Whether our city continues to grow in a healthy, forward-looking way, or whether it gets dragged back to the second-class status it had in the ’80s, depends on who wins this election.
Linda Hepner and her Surrey First team are well-situated to carry on the progress that Dianne Watts has brought to our city. Doug McCallum isn’t.
When McCallum decided to run for mayor this year, he used the tragic murders of Julie Paskall and Serena Vermeersch to propel his campaign. These crimes were horrible, no question, but for McCallum to use them as a base for his “Safe Surrey” mayoral campaign is hypocritical.
Crime rates in Surrey have been dropping ever since he left office.
And what services is McCallum going to cut in order to make Surrey safer? He not only wants to freeze taxes, he wants to shut down our Surrey City Development Corporation, which has helped Surrey grow and which contributes $4.5 million to the city each year.
When McCallum was mayor, he was chair of TransLink, but he wasn’t able to improve our transit.
Under Surrey First, Surrey Memorial Hospital was expanded, the Jim Pattison centre was opened, and Kwantlen will be opening a new campus in North Surrey soon.
So let’s not go back to the past. Hepner and Surrey First will keep us moving forward.
Geoff Dean, Surrey