CAPE MAY CITY – There was a bit of a love fest going on at the Dec. 17 meeting of the City Council, as officials and citizens used the last meeting of the year to bid goodbye to Michael Yeager, who this year decided not to seek reelection to the council. Yeager’s seat will move to newly elected member Stephen Bodnar when the council reorganizes in January.

Yeager was praised for bringing “balance and thoughtfulness” to council deliberations; Mayor Zach Mullock called him a “model council member.”

Yeager stepped into a council role as an appointed replacement for Chris Bezaire, who pled guilty in 2021 to stalking and contempt of court charges and finally bowed to public pressure to resign. Yeager won the right to finish the unexpired term in the general election of 2022.

Before assuming his council role Yeager was a member of the Municipal Taxation and Revenue Advisory Committee and of the city’s planning board. He has worked closely on issues of pedestrian and bicycle safety in a town where narrow roadways and too many vehicles crowd the streets during the summer.

Fellow council members called Yeager a calming influence on those occasions when the council did not have a consensus on a particular issue. Mullock joked that the council still wanted Yeager to analyze the 2025 budget.

Yeager has an MBA in finance from the Fox School of Business at Temple University, along with a B.S. in mechanical engineering from Gannon University.

Contact the reporter, Vince Conti, at vconti@cmcherald.com.