Surfside Election: Mayor and 4 Commission Seats on Ballot

Surfside voters head to the polls Tuesday to choose a new Mayor and fill four Town Commission seats, with two ballot questions on zoning and election timing also on the slate.

The Mayor’s race features three figures already well known to residents. Sitting Vice Mayor Tina Paul, former Town Manager and Commissioner Mark Blumstein, and ex-Mayor Shlomo Danzinger are competing to succeed Mayor Charles Burkett, who is stepping down.

Paul is running from a position of incumbency. Now in her second stint on the Commission, she first served from 2016 to 2022, then returned in 2024. She points to a record that includes sponsoring fee waivers for condominium safety repairs, establishing a Community Relations Board and Youth Council, and pushing infrastructure upgrades for parks and drainage. She has also championed memorial efforts tied to the 2021 Champlain Towers South collapse, the disaster that reshaped how South Florida thinks about building safety. Her platform centers on public safety, fiscal discipline, transparent governance and what she describes as inclusive leadership to rebuild trust at Town Hall. She also emphasizes protecting Surfside’s character from overdevelopment and pushing environmental resilience for the coastal community.

Blumstein brings a resume that stretches well beyond Surfside. A retired U.S. Navy JAG officer, he served as a Circuit Court Judge from 2017 to 2023 before taking the Town Manager post in December 2024. That tenure ended abruptly in October 2025, when the Commission voted 3-2 to fire him amid accusations of unprofessional conduct and resistance to Commission directives. Paul voted for his removal. Now he is asking voters to put him in the Mayor’s office. He is pledging fiscal responsibility, strict adherence to the law and restored trust in local government. His platform also targets flooding and sewage problems, lower water and sewer costs, enhanced regional public safety cooperation and new town recreation facilities.

The third candidate, Danzinger, is trying to reclaim a position he has already held and lost. His history with the Surfside Mayor’s office reads like a rotation. He originally held the seat, then Burkett unseated him, then Danzinger won it back in 2022, and then Burkett took it again two years after that. His final term ended under a cloud. He narrowly avoided a formal censure after making racially insulting comments in 2023, and complaints about incivility at Town Hall followed him out the door. Just over a month after losing his seat, Danzinger launched a bid for Miami-Dade County Mayor. He received 2% of the vote.

The Town Commission contest is an at-large race with eight candidates competing for four seats, meaning half the field will come up empty. With that many candidates pulling support in different directions, endorsements and name recognition will likely drive the outcome.

Voters will also weigh in on two ballot questions. One addresses zoning, a perpetually sensitive subject in a beachside town where development pressure never fully recedes. The other concerns the timing of future elections, a structural question that could affect how Surfside conducts its civic business for years to come.

The backdrop to all of this is a town still managing its identity in the aftermath of the Champlain Towers collapse. Surfside has wrestled publicly with questions of governance quality, building oversight and whether local leadership is up to the responsibilities that tragedy thrust upon it. The candidates in Tuesday’s race have each, in different ways, positioned themselves as the answer to those concerns.

Paul points to institutional groundwork. Blumstein points to legal and administrative experience. Danzinger is betting that enough voters want a reset and that the memory of his previous controversies has faded enough to give him another chance.

Turnout in Surfside municipal races has historically been modest. The candidates who spent the past weeks working phones, knocking doors and showing up at community events are likely to benefit from that reality. In a small-town race where every vote carries real weight, organization often matters as much as the platform itself.

Polls close Tuesday evening.