Editor:
Mayor Locke and many Surrey city councillors were elected on a promise to stop the transfer of the RCMP to the Surrey Police Services.
But instead of giving the people of Surrey a fresh start in governance, you are just repeating former mayor Doug McCallum’s dictatorial governing style.
Having staff reports, committees, and discussions at the council is not the same thing as having a referendum to ask the taxpayers of Surrey what they want for policing services. Much of what we saw was behind closed doors with facts and figures obscured from the public’s review.
At this point, no one seems to know the costs of either stopping or moving forward with the transition of police services for our community.
Instead, Mayor Locke, you are making statements that we will return to having the RCMP police our community. This is the style of your predecessor.
Mayors and councils are stewards of the taxpayers’ money, not absolute deciders. Especially when dealing with figures in the hundreds of millions of dollars.
There must be a public process that includes public debates to see which police system is best to serve our community. Further, these debates should be put to referendum, allowing each and every voter of Surrey to decide what is best for them. Anything less than this is simply a repeat of what the citizens of Surrey saw for the last four years – something, Mayor Locke, you challenged as a councillor with the previous mayor.
Anything less than a referendum is simply the same as what we have seen for the past four years.
Ken Wuschke, South Surrey