SURREY, BC — Surrey is a good city, and we can do better. Cleaner sidewalks, faster cleanup of graffiti and dumped junk, and a fair deal for residents who do the right thing — that is what families deserve, and that is what years of drift at City Hall have left behind.
Today, Mike Starchuk and Imagine Surrey released a plan to clean up Surrey. The centrepiece: year-round free waste drop-off for every Surrey household — replacing the City’s current limited-time windows with permanent access, so families have an easy, legal way to get rid of bulky waste, construction scrap, electronics, and yard debris without paying twice for a service they already fund through their taxes. Paired with that, Imagine Surrey will stand up a new Clean Streets Rapid Response Force of dedicated street cleaners and city-owned street sweepers, with a 48-hour response standard for graffiti, illegal dumping, debris, and abandoned vehicles — and full cost recovery from the dumpers who break the rules.
“If we want clean streets, we have to make it easier to do the right thing and harder to do wrong,” said Mike Starchuk, a 32-year veteran of the Surrey Fire Service. “Life in Surrey is getting expensive, and families shouldn’t have to navigate complicated rules or pay private operators to get rid of a load of yard waste or a bag of drywall. We are going to give residents a service they can count on — year-round — and we are going to make the people who dump junk in our alleys pay the full cost of cleaning it up.”
The Imagine Surrey ‘Clean Streets’ Plan will:
- Make free waste drop-off year-round. Surrey’s current model squeezes residents into a single short window. Imagine Surrey will make drop-off available every month of the year — multiplying Surrey’s disposal capacity and removing any excuse for illegal dumping.
- Stand up a Clean Streets Rapid Response Force with dedicated street cleaners and city-owned street sweepers — a permanent rapid-response capability the City has never had.
- Set a 48-hour response standard for graffiti, illegal dumping, debris, and abandoned vehicles, with priority at transit hubs, schools, parks, and business districts. Reporting available by phone and online.
- Make illegal dumpers pay the full cost — not taxpayers. When the City can identify who is responsible — the same evidence standard already required to issue a fine — Imagine Surrey will recover the full cost of cleanup (crew time, vehicles, equipment, hauling) on top of the fine, charging whichever is greater. Combined with targeted enforcement against repeat offenders and Surrey’s growing camera network, this turns illegal dumping from a free externality into an expensive mistake.
“In my fire service career, we developed cost-recovery models for fires at vacant properties,” Starchuk added. “Every staff hour, every vehicle on scene, charged back to whoever was responsible. We are going to apply that same logic to illegal dumping. If you push a load of drywall into an alley and you get caught on camera, you are not paying a small fine — you are paying for the crew, the truck, and the hauling. That changes the math fast.”
The contrast in this year’s Surrey municipal race could not be more stark. Brenda Locke spent four years cutting back on the basics while extortion exploded, streets got dirtier, affordable housing projects got cancelled, and homelessness grew. Linda Annis’s ‘Core Review’ promise will put every frontline service — including street cleaning, parks maintenance, and bylaw enforcement — squarely on the chopping block. Doug McCallum’s pledges would be paid for by cuts and even more casinos that would be a pure gift to extortionists, gangsters, and money-launderers. Brenda, Doug, and Linda have had their chance to fix this mess; none of them will clean up Surrey. Imagine Surrey has made it a core commitment.
“I have spent my career working with communities around the world, and the truth is the same everywhere: a clean street is the first sign that a city respects the people who live in it,” said Yousef Aldabainah, Imagine Surrey Council Candidate, community worker, and former diplomat. “Year-round drop-off means a family clearing out a basement in February has the same access as one doing spring cleaning in May. The Rapid Response Force gives the City something it has never had — the capacity to keep streets clean week in, week out. And full cost recovery means the people dumping construction debris in our alleys will pay for it — not the residents and small business owners who live and work there.”
“Champion cities are clean cities,” Starchuk concluded. “We are going to make it easier for families to do the right thing, while we sweat the small stuff and deliver the big things. That is what a City of Champions looks like. That is change that works for you. Let’s end the mess on October 17.”
Image Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Starchuk
