An observation: The police officers in Surfside — the little town south of Sunny Isles Beach where I've lived for more than three years — might be the biggest horndogs in the state. They hide in the bushes of a parking lot on Harding Avenue, trap drivers doing 37 mph, and lay their pudgy, Oakley-sunglasses-wearing mack game down on any passing female pedestrians, including my girlfriend. Confront them about it, and they become steely RoboCops.
Well, coppers, I hope you like escorting me to town hall every day. And I might call your cell phones at 3 a.m. about my neighbors playing their music too loudly. What's that? It's my own stereo system blasting the soothing sounds of NWA's "Fuck the Police"? Silly me.
Neighbors, vote for me for Surfside Commission. I'll make this town awesome.
For an outwardly placid beach hamlet with a population around 5,000, Surfside has a healthy amount of chaos. A serial masturbator was jacking it in the beach showers until he was finally, um, busted in 2010. One of those fine officers was caught taking bribes from drunk drivers. The town is getting sued by a local synagogue. Town attorney Lynn Dannheisser, who makes a whopping $178,000 annually, hired her boyfriend on the taxpayers' dime. A secretive clutch of anti-regime bloggers regularly churns out press releases about the "cancer of corruption" infecting Surfside.
And in a display of apathy unprecedented in Florida, the March 20 commission election had only four candidates for five seats.
This is my kind of town. A special election will be held for that last spot May 1. Call me Luther Campbell II. If elected, I promise to put "No Masturbating" signs on the beach, turn cops I don't like into my butlers, tell Dannheisser it's time to update her Monster.com profile, give my girlfriend a no-show lifeguarding job for $9.50 an hour, pet my lap dog Murray menacingly during commission meetings, and — while I'm at it — do my best to legalize marijuana.
I thought I would win the special election without an opponent. But at a recent town hall meeting, I silently stewed as an earnest, polite lady named Michelle vowed to run.
Michelle, prepare to get swiftboated.
