The Editor,
For the record, I am a citizen of Surrey with no political affiliation to the mayor or any councillors. Nor am I involved in any way with the movement to “Keep the RCMP in Surrey.”
That being said, may I offer the following observations on recent articles in the Now-Leader.
1. It was news to me that training and experience in providing naturopathic physician services includes expertise in criminality and criminal intent. How else to explain a diagnosis of attempted murder on the mayor when the naturopathic physician, Coun. Allison Patton, has not witnessed the event in question. In fact, to date, there appear to be no witnesses to the event in question, besides the accuser, despite it having taken place in a busy grocery store parking lot on a Saturday (happy to be corrected on this assertion).
2. The reason we appear to have a special prosecutor in place is that facts regarding this incident seem to be scarce.
3. Our mayor seems to have a particularly thin skin regarding dissent with respect to his signature project. He felt the need to confront petitioners organizing against the project and now dissenters are not allowed lawn signs to show their views. What does he fear? Are a citizen’s rights to express their opinions, as long as done peacefully with no harm to others, so alarming as to threaten our democracy?
SEE ALSO: RCMP investigating possible public mischief related to claims made by Surrey mayor
Allow me to speculate that some of these issues might go away if there was a modicum of transparency with respect to this police transition. How about a clear explanation of why we need to transition to a new police force beyond the mayor’s apparent need to be in control of that force? How about telling us the cost of transition and the cost of the Surrey Police Service going forward and the impact of those costs on our property taxes?
Surely, the mayor believes in his project and should not be afraid of letting the citizenry of the city see the wisdom of his decision.
The behaviour of our mayor seems childish. He seems to have a desire to control and micromanage. In my view, these are not the characteristics of a good leader.
As an observer, this whole episode is entertaining and could be made into a comedy series. As a taxpayer, though, I expect the fun to end when the costs of this vanity project become apparent.
K. Lahti, Surrey
edit@surreynowleader.com
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