Thursday October 9, 2014 014 (Vol. 39 9N No. o. 81) 81) 81
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Music to their ears: Last weekend’s A Night On Broadway: After Hours was a brilliantly entertaining revue-style show – as well as a highly effective fundraiser for the Surrey Food Bank. i see page 39
Residents survey awards city seven Cs and four D+s on quality of life
Surrey scrapes by with average grades Rick Kupchuk Black Press
Surrey offers its residents an average quality of life, according to the first Vital Signs report on the city. The report, released Tuesday morning at the Surrey Arts Centre, is a joint effort between SurreyCares and the Surrey Board of Trade (SBoT) and is a combination of research and a public-opinion poll.
It studies 11 performance indicators established by Community Foundations of Canada, including safety, standard of living, transportation, the environment, the economy and housing. Surrey earned a C grade in seven categories and a D+ in the other four. According to the report, C is an average performance which suggests additional effort must be made, while D is a below-average performance that
needs additional work. The questionnaire was posted online from July 9 to Aug. 7. Overall, 571 respondents gave their city a C, rating Surrey’s quality of life as satisfactory but needing improvement. “We didn’t know what to expect. This is the first time doing this with SurreyCares,” said Surrey Board of Trade CEO Anita Huberman. “It’s not a bad thing; it’s an average performance.”
The city’s growing population, which is forecast to overtake Vancouver’s in the next two decades, indicates Surrey is a desired destination. But the growth also presents huge challenges in keeping pace with a population that already exceeds half-a-million people. “There are (thousands of) people moving here each a month,” said Huberman. “So we’re playing catch-up in several areas. i see page 4
Surrey Civic Treasures
Council pay targeted
Artists’ honours
Pastafarian seeks run at city hall
Three new recipients of the Surrey Civic Treasures were named at the annual Business and the Arts reception Tuesday at Surrey Arts Centre. South Surrey potter and ceramics teacher Hutchinson Don Hutchinson, Crescent Beachbased fabric artist, dancer/mentor and educator Elizabeth Carefoot and former Surrey Arts Council president Eileen Gratland were selected as this year’s honourees. Carefoot Now in their seventh year, the Surrey Civic Treasure awards celebrate those who have been deemed to have made a significant contribution to culture in the city. Gratland Hutchinson spent 30 years at Langara College as a ceramics teacher and is past-president of the Potters Guild of B.C. i see page 4
Kevin Diakiw Black Press
Happy folk
Boaz Joseph photo
Stoney Bird and Lyn Pinkerton share a laugh as Michael Averill sings at the Vancouver Folk Song Society’s annual retreat at Alexandra Neighbourhood House last weekend. More than 80 people attended three days of song circles, jamming, concerts, dancing and workshops.
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Surrey voters, straining to decide who to vote for this fall, will have a Pastafarian in the pot. Surrey’s own ordained minister in the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster is running for city council this fall. Wearing a white dress shirt, tie and formal colander (he wears the metal strainer for fancy occasions), Obi Canuel, 36, talks about what he hopes to undertake as he runs for council. Obi Canuel The former SFU philosophy civic candidate student has no election platform and no agenda, he says, other than to draw attention to the notion of council members being able to address social issues while making what he considers a handsome salary. Councillors make just over $60,000 per year. “What concerns me, is that when you earn that much money – the average Surrey salary is $32,000 – that puts you in a place where you are unable to represent the people that you are governing,” Canuel said. i see page 8