Former Council Member Casey Thieryung On Why He Resigned

On July 18, former Brooksville City Council Member Casey Thieryung announced his resignation from the position. This left his seat open to be filled through selection by the remaining city council members until an elected representative is sworn in in December. August 9 was the last day for potential candidates to send letters of interest to the Brooksville City Clerk.

Before attending the University of South Florida, the 29-year-old Thieryung grew up in the Brooksville area. Having lived here his whole life, Casey had noticed ways in which the small town continued to stumble, and he looked to fix it.

“I decided to run for city council because I grew up here and I was tired of seeing the same mistakes being made over and over […] and I just saw that things continued to be neglected from when I was a kid,” said Thieryung. “The same problems were still there. There were a lot of young people running and involved in the city, and I just thought that it seemed like a good time to get involved.”

Despite his foreshortened tenure, he has still been able to accomplish a great deal on the city council. His proudest achievement was the rewriting of the city’s land development codes. Considering his love for Brooksville and having nearly earned a master’s degree in U.S. History, Thieryung has been committed to maintaining the look and feel of Brooksville. Developments that aim to build thousands of houses in the area will need to comply with the city’s updated standards.

“That’s not to say we don’t want to work with people, but Brooksville has a certain aesthetic and we’re trying to keep it that way. So, we just put guidelines in place for new development.”

So, why resign in the middle of his tenure? The answer lies when Thieryung was in the thick of his campaign for Council Seat 4 in the fall of 2022. He did not realize that his life was about to change.
Less than two months before his election, his grandmother had passed away. Though he did not realize it at the time, that meant her house would now become available. Her property, which resides on a 12-acre plot of land just outside of town, is “all adjacent and connected together” with his mom’s side of the family’s property, he noted.

Upon her death, the home was left to Casey’s uncle, who already owned a house nearby, and he did not need a second one. By this time, Thieryung had already been elected and sworn into his seat on the council, and it was not until March that he had even learned of the developments surrounding his grandmother’s land. Once he did, Casey scraped the necessary funds together to purchase the home himself.

Being a newly minted council member and with aspects of the house needing fixing, Thieryung knew he had time to get the property in order before moving. In the meantime, the USF graduate continued to rent a place in town.

Thieryung’s life would reach its next chapter just four months ago when his wife gave birth to their first child. Now it was time to make some decisions about his fledgling family’s future. “My wife and I decided it was best for the family, for everyone to be in one spot all the time without having to think about it,” Casey stated. “That being coupled with being an election year, meaning my seat could easily be filled, I decided it was time to resign.”

The former councilmember truly enjoyed serving the city over the past year and a half and feels that he learned more in that time “than I probably had in the last 10 years.” He noted that no one realizes what the job entails until they are elected. He also offered some advice for those who are feeling disgruntled with local politics:

“Before they get mad, they should get involved. If they get involved, a lot of times, they’ll come to realize that the issues that they’re having are already being worked on to be solved. It just takes time, but you don’t know they’re being worked on unless you’re willing to go and ask questions.”

In the meantime, the 29-year-old Thieryung will have his hands full. Alongside being a new parent, Casey will continue to serve the community as the owner of the local Red Mule Pub, which is celebrating its 46th year of serving food with a unique old-school charm.

“I appreciate the support of the city,” said Thieryung. “It’s not that I’m going to go away or anything. I’m just going to go back to doing all the volunteer stuff that I used to do instead of being on the board. If anybody still needs me for anything, they can reach out. They still know where to get a hold of me – at the pub.”