\u2018Lead, follow or get out of our way,\u2019 Surrey mayor says<\/p>\n
Published 4:05 pm Thursday, May 14, 2026<\/p>\n
Surrey Mayor Brenda Locke says this city should have its own charter, like Vancouver, \u201cand that has to change.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cA charter would give Surrey more flexibility, more autonomy and the ability to respond to local needs more quickly. Things like housing and infrastructure and economic development will all benefit,\u201d she said. \u201cThat is why I will continue to push the Province for a Surrey charter.\u201d<\/p>\n
Locke delivered her 2026 State of the City Address \u2013 this one during an election year \u2013 during a luncheon Thursday, May 14, at the Sheraton Vancouver Guildford Hotel.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs I often say, lead, follow or get out of our way, and Surrey is leading and we\u2019re going to keep leading,\u201d she told the crowd.<\/p>\n
She offered up a catalogue of major capital projects including a large entertainment district downtown, a 200,000-square-foot convention centre for Cloverdale, a new three-sheet ice arena in South Surrey, the SFU school of medicine, and a new Newton Community Centre \u201cthat will be the largest community facility investment in Surrey\u2019s history.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is still nothing more important to me than keeping you safe,\u201d she said. \u201cI have four big public safety announcements for your today.\u201d<\/p>\n
These include hiring over five years 560 more police officers, firefighters, community safety officers and bylaw enforcement officer emergency preparedness staff, engineering response support and community safety coordinators.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is significant commitment,\u201d she said to applause. She also said city hall will invest in a new 15-acre public safety campus in Anniedale-Tynehead to support training for police and other emergencies personnel. \u201cIt gives Surrey the space and the structure for Surrey to plan for the next generation of public safety service.\u201d<\/p>\n
Third, the city will build \u201ccollaborative\u201d public safety facilities for police and firefighters in downtown, South Surrey and Cloverdale \u201cbecause a city approaching one million people cannot rely on the old infrastructure, scattered facilities, outdated models,\u201d she said. \u201cWe must build for the city we are becoming.\u201d<\/p>\n
Fourth, she said, is modernizing how public safety is delivered, including \u201cbuilding upon the current use of AI-enabled drone technology. This is not about chasing gadgets, it\u2019s about faster information, safer deployment, better decisions and giving frontline teams the tools they need in a city that is growing so very quickly.\u201d<\/p>\n
On the matter of affordability, Locke noted city hall has kept the property tax increase to 2.6 per cent, \u201camongst the lowest in the entire region,\u201d and \u201cruns a \u201cvery tight ship.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe do a lot with a little,\u201d she said. \u201cThere is only one municipality that is leaner than Surrey. Does anybody have an idea who that is? Well, it\u2019s Bowen Island.\u201d<\/p>\n
Vancouver city hall, she said, has roughly twice the level of staffing Surrey does.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe do not have the luxury of being slow, building bureaucracy with every problem,\u201d Locke said. \u201cFamilies are being squeezed from every direction and the last thing they need is a city hall that forgets who pays their bills.\u201d<\/p>\n
Meantime, the newly formed Imagine Surrey was quick to issue a press lease referring the Locke\u2019s address as \u201cbig speech, small vision.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mike Starchuk, the slate\u2019s mayoral candidate, said Locke \u201cgave a long speech\u201d saying \u2019big things are happening\u2019 but families in this city \u201clook around and don\u2019t see what those things are.\u201d<\/p>\n
Safe Surrey Coalition\u2019s mayoral candidate Doug McCallum, former mayor defeated by Locke in the last election, says her speech \u201cwas not a vision. It was a confession.<\/p>\n
\u201cBrenda Locke told Surrey today to lead, follow, or get out of the way. Surrey has been following her for four years. We have been led into the worst public safety crisis in our city\u2019s history,\u201d McCallum said. \u201cWe have been led into a 25 per cent tax hike. We have been led by a mayor who blames Ottawa for every problem she created. It is time for Brenda Locke to get out of the way.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u2018Lead, follow or get out of our way,\u2019 Surrey mayor says Published 4:05 pm Thursday, May 14, 2026…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":670105,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194299],"tags":[49,48,163792,87674],"class_list":["post-674849","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-surrey","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-lower-mainland","tag-surrey"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/674849","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=674849"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/674849\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/670105"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=674849"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=674849"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=674849"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}