I read with interest the recent front page article on how the newly formed “Safe Surrey Coalition” is going fix the police service in our city.
The mere fact that we have to name a slate group “Safe Surrey Coalition” says it all. After two decades of promises we are still playing catch-up and there are neighbourhoods in our city where residents do not feel safe. If you do not feel safe in your own community, nothing else matters.
Once again Doug McCallum is promising better police service for our city. At one point in his former term in office we had a ratio of one cop to more than 900 in population in this city. The question begs to be answered, why did he not hire the officers needed to serve our city when he was our mayor?
He states that his new “Safe Surrey Coalition” team will double the number of officers on patrol and accelerate the hiring of 95 more officers by 2015. Sounds good on paper, but I am told it is unsustainable. RCMP training Depot in Regina cannot supply us with that many officers in that time frame.
The same old promises and the same old song.
Darlene Bowyer
Surrey