Independent Surrey Coun. Bruce Hayne has announced he is running for mayor in this fall’s civic election, bringing to three the number of candidates now running for the top job in the province’s second largest city.
“My phone’s been ringing off the hook in the past few weeks with people urging me to put my name in for mayor and that’s exactly what I’m going to do,” said Hayne.
Hayne says he’ll be announcing a slate of candidates soon.
He’ll be running against Tom Gill and Doug McCallum.
“I want to do things differently at city hall and I want to have the highest level of integrity, the highest level of openness and communication and collaboration with the community so we can make the best decisions we can.”
He says crime and safety will be key issues leading up to the election and to that end says moving to a municipal police force is not the answer to the gun violence, although he has no problem commissioning a study to see how much it would cost and how the public feels.
“I think the results of that are going to be, uh, the result is going to be very expensive, that’s not to say we shouldn’t do it,” he said.
Regardless Hayne says Surrey needs more police officers; at least 130 more.
“When I look across the country at large urban municipalities that for instance are in the shadow of a metropolitan area like Toronto if you look at places like Mississauga and places like that it appears that we are short by about 130 officers.”
Hayne also says the city needs to have a serious look at building SkyTrain from Surrey to Langley along the Fraser Highway, running through Clayton Heights.
“If we are going to be the second metropolitcan core of the region which has been designated by Metro Vancouver and so on then we need to have as many people as possible access the greater Vancouver transportation network which clearly is SkyTrain.”
Hayne left the ruling party at city hall, Surrey First, a few weeks ago to sit as an independent.