Two days after taking office, Mayor Danzinger is already moving fast. Within days of being sworn in, he replaced the town attorney, and rumors suggest even more major shakeups are underway. To be fair, Danzinger campaigned on addressing the growing number of lawsuits against the town, and he appears determined to act quickly.

But that is a story for another email.

This week, during the regular commission meeting, commissioners will select appointments for the town’s boards and committees. One applicant for the critical Planning & Zoning Board stood out — and warrants public scrutiny.

Enter Carlos Aparicio: an “architect” in résumé only, reportedly lacking formal accreditation. His close alignment with Charles Burkett’s agenda, combined with his vocal support for Tina Paul, Gerardo Vildosdegui, and Andrea Travani, helped secure him a seat on the P&Z Board over the past two years. During that time, he publicly berated homeowners and, in one meeting, shouted at a resident, calling them a “cancer to Surfside” — comments that potentially exposed the town to legal liability.

​But political loyalty may have earned him more than influence.

​It may have earned him protection from the very zoning laws he helped enforce — creating a double standard for those aligned with Charlie Burkett’s inner circle.

​Ordinance No. 2025-1790 is clear: a single-family home cannot be demolished without a fully approved and issued building permit. That law applies to every resident.

​Except, it seems, when you are politically connected.

​According to public concerns raised about the matter, Mr. Aparicio allegedly used a report from a personal engineering associate to declare one of his Surfside investment properties unsafe, despite the fact that tenants had been living there for years. The home was then demolished without the required town permits, bypassing the standard approval process.

Let’s call this what it appears to be: a potential manipulation of the system to avoid the very law he supported.

​The facts raise troubling questions:

• A legacy home built in 1951 was demolished
• The property reportedly housed tenants prior to the purchase, suggesting it was habitable
• The required permitting process appears to have been bypassed​

And the concerns do not stop there:

• In the last year, an unpermitted structure has been built on his property
• Political allies — including supporters of Tina Paul, Gerardo Vildostegui, and Andrea Travani — have been publicly associated with the property
• Code enforcement officials appear to have been aware of these issues and failed to act

​So the public is left asking:

• Was this ordinance deliberately sidestepped?
• Was enforcement selectively ignored because of political connections?
• Are certain individuals receiving preferential treatment while others are forced into strict compliance?

If true, this represents a serious abuse of public trust.

A community cannot function under a system where rules are optional for insiders and mandatory for everyone else. Residents deserve answers. They deserve accountability. And they deserve leadership that enforces the law fairly — not selectively.