Lisa Yeager was sworn in to represent District 4 during the May 21 meeting of the Pasco County Board of County Commissioners (BOCC).
She was appointed by Gov. Ron DeSantis on May 16 to fill the seat that had been vacant since the death of former Commissioner Gary Bradford on April 21.
Commission District 4 is in part of west and central Pasco County.
Yeager, of New Port Richey, is the wife of state Rep. Bradford Troy Yeager who was elected in 2022 to represent House District 56 on the west side of Pasco County.
She will stand as commissioner until a special election on Nov. 5 determines the candidate who will serve the remaining two years of Commissioner Bradford’s term. Bradford died in the middle of the four-year term to which he had been elected in November 2022.
Yeager is one of four Republican candidates seeking their party’s nomination for the District 4 commission seat in Pasco County’s Aug. 20 primary election.
The three other GOP candidates who have filed for the primary are Paul T. Bybee of Land O’ Lakes, former District 4 Commissioner Christina Fitzpatrick of New Port Richey, and Gabriel “Gabe” Papadopoulos of New Port Richey.
Fitzpatrick was elected in 2020 to serve the remaining two years of former District 4 Commissioner Mike Wells after he was elected as Pasco County’s property appraiser. She defeated Bradford in the 2020 primary election but he defeated her in the 2022 primary and went on to win the District 4 seat that year.
Daniel Ackroyd-Isales of Land O’ Lakes is the only Democrat who filed to run in the primary election as of May 22.
The winner of the District 4 commissioner race will assume office on Nov. 19. Candidates must reside in that district but voters countywide may cast their votes in that election.
At the May 21 BOCC meeting, commissioners also unanimously approved a resolution to not exempt property under provisions of the Live Local Act Property Tax Exemption enacted by the Florida legislature and recently signed into law by Gov. DeSantis.
The act would grant tax exemptions to units in multifamily projects that are used to house natural persons or families whose annual household income is between 80% and 120% of the median annual adjusted gross income for households within Pasco County.
Area median income (AMI) is a key metric in affordable housing. It is defined as the midpoint of a specific area’s income distribution and is calculated on an annual basis by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. HUD refers to the figure as MFI, or median family income, based on a four-person household.
The commissioners’ action was taken as a result of the latest Shimberg Annual Report that says there is a surplus of affordable and available units in the Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater metropolitan statistical area (MSA) that meet the income criteria for the 80 to 120 Tax Exemption. Pasco County is located within that MSA and it does have a surplus of rental housing in that range.
Chief Assistant County Attorney David Goldstein told commissioners the resolution they adopted only applies to county taxes. The Pasco County School District and cities in Pasco County would each have to enact their own resolutions in order to be able to not exempt property under provisions of the Live Local Act. Goldstein added he encourages the governmental bodies he just mentioned to enact their own resolutions.
The owners of two apartment complexes in the county have already applied to be exempted from 75% of the taxes they have to pay under provisions of the law, according to Goldstein. The county could lose out on $38 million in tax revenues over a 35-year period if both of those apartment complexes do receive the tax breaks.
Records show that only three counties in Southeast Florida — Miami-Dade, Monroe and Broward — have serious deficits in the 80-120 range, Goldstein said.
“In my opinion, the legislation should only apply to Southeast Florida and the rest of the state should be left out of it,” Goldstein said regarding the act.
The resolution the commissioners approved will take effect on Jan. 1, 2025, and will expire on Jan. 1, 2026, and it may be renewed prior to Jan. 1, 2026.
In other business on May 21, commissioners:
- Approved the Recording of a Plat with Performance Guarantees for Brookfield Holdings, which plans to develop a subdivision with 100 residential lots on 111.6 acres on the east side of Two Rivers Boulevard approximately 0.1 mile south of State Road 56 on property located in Commission District 1 in southeast Pasco County. The county has received two surety bonds totaling $5,230,318.72 to cover the costs of necessary infrastructure and landscaping improvements.
- Approved establishing Magnolia Island Community Development District (CDD) and designating a 202.3 acre site in Commission District 1 where the applicant plans to develop 475 residential units and 70,000 square feet of retail/commercial that will be assessed by the CDD. The CDD site is located south of future Tyndall Road, north of future Kiefer Road, and between Handcart Road and Curley Road.
- Approved an agreement with Consor Engineers, LLC to provide engineering services for the Chancey Road and Morris Bridge Road intersection improvements and the widening of Morris Bridge Road from south of Chancey Road to south of State Road 54 in an amount not to exceed $1,515,719.84 for fiscal year 2024.
Published May 29, 2024
