After unsuccessful campaign, candidate finds new ways to serve Manatee

Alyssa Gay is keeping busy after campaigning for the District 72 House seat.


Alyssa Gay says she just wants to serve her community.
Alyssa Gay says she just wants to serve her community.
Photo by Lesley Dwyer
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Alyssa Gay didn’t win the Republican nomination to represent District 72 in the Florida House, but she has been offered two other types of seats since.

Gay now serves on the Manatee County Planning Commission and on the All Florida Conservation board. 

“At my core, I want to serve my community,” she said. 

At 32 years old, Gay is considerably younger than many of her political counterparts, but she knows Manatee County firsthand.

She was born at Blake Hospital in Bradenton. She’s lived in both the west and east sides of Manatee County. She’s a local business owner and a Leadership Manatee graduate. 

Gay may not have won the primary, but she held her own in a four-way race against Bill Conerly, Richard Tatem and attorney Richard Green. Conerly served on the Planning Commission for 12 years, and Tatem serves on the Manatee County School Board. 

Conerly won the race, and Tatem came in second with 28.1% of the votes. Gay, who owns the Honeycomb Creative Agency, received 22.5% of the votes her first time running.

She is a third-generation entrepreneur, so it’s in her blood to take charge. She might be the youngest in the room, but she’s not the quietest. Gay likes to ask questions. 

Asking the right questions early on is important to her, especially in her new role on the Planning Commission. 

During her first meeting as a planning commissioner, she asked such a question about Triple Oak Preserve, which is a 105-acre parcel in Myakka City that Manatee County purchased in 2024 for conservation. 

Gay wanted to discuss the end goal and whether Triple Oak will be comparable to Robinson Preserve or Rye Preserve? Robinson Preserve attracts significantly more traffic than Rye Preserve. 

Having lived in Myakka City, Gay is familiar with Betts Road, where the property is located. Her question stemmed from a public safety standpoint that the area already experiences “fatal accidents on a recurring basis.” 

“I told (staff) that I might be getting ahead of myself,” she said, “But I want to ask those questions before it gets farther down the line.” 

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A healthy dialogue is exactly what commissioners are seeking from their appointments. Commissioner Jason Bearden said he’s tired of seeing 5-0 votes from the Planning Commission because it doesn’t offer any details as to why someone would oppose a vote. 

“The Planning Commission is an advisory board,” Commission Chair George Kruse said. “They don’t make decisions; they give us guidance. It serves us better to have a diverse board.” 

Kruse said he looks at the way individual members vote because they often vote the way their neighbors want them to vote.

Commissioner Carol Felts is happy to see a second District 1 resident join the Planning Commission because it’s the fastest growing area in the county.

Gay lives on the south side of the Manatee River with her husband, Taylor, who is a land surveyor. The couple know their surroundings. 

“He loves to dig into the history of things,” Gay said. “The Fort Hamer Bridge was platted in the early 1900s.” 

The Manatee County website reports that a bridge over the Manatee River was first proposed by the county commission on Sept. 9, 1909. A bridge over the river wasn’t proposed again until 1989 and wasn’t built and open to drivers until 2017.

Now, the bridge that took over 100 years to build is a source of frustration for residents sitting in traffic. Getting appropriations to widen the bridge would have been one of Gay’s priorities had she taken the District 72 seat.

Gay believes in the balance of growth and conservation, a balance she’s found in her two board seats. 

All Florida is a nonprofit focused on conservation, and the Planning Commission is mainly making recommendations on developments, even though a project like Triple Oak will come up here and there.

“If you’re not growing, you’re dying,” she said. “It’s good to have growth, but we have to manage that with our green space.”

 

author

Lesley Dwyer

Lesley Dwyer is a staff writer for East County and a graduate of the University of South Florida. After earning a bachelor’s degree in professional and technical writing, she freelanced for the Sarasota Herald-Tribune. Lesley has lived in the Sarasota area for over 25 years.

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