That would be Ed Martinez (with his wife), a commissioner in Cocoa Beach, Florida, where all the politicians are surfers and make Justin Trudeau look like a freakin’ dork.
Photo: Ed Martinez
Feel like this year’s election just didn’t go your way? Forget Canada. Maybe you should move to Cocoa Beach, Florida, where surfing is basically a prerequisite for winning public office.
Since election day, Kelly Slater’s hometown has been run by a nearly all-surfer leadership. Of the city’s five commission members, one of whom is the mayor, four call themselves surfers. And unlike politicians pretty much anywhere on earth, the new mayor, Ben Malik, delivered on a campaign promise right off the bat: “I promised glassy waves when I got elected and the next day we had a nice, clean 4-foot swell,” said Malik, who’s first term as mayor comes after four years as a city commissioner.
On an average day, you can catch Commissioner Ed Martinez, who was just elected to his first full term in office, tandem surfing with his wife, stretching the limits of the gymnastics possible on a moving surfboard. “This is the first time we’ve had four members who are surfers,” says Martinez. “It was always one or two, but not only are we surfers but we’re really avid surfers.”
Politicians who have a hard time relating the populace (we’re looking at you, Hillary Clinton) could learn a thing or two from Martinez’ Instagram account. Anyone who’s fawning over Justin Trudeau, world’s sexiest world leader, oughtta take a look at it.
Check it out, Hillary:
Known for its annual Surfing Santas event, Cocoa Beach hopes to see 16,000 Kris Kringles in the lineup this year, which would set a world record.
As mayor, Malik would love to green-light a massive proposal you might have heard about a couple years back: A plan to construct a large pier designed to refract waves and act as a surfing arena. Unfortunately, even when surfers run the joint bureaucracy is still a major drag.
The Brevard County Tourist Development Council would have to sign off, too. The project would cost several million dollars, much of which would need to come from a hotel bed tax. Cocoa Beach, (population 11,000) brings in three million tourists a year, generating half the tourism income for the county. “All we can do is ask,” Malik says. “We have to show them the economic benefit of having the pier.”
Until the new leadership can promise local surfers the new pier, or a wave pool from Kelly Slater’s company (Malik has thought about it, but there’s no place to put it), it’ll start on something else near and dear to surfers. The city has no showers at the stub streets that dead-end at the beach. “It’s my intent to figure out how to put showers there so surfers aren’t carrying gallon jugs around,” Malik says.
The city leadership also just passed a resolution to install lifesaving devices at the sub-end streets. Cocoa Beach has few lifeguards and towers, so the flotation devices, which for example might really help someone caught in a rip, are the next best thing, Martinez says.
It’s too bad no civic leader, no matter how well-meaning, can do much to improve the surf in their city. But in Slater’s boyhood home, where there must be something in the water, it doesn’t matter much. “We don’t get a lot of good waves, but we have a lot of good surfers,” says Malik.
Politicians, take note:
