No Mo' Shlomo, New Dawn in Pembroke: South Florida Municipal Election Winners and Losers

Voters across South Florida headed to the polls Tuesday to cast their ballots for several key municipal elections.

With a bevy of mayoral and commission seats at stake, voters overall appear to have embraced a common theme: change.

Here's a rundown of the results.

Surfside

In Surfside, residents cleaned house at town hall by voting out a trio of incumbents.

Charles Burkett, a real estate investor who led the municipality in the aftermath of the Champlain Towers South condo collapse, reclaimed the mayoral seat in the race against incumbent Shlomo Danzinger.

Charles Burkett has just won the mayoral race in Surfside, defeating current Mayor Shlomo Danzinger. @wsvn pic.twitter.com/lXtnlaXP2F

— Sheldon Fox-7 News (@fox_sheldon) March 20, 2024

Burkett received more than 52 percent of the vote, beating out Danzinger by about five percentage points. The win signals electoral redemption for Burkett after his loss to Danzinger in the 2022 race for mayor.

Along with Danzinger, voters rejected Vice Mayor Jeffrey Rose and Commissioner Fred Landsman, both of whom critics perceived as aligned with Danzinger on property development issues and other hot-button municipal affairs.

Rose received roughly 11 percent of the vote, losing his vice mayor position to Tina Paul, who locked in roughly 14 percent.

Candidates Gerardo Vildostegui and Ruben Antonio Coto secured commission seats, as did incumbent Nelly Velasquez, a Danzinger detractor.

The major shift in leadership comes on the heels of a series of scandals that have divided the beachside town of less than 6,000 residents, including the arrest of a teenage activist over a tussle with Rose, an obscure political action committee that flooded the community with mailers, and a battle between developers and family members of those killed in the Surfside condo collapse over the future of the site.

Hillsboro Beach

In the oceanfront town northeast of Pompano Beach, political newcomer and attorney Dawn Miller and incumbent Jane Reiser appear to have locked up the two commission seats in play. The remaining candidate, local activist Richard Crusco, stands to be the sole loser in the race. Reiser has occupied a Hillsboro Beach commission seat since June 2021.

Crusco had gained traction in the community through his activism against planned commercial development, the New Pelican reported. But he did not carry enough momentum into the race to prevail against Miller, who campaigned on tackling beach erosion and an underground utility project.

Pembroke Pines

Following the retirement of longtime mayor Frank Ortis, voters in the Broward County suburb of 170,000 residents elected current commissioner Angelo Castillo to take the mayoral seat by a landslide.

Castillo, who received the endorsement of the local police union Broward County Police Benevolent Association, beat out two other candidates in the race: event coordinator and longtime city resident Elizabeth Burns, whose campaign focused on tackling housing affordability, and vice mayor Iris Siple.

Elected in 2004, Ortis is retiring from his two-decade tenure to tend to his restaurant and "bagel emporium," the Mayor's Cafe in Pembroke Pines.

Jay Schwartz, who has been on the Pembroke Pines commission since 2012, secured the District 1 commission seat with more than double the vote count of his nearest contender. As of 11:45 p.m. the District 3 race was neck-and-neck, with Maria Rodriguez holding a roughly 50-vote lead over Glenn Theobald.

Lauderdale-by-the-Sea

Voters in the small beach town voted for a few familiar faces.

Current vice mayor Edmund Malkoon looks to have won the mayoral seat. Longtime civic volunteer John Graziano is positioned to beat Howard Goldberg, a real estate agent and Lauderdale-by-the-Sea Chamber of Commerce chairman, for the District 1 seat, while attorney Richard DeNapoli trounced community activist Kenneth Brenner for the District 2 seat.

Similar to the other South Florida municipalities with March 19 elections, Lauderdale-by-the-Sea has a council-manager setup, which means mayors don't wield the same sweeping power as they would in a strong-mayor form of city government.