{"id":54472,"date":"2025-03-12T12:25:39","date_gmt":"2025-03-12T16:25:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/?p=54472"},"modified":"2025-03-12T12:25:58","modified_gmt":"2025-03-12T16:25:58","slug":"sara-roberts-mccarley-becomes-first-candidate-for-open-lakeland-mayor-position","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/2025\/03\/12\/sara-roberts-mccarley-becomes-first-candidate-for-open-lakeland-mayor-position\/","title":{"rendered":"Sara Roberts McCarley becomes first candidate for open Lakeland Mayor Position"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The Lakeland City Commissioner’s move opens her District C Southwest seat.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Lakeland City Commissioner Sara Roberts McCarley has announced she will run for Mayor in November.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cLakeland is an incredibly special place to raise a family and run a business,\u201d Roberts McCarley said. \u201cI\u2019m ready to roll up my sleeves and continue to serve the community I love, because I know that together, we can meet the challenges of tomorrow and get real results that move us forward.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That makes Roberts McCarley the first candidate to file in the 2025 city elections<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The native Lakeland resident has served on the Lakeland City Commission<\/a> since 2019, representing District C Southwest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She previously served as Executive Director of Polk Vision<\/a>, a community planning effort. She also served as the state director for Best Buddies International.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Roberts McCarley also volunteers with the Bonnet Springs Park Board, Randy Roberts Foundation Founder, Polk Arts and Cultural Alliance Board, Junior League of Greater Lakeland, Sun N Fun Board, and Night to Shine. She is Vice President of the Ridge League of Cities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Roberts McCarley founded the Randy Roberts Foundation, named for her late first husband, which has provided more than $300,000 in scholarships to more than 245 students, according to her LinkedIn page<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lakeland Mayor Bill Mutz announced last year that he will not seek another term. He has served as the city\u2019s Mayor since 2018.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Roberts McCarley is one of six City Commissioners. She said her platform includes \u201ckeeping local government accountable and transparent, protecting taxpayers\u2019 hard-earned dollars and supporting Lakeland\u2019s first responders.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Roberts McCarley\u2019s seat is also up for re-election this year, as is the District D Southeast spot and an at-large Commission seat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A General Election is scheduled for Nov. 4. A runoff, if necessary, is scheduled for Dec. 2. Elections are nonpartisan.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Lakeland City Commissioner’s move opens her District C Southwest seat. Lakeland City Commissioner Sara Roberts McCarley has announced she will run for Mayor in November. \u201cLakeland is an incredibly special place… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":54473,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"15","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","inline_featured_image":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"wpai_generated_summary":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":true,"token":"eyJpbWciOiJodHRwczpcL1wvaTAud3AuY29tXC9sYWtlbGFuZGdhemV0dGUuaW5mb1wvbmV3c1wvd3AtY29udGVudFwvdXBsb2Fkc1wvMjAyNVwvMDNcL1NhcmEtUm9iZXJ0cy1NY0NhcmxleS53ZWJwP2ZpdD0yOTklMkMxNjkmc3NsPTEiLCJ0eHQiOiJTYXJhIFJvYmVydHMgTWNDYXJsZXkgYmVjb21lcyBmaXJzdCBjYW5kaWRhdGUgZm9yIG9wZW4gTGFrZWxhbmQgTWF5b3IgUG9zaXRpb24iLCJ0ZW1wbGF0ZSI6ImhpZ2h3YXkiLCJibG9nX2lkIjoxNjMwNDA2NjF9.v-2ZNP50vpWBhsBDvPS9wLinR59i9uKi4EkAY061yo4MQ"},"version":2,"attached_media":[{"id":54473,"url":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/Sara-Roberts-McCarley.webp","type":"image\/jpeg"}]},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[15],"tags":[11060],"class_list":["post-54472","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","tag-sara-roberts-mccarley-becomes-first-candidate-for-open-lakeland-mayor-position"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54472","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=54472"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54472\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":54474,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54472\/revisions\/54474"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/54473"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=54472"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=54472"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=54472"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}