On the move!
Agh! You’re still here? My new site and weblog, ianking.ca is now up and running; new posts are building up over there, never to be mirrored here. Go! What are you waiting for? All the stuff worth keeping has been migrated over to the new server, and I don’t anticipate making any more posts here.
Bloggers and webmasters: Update your links! Simply replace vancouverscrum.blogspot.com with www.ianking.ca in your blogrolls or bookmarks to point to the new site. Old posts will remain on this server for as long as the people at Blogger/Google allow them to remain; unfortunately, I’m not going to bother to come up with any way of converting permalinks on this blog to their corresponding posts on the new site. Yes, I plead laziness. I also realize the irony of switching away from Blogger just it starts to add features that the demanding blog nerds insist upon.
Thanks for reading and linking, and see you over at ianking.ca!
—Ian King, December 13, 2004
Sunday, September 29, 2002
Embattled Surrey mayor Doug McCallum has been slinging mud at the Surrey RCMP. McCallum, who has been under fire after reports that he was trying cover up reports of crime in Surrey, has fired back, claiming the the Mounties have too many officers "on leave."
43 of the force's 400 officers are unavailable for duty for various reasons; Superintendent Randy Bennett claims that this is not an unusual situation for police departments. McCallum claims that it's unacceptable, and wants the RCMP to address the situation before Surrey funds more police officers.
Surrey's ratio of officers to resident has improved somewhat in the six years since McCallum became mayor; however, the ratio of criminal code offences in Surrey to the number of officers is over 50% higher than is that of the City of Vancouver.
While McCallum claims that he's not attempting to suppress information about crime in Surrey, police have a different take on the story.
Police say the mayor has told them they may make only three kinds of press releases: requests for public assistance, positive news stories, and stories of which the media are already aware and in regard to which they have made further inquiries.
McCallum wants to preserve the image of a law-and-order politician; reports of crime in Surrey tend to hurt his image in that regard.
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