Content of the article

Surrey council approved the city’s 2022 budget at a special Christmas Eve meeting on Friday, with Mayor Doug McCallum and his allies using their majority with one vote to approve the budget despite opposition from rival councilors .

Content of the article

The Council approved 33 bylaws that will implement the overall budget of $ 1.5 billion, with almost all votes falling on the same five-to-four division: McCallum and his four advisers from the Safe Surrey Coalition in favor and the other four advisers against.

It was the last budget meeting in what observers have described as an acrimonious four-year term on the Surrey council. In the October 2018 election in Surrey, McCallum and seven councilors were elected with the Safe Surrey Coalition, but over the next year three of those councilors – the counties. Brenda Locke, Jack Hundial and Steven Pettigrew – leave the party. These three former councilors of the coalition, as well as the municipal councilor. Linda Annis, the only Surrey First councilor elected in 2018, voted against the budget on Friday. McCallum and the four other Safe Surrey councilors – Doug Elford, Laurie Guerra, Mandeep Nagra and Allison Patton – voted in favor.

Content of the article

Reached after the budget vote, Annis said she was “very disappointed” with the budget schedule, which was released in late December 17. Annis said giving businesses and residents two working days between the release of the budget and the public hearing was insufficient opportunity. for public review and review.

A budget this size “requires careful reading to make sure things are as you would like to see them,” she said. “For me, going through documents as important as this in two working days is not appropriate.”

In an emailed statement on Friday, Annis said, “In the history of our city, we’ve never approved anything so big so quickly, with so little due diligence, no real community consultation, not even a cursory examination. This is absolutely the wrong way to run a city of our size and such a big budget.

Content of the article

Annis said she plans to run in municipal elections next year, although she has yet to decide whether to be re-elected as a councilor or run for mayor.

Locke said the 2022 budget timeline was “extraordinarily disrespectful to the public.”

Locke, who said she plans to run for mayor next year against McCallum, said the 2022 budget process reflected the chaotic way the current council ran the city. She has called on McCallum to voluntarily step down as mayor and chairman of the police board until he resolves the criminal charge of public mischief brought against him earlier this month.

Locke said the mayor’s criminal charge, which apparently stemmed from an altercation with a group of citizens in the parking lot of a grocery store, is one of a number of stories that have diverted attention from the work of the advice.

Content of the article

“It’s a crazy time in Surrey, and it hasn’t stopped for three and a half years,” she said.

McCallum has championed the 2022 budget as the best he has seen in his years as mayor, saying it includes spending on major infrastructure projects while maintaining modest tax increases.

At Friday’s budget meeting, McCallum thanked Surrey council and staff for their work during what he called “a difficult year due to COVID-19”.

“I want to thank our staff for this particular budget that we approved today,” said McCallum. “It’s been a tough year with COVID-19 which has caused all kinds of problems in our city, but our staff have really responded in a creative, positive way.”

[email protected]

twitter.com/fumano