Right after the second Commission Candidates’ Forum on February 28, I began thinking about my next blog post. I wanted to write something that would expand upon the main ideas from my opening statement at the Forum, in which I talked about the connection between the “dais” and the “podium”–between the Town Commission and the people it represents. My campaign has been driven by a particular vision of that relationship, and I want to communicate that vision to you in these final weeks before Election Day.
Two days later, on Friday, March 1, everything changed. An 18-year-old resident of Surfside–a friend to me and to many of us in this community–was arrested by the Surfside Police Department. The charge against him was a felony punishable by five years’ imprisonment, and the charge stemmed from an incident that allegedly took place at Town Hall, immediately after the Candidates’ Forum. The young man was arrested two days after the alleged incident. He was handcuffed and arrested by the Surfside Police while on his way to swim laps at the Community Center pool and then taken to the infamous Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center in western Miami-Dade County.
The Surfside Police Department has said, in a statement, that the arrest came after a “thorough police investigation,” and after “consulting with the Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office.” The SPD’s pre-arrest investigation, however, doesn’t appear to have been “thorough” at all. Even though the Town Manager and the SPD were aware of multiple witnesses who denied that the alleged crime ever took place, those witnesses were not interviewed until several days after the arrest. And the Town’s public statements still have not specified what form of “consultation” the Surfside Police Department had with the State Attorney’s Office. (The arrest report indicates only that the SPD left a message with the State Attorney’s Office.)
On the night of the arrest, I joined many of my neighbors in a spontaneous gathering outside of Town Hall. We chanted “Justice for Joshua,” and we demanded records pertaining to the arrest and investigation. Mostly, though, we were there to provide support to the young man’s parents, who were desperate for information about their son and gravely concerned over his safety. The young man spent 27 hours in jail before finally being released, without bond, the following evening, on Saturday, March 2.
The arrest came as a terrible shock on that Friday night. Even now, almost a week later, I remain horrified by what has happened, as are so many of my neighbors.
Before the arrest, I had been planning to write something abstract (and maybe a little bit academic) about democracy in Surfside–about the dais and the podium–building on my opening statement from the Candidates’ Forum. But this horrifying, galvanizing event made it hard for me to concentrate on abstract ideas. The injustice was too specific, too immediate, and too personal.
On March 5, Mayor Shlomo Danzinger finally broke his silence about the arrest, in a campaign e-mail titled “An Urgent Message Regarding the Recent Town Hall Incident”–an e-mail that, in my view, provides a perfect example of why Mr. Danzinger is unfit to lead Surfside. Even though Mr. Danzinger was not present at the February 28 Candidates’ Forum, he proceeds in his e-mail to make assertions about what took place that night. He tells the community that the Vice Mayor “was physically attacked in front of his family”–indicating that he has already made up his mind about the factual question at the heart of an ongoing legal process. Mr. Danzinger, in his rush to judgment, reveals what he really thinks about that legal process: For him, it’s just a perfunctory exercise, a show. In his mind, the real question has already been decided.
I’ve encountered this attitude of Mr. Danzinger’s before. You see, it’s not just his attitude toward criminal law. It’s his attitude toward legal processes in general–including the process of making law at meetings of the Town Commission. In both cases, the process is just a perfunctory exercise, a show. On every single issue that comes before the Commission, Mr. Danzinger’s mind is, always, already made up before the meeting begins–just as his mind is already made up about the arrest that shook Surfside this past week.
You can see Mr. Danzinger’s contempt for participatory, democratic processes time and again, in the way he oversees public comments at Commission meetings. Go back and watch the meetings where the Commission voted on controversial issues like the Pride Flag, or pre-set beach chairs, and you’ll see the pattern: First, Mr. Danzinger calls up the people he sees as his opponents. After that, he calls up the people he sees as his allies, always giving them the last word.
This pattern reveals a lot about the way Mr. Danzinger views our community. In his mind, residents are already pre-sorted into categories: either with him, or against him. The “against him” group is allowed to speak–The law requires that, after all–but we all know that the public-comment period is just a show. Trust me. I know this process well because I’ve spent more time at that podium, addressing the Commission, than any of the other candidates. When someone from the “against him” column speaks, Mr. Danzinger often looks at his cell phone or leaves the room. If he stays and listens, his facial expressions reveal his utter lack of interest in what’s being said. And, far too often, he abuses his power to silence his critics–interrupting them, mocking them, forcing them to stop speaking, or ejecting them from the chambers. In the last two years, I’ve attended nearly every Commission meeting, and I’ve never once seen Mr. Danzinger change his mind, or even pause to deliberate, when presented with an opinion different from his own.
Part of the problem is that, in Mr. Danzinger’s view, this is how democracy is supposed to work. He’s told us as much. Have a look at this clip from the Commission meeting from August 9, 2022:
Mr. Danzinger seems to think that democracy only happens every two years, at election time, and that after an election, democracy just goes away until the next campaign.
When I think about Mr. Danzinger’s conduct as mayor–especially his contempt for the speakers at the podium and his many attempts to silence his critics–a lot of it can be explained by his view of democracy as a merely occasional event. And that realization makes me especially grateful to the many Surfside voters who voted against Mr. Danzinger’s proposed charter amendments in November of 2023. Can you imagine how much more contemptuous of public input Mr. Danzinger would have been if he had been serving a four-year term?
Mr. Danzinger’s view of democracy makes even less sense to me now that I am running my own election campaign. When candidates like me present their views to voters, the presentations look something like this:
Bullet points, short conversations on doorsteps, 90-second answers at the Candidates’ Forum. That’s how candidates communicate during elections. And in Mr. Danzinger’s view of democracy, that’s the entire conversation. For Mr. Danzinger, March 19 is the day public input ends.
At the Mayoral Candidates’ Forum on January 30, Mr. Danzinger doubled down on his mistaken view of democracy, openly expressing his contempt for his critics and wishing that, after this election, his critics will just “go away for a while.”
I strongly disagree with Mr. Danzinger’s view of democracy, and I think that Mr. Burkett’s answer in the clip above gets it exactly right. REAL democracy extends past Election Day and into the actual process of governing. Campaign communications (including this blog post) are important, but they’re only the beginning of the conversation. They’re an opening move, something akin to a first date. I’m hoping that you, the voters, see enough promise and potential in my ideas that you invite me into a longer, democratic conversation with you over the next two years. One in which the people on the dais listen–truly listen!–to the people at the podium, learn from them, and deliberate together with them.
This is the vision of democracy that Surfside can have, starting on March 19. Surfside can have honest, rational, ethical, and compassionate conversation between its residents and its elected officials–not just during elections, but all the time.
But to get there–to make this vision of democracy real–I need your VOTE.