Bullet holes in buildings and widespread intimidation have become commonplace in Surrey amid the ongoing extortion crisis.
But on Thursday, Mayor Brenda Locke used her annual state of the city address to make her case that she’s the best person best equipped to keep the city safe now and beyond October’s civic election.
“People deserve to feel safe in their homes, in their neighbourhoods and when they open their business in the morning,” Locke told a receptive crowd of business and community leaders. “They want their families at school playing in parks or going to recreation centres feeling safe.”
That feeling has often been hard to come by, with 98 reported extortion cases this year alone, according to Surrey Police Service statistics.
Locke’s pitch to improve the situation is a plan to hire 560 police officers, firefighters, bylaw officers and other employees over a five-year period.
She also wants to build a 15-acre training campus for police, fire and emergency personnel in Anniedale-Tynehead.
“We are continuing to work on everything with public safety because it is an issue in our city, and it will be as long as we continue at the rate we’re growing,” Locke told reporters following the speech.
But Locke’s political rivals were quick to share their critiques.
“It feels much to me like electioneering,” Surrey city councillor and mayoral candidate Linda Annis told reporters outside the event. “Many of the things that were put on the table aren’t funded. They’re only ideas.”
Former Surrey Mayor Doug McCallum, who is running to get back in the mayor’s chair in October, went even further in his criticism, suggesting the hiring plan in particular falls far short of what the city needs.
“She’s probably the worst mayor that the city of Surrey has ever, ever had,” McCallum told CTV News following the event. “We probably will need 100 new, just police officers, in the first year, so I think that we have to look at a lot more boots on the ground if you want to say, both for our Surrey police, also with our firefighters. We need more people.”
Former Surrey-Cloverdale NDP MLA Mike Starchuk, who is also running for mayor, released a statement with his own criticisms.
“Mayor Locke gave a long speech this afternoon,” Starchuk wrote. “She told Surrey that ‘big things are happening.’ Surrey families look around and don’t see what those things are. What we see is a mayor playing catch-up after four years of inaction. What we see is a vision that doesn’t match the city we are becoming — or the city we could be.”