Editor:
I just finished reading the Record’s excellent piece on the rampant crime in downtown New Westminster and the negative effects this is having on the merchants in the area.
What’s happening there is scary and despicable and makes me long for the old days where criminals got locked up and stayed locked up awaiting their trial date, instead of being dumped back out into the street, in many cases on the same day they are arrested.
And in a perfect world, (people with addictions) would get treatment and severely mentally ill people who are a danger to the community would be kept in a hospital, such as Riverview.
The biggest problem we have here in New Westminster right now is that we do not have enough police officers to protect our streets. And not only that, we have sitting members of city council who appear to be opposed to giving our police force the base amount of funds they request to do their jobs properly. This is now happened over the past two years or so. And it terrifies me to think what would happen if more city councillors felt the same way, leaving our police force underfunded to the point of becoming hamstrung.
Right now our emergency services are stretched to the limit. Our police force needs proper funding to do a proper job for our city. And if I were a New Westminster city councillor right now, I would be advocating for the city to ramp up its funding of the police force to a level that allows them to take on and defeat the thuggery and mayhem that is currently wreaking havoc in our downtown core and beyond.
And by telling anyone who will listen to please not vote for city council candidates who have a problem with ensuring our police force is well-funded and equipped, to protect the law abiding citizens of New Westminster.
Gary Tupper, New Westminster
Editor’s note: Just the clarify that the majority of council approved the latest budget, which includes an increase in the police budget.
