One year in as Surrey mayor, Brenda Locke balances policing with everything else
The city wants more support from the province, but that could be difficult with the war of words over policing
In an interview marking one year since being sworn in as mayor of Surrey, B.C., Brenda Locke had a moment of unguarded happiness when asked about her goals for the final three years of her term.
"Thanks for asking that. I'm so glad to talk about positive stuff," Locke said.
Her remark came after several questions on the issue that dominated her winning campaign to become mayor, and has dominated her first year in office: policing.
After promising to keep the RCMP in Surrey and halt the transition to a separate, municipal police force, Locke has been stymied by the provincial government overriding her council's request.
With policing being the biggest department in Surrey's budget, and Locke and the province engaged in a war of words, few other political stories in the city have gotten much attention in the last year.
And Locke's answers to questions in her interview illustrated why that's a challenge.
Does Surrey get enough respect?
Take the question of Surrey's greater ambitions for its role in Metro Vancouver.
For decades, the city has had large population growth.
With that has come continued demands from local politicians for more resources and infrastructure spending from other levels of government — and Locke is no exception.
"We can go down a laundry list of things that Surrey doesn't get our fair share for," she said, referencing spending on hospitals and portables, along with the lengthy timeline for the Surrey-Langley SkyTrain project, as particular sore points.
"The number of or the amount of industrial land in Surrey, it's way beyond anybody else. So when you talk about Metro Vancouver, they can't live without us."
At the same time, many of those decisions around funding come from the same provincial government that Locke is taking legal action against. Does she worry about the possibility of it hurting Surrey's ability to get those projects and dollars?
"Well, I sure hope not," she says.
"I make no excuses for or apologies for fighting for my residents, and I will fight for them because this is about taxpayers' dollars, this is about accountability and this is about affordability."
No hints on how police dispute will end
At the same time, there are serious questions for taxpayers in Surrey's next budget.
In the coming months council will be asked to approve a budget request from both the RCMP and the Surrey Police Service that will cost residents tens of millions of dollars more than if the city had one police department.
"I don't know if it will be a hefty [property tax] increase this year," said Locke.
"But they can expect an increase, and I will demonstrate on the bill, this is the provincial government's police force that's causing this increase on your taxes. And I will itemize it and it'll be in red so that they'll fully understand it."
As for whether Locke will try to veto the Surrey Police Service's budget request, or if she'll change her legal strategy against the province if it doesn't budge?
"I don't know. I can't predict that. I can't predict what the courts will or will not do in terms of the timeline it's going to take," she said.
In her first year, Locke passed some of the transparency and ethics changes her party campaigned on.
"We've done what we set out to accomplish and we're proud of," she said.
She said she hopes to see significant redevelopment in the Cloverdale neighbourhood, better roads in South Surrey, and the construction of a new Newton Community Centre.
But for how long she balances those local issues with more controversial ones stemming from policing remains to be seen.
"We believe it's the right thing to do," Locke said.
"And we will continue doing that until our legal team tells us something different."
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