Friday
December 2, 2016 (Vol. 41 No. 96)
V O I C E
O F
W H I T E
R O C K
A N D
S O U T H
Swooping in: With days getting shorter and fall weather getting ugly, Surrey drivers are encouraged to drive responsibly, lest they be ticketed by the RCMP’s recently launched Project Swoop. › see page 14
S U R R E Y
w w w. p e a c e a r c h n e w s . c o m
$123 average increase considered for homeowners
Surrey braces for property-tax hike Kevin Diakiw Black Press
Surrey residents may have to dig a little deeper when taxes are due next year, as Surrey considers hikes totalling $123 for the average home. Surrey’s finance committee has already endorsed $23 in increases to utilities, including sewer, water and waste hauling.
The city is also expected to endorse an ongoing one-per-cent road levy, which would amount to $17.50 for the owner of the average home worth $720,400. Monday, given a choice between increasing the $100 Capital Parcel Tax – introduced in 2014 as the recreation and culture levy, a month after the civic election – by $10 or increasing property taxes by 0.54 per cent to
support the capital program, the committee chose the property-tax boost, officials confirmed Thursday. If approved by council, that increase would be on top of an expected 3.9 per cent increase (amounting to $72 for the owner of the average Surrey home) to property taxes. For the first time, Surrey has divided the discussions into three separate meetings,
first examining the utility rates, then the capital program and then the operating budget. The latter will be considered at a budget meeting on Dec. 12, where the committee will discuss how many police officers, firefighters and bylaw officers will be hired. The finance committee consists of the whole of council. Council is expected to vote on the budget recommendations Dec. 19.
Recurring cries for help
Fentanyl takes toll on heroes Kevin Diakiw
R
Black Press
Tracy Holmes photo
Friends and family of Hudson Brooks join his mother, Jennifer (left), outside the South Surrey RCMP detachment to promote Hudson’s Hope.
Toy and food drive planned in honour of slain man
Tragedy begets hope for those in need Tracy Holmes Staff Reporter
The mother of a young South Surrey man killed by police more than a year ago is determined to ensure that his final moments will not be all he is remembered for. Jennifer Brooks said a toy and food drive – dubbed Hudson’s Hope and set for Dec. 11 at the site where her son Hudson died – is about
celebrating his life. “I don’t want just the last 10 minutes of his life, the horrific circumstances, to be what it’s all about,” Brooks told Peace Arch News Monday, outside the South Surrey RCMP detachment. “It’s to honour Hudson.” The 20-year-old died around 2:30 a.m. on July 18, 2015, after what police initially described as a physical struggle outside of the
Having a shapes scavenger hunt, taking turns finding shapes indoors and outdoors. LEARN AT PLAY EVERY DAY
LEARN AT PLAY, EVERY DAY.
1815 152 St. detachment. It also resulted in an officer transported to hospital with a non-lifethreatening gunshot wound. The incident spurred immediate and repeated calls for justice. More than a year later, Brooks learned that her son had been unarmed, shirtless and shoeless when he was shot at close range. › see page 10
ecounting how she saw three people brought back from the brink of death, it seems she is reliving the incidents. In fact, for the next 24 hours, she hasn’t stopped thinking about witnessing the overdoses, the victims’ loss of breath, the pending systemic shutdown, the seeming eons before help arrived and the eventual medical revival. Sheri Moss fights back tears as she describes the three drug overdoses she saw in a single day last week. As painful as it is, talking about it is part of her own healing, an essential element in overcoming the trauma she endured by watching people nearly die after using fentanyl. On the morning of Thursday, Nov. 24, a woman fell down in front of NightShift Street Ministries in Whalley and stopped breathing. The clock was ticking. Without assistance, she would be dead in four minutes. Moss, an outreach worker, deployed what she sees as two essential skills: She called 911 and prayed. The woman had overdosed on drugs, likely fentanyl – a potent opiate that’s killing addicts at an unprecedented rate in the province. › see page 4
BORDER GOLD CORP.
where’s that shape?
Find more ways to learn at play as a family at www.FamilyLiteracyDay.ca
Life Literacy Canada Family Literacy Day
7906299
How do you learn as a family? Tell us #FamilyLiteracyDay