Suncoast Searchlight: County commissioner’s spouse paid $42K by PAC

Teresa Mast voted for at least one development involving one of the PAC donors.

By Christian Casale/Suncoast Searchlight

 Host: The husband of Teresa Mast, a sitting Sarasota County Commissioner, was the recipient of tens of thousands of dollars in payments from developer-funded PACs. His wife voted for at least one development involving one of the PAC donors. Christian Casale with Suncoast Searchlight brings us this story.

Christian Casale: A Suncoast Searchlight investigation found that political committees controlled by a prominent Tallahassee lobbyist paid $42,000 to a company run by Jon Mast, the husband of Sarasota County Commissioner Teresa Mast. 

Those committees took money from developers and other businesses with interests before the county commission, including some whose requests came before Mast for a vote. In April, the developer behind Lakewood Ranch gave $10,000 to a committee chaired by lobbyist Dave Ramba. About eleven weeks later, that committee paid $12,000 to Jon Mast’s company, the Davin Group. In September, Teresa Mast and her fellow commissioners approved the developer’s rezoning for more than 1,000 homes, overruling the County Planning Commission’s recommendation. 

Separately, a firm seeking to redevelop the former Gulf Gate Golf Course gave a political committee $60,000. Days later, that committee sent $30,000 to a fund Ramba chairs, which then paid Jon Mast’s company $15,000. The county is now reconsidering buying the golf course from that developer. 

Sarasota County Commissioner Teresa Mast at a board meeting | Photo: Christian Casale, Suncoast Searchlight

Dave Ramba is also the treasurer of Teresa Mast’s own political committee. When she ran for county commission in 2024, more than half that committee’s money came from other committees controlled by Ramba and from Benderson Development, one of his lobbying clients. 

Florida law bars local elected officials from voting on measures they know would economically benefit certain relatives, including a spouse. The Masts say her votes did no such thing, that their finances are separate and that she gets no benefit from the Davin Group. But records show the couple owned property together and ran the Davin Group together for years, until Teresa Mast stepped down. Jon Mast says the money was for legitimate political consulting.

Ramba says he paid Mast to keep tabs on politics in Sarasota and Manatee Counties. 

But the payments came from committees funded by outside interests, not Ramba’s own lobbying firm. 

Morgan Bentley, a former chairman of the Florida Commission on Ethics and a Sarasota attorney, said separate finances don’t settle the question. 

A portion of the land in northern Sarasota County that has been rezoned into a residential development for Lakewood Ranch | Photo courtesy of Sarasota County via Suncoast Searchlight

“When a couple lives under one roof,” he said, “it’s the family that benefits.”

Caroline Klancke of the Florida Ethics Institute said the closeness of lobbyists and political committees to commissioners is concerning, but she suspects that business ties alone won’t amount to a prohibited conflict without more facts from a state ethics investigation. Lakewood Ranch’s parent company and Benderson Development did not respond to requests for comment. 

For Suncoast Searchlight, I’m Christian Casale.

To read the full article, go to suncoastsearchlight.org/teresa-mast-husband-lobbyist-payments.

WSLR News aims to keep the local community informed with our 1/2 hour local news show, quarterly newspaper and social media feeds. The local news broadcast airs on Tuesdays and Thursdays at 6pm.