Collier County official Joe Trachtenberg abruptly ousted by commissioners

An affordable housing commissioner was ousted out of the blue by other Collier County leaders.

Joe Trachtenberg said the county commissioners pushed him aside for over a year, and he was sick of it. So, Trachtenberg made up his mind to do something about it.

On Monday, Trachtenberg sent a letter to every Collier County commissioner and the county manager asking why they are ignoring him.

“Finally, I realized we’ve waited 13 months, and we haven’t been listened to,” Trachtenberg said.

Trachtenberg is the former chairman of the Affordable Housing Committee.

“It was totally unexpected,” Trachtenberg said.

And the day after, he sent the letter.

“I wrote to them and very politely said, ‘I implore you, respectfully: Put us on the March 14 agenda. Let’s work together. And let’s bring workforce housing to Collier County,'” Trachtenberg said.

The commissioners fired Trachtenberg.

“And we did so on a five-to-zero vote,” Commissioner Chris Hall said.

“Chris Hall proposed to the rest of the commissioners that the solution to the problem is not the meeting and discussing affordable housing. The solution to the problem is to get rid of me,” Trachtenberg said.

WINK News called Hall to ask him a straightforward question: Why fire Trachtenberg?

“The decision to remove him was based on him focusing on the problem and not on the solution,” Hall said.

Hall explained Trachtenberg went to the media instead of talking about new ideas with commissioners.

“First of all, I did so because, in the last year, he has published or been a part of interviews or articles or editorials or some kind of media spouting off about, you know, just building the problem of workforce housing in Collier County. And it went from a problem to now and his latest things, it’s a crisis. And every single one of the commissioners are very well aware of the problem and are working diligently to get something done about it,” Hall said.

Hall said he’s in the process of looking for someone to replace Trachtenberg. They both plan to keep working on affordable workforce housing in Collier County.

WINK News asked Hall why Trachtenberg couldn’t get on the agenda for over a year. Hall said the previous board, which he was not a part of, pushed off Trachtenberg’s ideas. Then summer started, Hurricane Ian slammed Southwest Florida and the election happened.