Doug Mccallum returns as the mayor of Surrey
Surrey: Former city mayor Doug Mccallum, who ran under the banner of Safe Surrey Coalition, made a stunning comeback in Surrey civic election.
Defeating Surrey First’s Tom Gill and succeeding Linda Hepner, the long-time mayor was re-elected as the leader of the City of Surrey. Mccallum had been mayor of Surrey for nine years until he was knocked off by Dianne Watts and her upstart Surrey First party in 2005.
During his winner’s speech, Mccallum said Surrey voters “have sent a message to the rest of the province.”
The lone Surrey Firstbacked councillor elected is Linda Annis.
At the city council’s first meeting next month, the seven Safe Surrey Coalition councillors will be Brenda Locke (who placed first with 40,388 votes), Doug Elford (38,997 votes), Laurie Guerra (33,887), Jack Singh Hundial (33,705), Allison Patton (33,036), Steven Pettigrew (30,749) and Mandeep Nagra (30,048).
Newly-elected Surrey mayor Doug Mccallum says he’s confident he can replace the RCMP with a municipal police force and replace ground light rapid transit with Skytrain, despite skepticism from critics
Mccallum ran on a platform that included scrapping the at-grade Surrey-newton-guilford LRT plan to instead build a Skytrain expansion from the King George station that would run to Langley. The existing LRT agreement between the parties, including the province and Translink’s Mayors’ Council, is based on Surrey’s transportation plan.