The resignation is effective at 11:59 p.m. on Nov. 2, one day before the 2026 General Election.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn addition, I am withdrawing my candidacy for re-election for my seat in 2028,\u201d Herbst wrote. \u201cPlease let me know (if) there are any additional forms needed for that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Herbst, a Republican, was rumored<\/a> to be seeking an appointment last year from Gov. Ron DeSantis as Broward County Tax Collector after the current officeholder, Abbey Ajayi, was accused of improperly using government resources for her 2024 campaign.<\/p>\n Ajayi this week settled<\/a> the misconduct case and agreed to pay a $4,000 fine, prompting renewed speculation of a potential Herbst promotion via the Governor\u2019s pen.<\/p>\n Herbst threw water on the idea, telling Florida Politics by text that he decided to step down early after losing his brother.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve spent nearly three decades in public service focused on accountability and fiscal discipline. After a great deal of thought \u2014 and some personal reflection \u2014 I\u2019ve decided this is the right time to step away from my role on the City Commission and focus on the next chapter. I\u2019m proud of the work we\u2019ve done, and I believe it\u2019s important to leave while you\u2019re still fully engaged and effective,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cMy brother passed away in January at age 68, and that has me reassessing how I want to spend my time and energy.\u201d<\/p>\n Herbst is 62.<\/p>\n After Mayor Dean Trantalis, Vice Mayor Ben Sorensen and Commissioner Steven Glassman voted to fire Herbst in 2022 from the city auditor job he held for 16 years, Herbst quickly filed to run for the City Commission. He won a four-way Special Election<\/a> for District 1 with nearly twice as many votes as his closest competitor.<\/p>\n He repelled a lone challenger<\/a> two years later by 13 percentage points<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Fort Lauderdale Commissioner John Herbst is resigning from his District 1 seat two years into his current four-year…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":254295,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[15823,506,8184,249,251,250,62396],"class_list":["post-254294","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-fort-lauderdale","tag-broward","tag-broward-county","tag-election-2026","tag-fort-lauderdale","tag-fort-lauderdale-headlines","tag-fort-lauderdale-news","tag-john-herbst"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/254294","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=254294"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/254294\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/254295"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=254294"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=254294"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=254294"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Herbst-resignation-640x538.jpg\")
<\/a>John Herbst\u2019s resignation email. Image via Fort Lauderdale Clerk of Court.<\/p>\n