{"id":289552,"date":"2026-05-29T23:59:10","date_gmt":"2026-05-29T23:59:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/289552\/"},"modified":"2026-05-29T23:59:10","modified_gmt":"2026-05-29T23:59:10","slug":"lisett-hanewicz-re-elected-to-st-pete-city-council-without-opposition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/289552\/","title":{"rendered":"Lisett Hanewicz re-elected to St. Pete City Council without opposition"},"content":{"rendered":"

St. Petersburg City Council member Lisset Hanewicz has been elected to a second term in her District 4 seat after Friday\u2019s qualifying deadline passed without an opponent filing to challenge her.<\/p>\n

With her election<\/a>, and that of colleague Richie Floyd<\/a>, only Districts 2 and 6 will be on this year\u2019s ballot.<\/p>\n

Hanewicz celebrated her off-ballot victory Friday evening.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am deeply honored and grateful to have the opportunity to continue serving the residents of St. Petersburg for another four years,\u201d she wrote, adding that voter\u2019s \u201ctrust is something I do not take lightly.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThank you to my family, friends, neighbors, volunteers, supporters, and everyone who has believed in this work. Serving St. Petersburg has been one of the great privileges of my life. I remain committed to working hard for the people of our city. There is always much work to be done and I am excited to keep moving St. Petersburg forward together,\u201d Hanewicz continued.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Hanewicz had raised nearly $17,000 as of the end of March for her re-election, and had spend less than $3,000 of it.<\/p>\n

Hanewicz was\u00a0first elected<\/a>\u00a0to the City Council in 2021 and received an extra year on her first term due to the city moving its municipal elections from odd-numbered years to even. Since her election, Hanewicz has emphasized taxpayer protections balanced with strengthening city service delivery. She was the first Latina elected to serve on the Council.<\/p>\n

A lawyer by trade, Hanewicz previously worked for the Pinellas-Pasco State Attorney\u2019s Office as a prosecutor. She also served as an Assistant U.S. Attorney with the Department of Justice for the Middle District of Florida.<\/p>\n

She left her law practice in anticipation of her first child. Two years later, she took on a new role as the Crescent Lake Neighborhood Association President, where she worked to revitalize the group. The work, according to Hanewicz, is what prompted her to run for City Council in the first place.<\/p>\n

Hanewicz\u2019s experience as a prosecutor has sometimes been on display in her deliberations from the dais.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

In September, for example, Hanewicz\u00a0took Mayor Ken Welch\u2019s administration to task<\/a>\u00a0over its handling of the St. Pete Science Center plan, which has since been approved despite the administration\u2019s initial attempts to block it. She diligently broke down how a first-supported plan to sell the Science Center land for $1.6 million to rehabilitate the long-shuttered educational facility crumbled, outlining how the administration made untrue claims about the need for a feasibility study that was later used to walk back the agreed upon sale.<\/p>\n

After Hanewicz\u2019s remarks, the City Council\u00a0voted unanimously<\/a>\u00a0to support the Science Center project, and Welch eventually went along with the deal.<\/p>\n

Hanewicz also\u00a0publicly questioned<\/a>\u00a0the city\u2019s public records request process after she identified delays in receiving requested information, and in some cases requested documents weren\u2019t received at all. Earlier this month she requested a committee discussion to explore the city\u2019s process and identify possible improvements after a resident sued the city in November over a records request he said went unfilled for more than a year.<\/p>\n

Hanewicz was born in Tampa to Cuban exiles who came to the U.S. on Freedom Flights. She grew up in Miami and became the first in her family to attend college, and went on to further her education in law school. Regardless of the outcome of her election, Hanewicz will remain Council Chair through 2026.<\/p>\n

District 4 includes the Crescent Lake, Historic Old Northeast, Greater Woodlawn, and Meadowlawn neighborhoods.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"St. Petersburg City Council member Lisset Hanewicz has been elected to a second term in her District 4…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":289553,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[2346,8123,7357,202,3351,204,203,199,1640,201,200],"class_list":["post-289552","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-st-petersburg","tag-ken-welch","tag-lisset-hanewicz","tag-richie-floyd","tag-st-pete","tag-st-pete-city-council","tag-st-pete-headlines","tag-st-pete-news","tag-st-petersburg","tag-st-petersburg-city-council","tag-st-petersburg-headlines","tag-st-petersburg-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/289552","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=289552"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/289552\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/289553"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=289552"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=289552"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=289552"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}