Accountability lacking on city council

Re: Raise council accountability (June 27, The Leader).

I agree with Frank Bucholtz that the lack of accountability on Surrey city council is a serious concern. The Campbell Heights scandal, as he described it, might be the most glaring example.

Most of Surrey Council has escaped criticism for its decision to move the project forward, as (former) mayor McCallum has shouldered most of the blame. Turning Stokes Pit into the Campbell Heights industrial park was a financial fiasco as well as an environmental disaster.

I also agree with Frank that a ward system of electing civic government would add accountability to our local government.

Surrey is a big city, and it continues to grow.

Our at-large system of governance is inappropriate given the sheer size of our city, whether it’s the unreasonably high petition threshold or the inability of each councillor to have in-depth knowledge on each of the important issues we face.

Surrey should move to reinstate its mixed-wards system of governance, where the majority of the city councillors represent individual communities, or wards, and the balance (plus the mayor) representing the city at-large.

This would provide for better representation of Surrey’s neighbourhoods and town centres at the city council level.

More importantly, a mixed-wards system would give residents better representation; it would allow for city councillors to make better decisions by being able to focus on representing one ward, and not the entire city all of the time.

Residents would be more capable of holding their elected representatives directly accountable for the individual decisions that they make at city hall.

Can you imagine the lack of accountability if our provincial or federal governments were elected at-large, and each MLA or MP were supposed to represent all of B.C., or all of Canada? This wouldn’t make any sense. And it doesn’t make any sense at the civic level either.

No major city in Canada, except Surrey and Vancouver, operates with an at-large system of governance.

I am seeking the nomination for council with the Surrey Civic Coalition, which also opposed the Campbell Heights development in 2002.

I will campaign to save what’s left of Campbell Heights to be preserved as parkland.

I am also a firm supporter of a mixed-wards system to elect local government.

Stephanie Ryan