This is his own doing, why should our residents be the ones paying his bills: Councillor Linda Annis
Surrey, B.C. (December 11, 2021): Surrey First Councillor Linda Annis says now that Doug McCallum has been charged he should be paying his own legal bills.
The Surrey taxpayers should not.
“This entire embarrassing mess belongs to him personally, he brought it on himself so Surrey taxpayers shouldn’t be picking up his legal costs,” explained Annis.
Annis said she is still waiting for an answer from city hall about Doug McCallum’s legal costs.
“Are Surrey taxpayers paying his bills, or is he paying the legal costs himself?” said Annis. “When you don’t get a straight answer to a straight question that usually means you’re not going to like the answer. He’s hired one of the country’s top lawyers and that means hundreds of dollars every hour.”
Annis said “the entire mess” is a major distraction for city hall as his administration continues to run late in producing and approving the 2022 budget.
“We need to focus on what’s right for the city, not what’s right for Doug McCallum.”
“Surrey residents have every right to ask what kind of person do we have as our mayor,” added Annis. “He’s never been shy about shutting out the community and he’s made it clear time and time again that he doesn’t care what Surrey residents want or say.”
Annis said the mayor should step aside during the court case both as mayor and as chair of the Surrey Police Service. The latter is clearly a conflict of interest.
“Until this is over how can he really do his job? If he’s innocent then by all means he can come back, but while this is hanging over his head he should do the honourable thing and take a leave of absence because it’s a total distraction that gets in the way of the important work we need to do at council.”
Annis said she expects McCallum’s court appearance on January 25 to be embarrassing for him and Surrey.
“I know how hard mayors like Dianne Watts and Linda Hepner worked to get rid of the old Surrey jokes. Now they’re bound to come back with Doug McCallum as the punchline.”
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Media contact:
Councillor Linda Annis
604.345.0211