Seniors to join rally scheduled for budget Monday at Surrey City Hall

SURREY (NEWS 1130) – Expect a lot of seniors to show up at a rally planned in front of Surrey City Hall on Monday.

That’s the day city council is expected to vote on its controversial budget, that includes a hiring freeze to help pay for the transition to a municipal police force.

Ramona Kaptyn is president of the White Rock/Surrey chapter of CARP, the Canadian Association for Retired Persons.

She says CARP has never been happy about losing the RCMP, but when the budget indicated no new officers were going to be hired next year, the group decided to actively work with the “Keep the RCMP in Surrey” movement.

“The reason why my members are very upset is that there are not enough police officers and they think higher taxes definitely will be coming. There are many low income seniors who are not going to be able to absorb these higher costs.”

The budget sets aside $129-million for police transition costs over four years. This is the second year in a row that Surrey will not hire a single new police officer. No new firefighters will be hired in 2020, either.

“No new RCMP have been hired. We desperately need more boots on the ground. Seniors are afraid to go out after dark,” says Kaptyn, who notes seniors feel Mayor Doug McCallum himself hasn’t been clear about what the new force will look like.

“We are calling the mayor ‘Mayor McCallous’ because he’s saying taxes won’t go up. But of course taxes are going up. How is this going to be paid for?”

The budget calls for the postponement of an ice arena for Cloverdale, which was going to cost $45-million.

“Families and grandmothers are getting up as early as four in the morning to take kids to the hockey rinks because there are not enough rinks. It’s just dreadful what’s going on,” says Kaptyn.

The head of the committee overseeing the police transition in Surrey, Wally Oppal, told NEWS 1130 last week his final report won’t be finished before Christmas, as the mayor had suggested. He could not put a timeline on when the report could be released. He also called McCallum’s two-year timeframe for a new police force “optimistic.”

Monday’s Speak Up Surrey rally is being organized by former firefighter and Surrey councillor Mike Starchuk who expects a thousand people to show up.

Meantime, an online petition to keep RCMP in Surrey now has over 10,000 signatures.

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