SURREY-ITES are telling The VOICE that Mayor Doug McCallum should have kicked Councillor Brenda Locke and another Safe Surrey Coalition councillor out of his party a long time ago. However, they feel relieved that Locke decided to quit herself on Thursday, thus ending the confusion she was causing by always belittling McCallum’s agenda although she herself had supported it when she joined his party before the election.

As The VOICE pointed out last week, Locke got only about 13,600 votes when she ran for Surrey Council in 2014 – she was No. 17. She was defeated by not only the successful Surrey First candidates but also candidates like Rina Gill, Kal Dosanjh, Narima Dela Cruz and others.

This time she won only by joining McCallum’s Safe Surrey Coalition team and thus got more than 40,000 votes.

Surrey-ites feel Locke and another councillor used McCallum to get elected and then started pursuing their own agenda. McCallum was reluctant to include Locke in his slate, but was persuaded by some to include her and another councillor. Now Mc Callum feels betrayed by these two councillors.

Last week, Locke repeated the lie: “The Surrey Police Transition Report outlines the creation of a police department with fewer officers than we have today,” in spite of this newspaper having exposed this untruth in an article on June 7 titled, “SFU professor reveals the REAL truth about RCMP figures in Surrey – and why the City needs its OWN police force.”

Surrey-ites feel Locke has always been more aligned with Surrey First Councillor Linda Annis than the party that got her elected. Some wonder whether she is positioning herself for a run for the mayor’s position in the next election.

Councillor Steven Pettigrew, who quit McCallum’s party a few weeks ago, and Locke will sit as independents in Council.

Surrey-ites say they should have the guts to resign and run again to prove they have support.

But will they?