the Educational Freedom Coalition.
In her press release announcing her run, Bacallao urged voters to look at all the issues.
“You are all too familiar with the effects of legislation passed at the state level in recent years and are looking for a watchdog legislator,” she wrote.
She said unjust legislation was being used to take authority over education from parents, teachers, students and locally elected school officials. She has been fighting against bad education bills for many years.
She also believes taxation needs to be revamped. “The U.S. tax code is very complicated. That is because it seeks to control citizens and businesses through incentives and de-incentives in the way taxes are calculated. The founders envisioned a free people with limited government. Work is its own incentive, but the tax code interferes with the connection between productivity and wealth.That needs to change. A reasonable and low proportional tax for citizens and businesses would solve many of the problems created by the IRS and a complicated tax system,” she said.
Voters head to the polls May 22. Early voting is underway now.
