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LOADING UP KINDNESS: Volunteers Tim Dutcher-Walls and Trevor Alexander (left) carry boxes of food to a vehicle at St. Aidan’s Presbyterian Church as part of the Don’t Go Hungry food program, which offers free groceries for those in need every Saturday. For more on this, read our annual Guide to Giving starting on page 15. PHOTO JENNIFER GAUTHIER
Council votes for no increase in police budget Theresa McManus tmcmanus@newwestrecord.ca
Global calls for defunding the police have made their way to NewWestminster. At a Monday budget workshop, council considered draft capital and operating budgets, which proposed a 4.9% prop-
erty tax increase in 2021. But instead of directing the finance department to prepare a plan that incorporated that increase, council voted 4-3 in support of Coun. Nadine Nakagawa’s motion to send the police budget back to the police board to submit a budget with a 0% increase for 2021.
“This motion came out of a response for demands for justice and for reform,” she said. “Those demands included demands that city councils not increase police budgets in the future and that we look at different ways of doing that work.” While she recognizes the city needs partners from other levels of government
to address police reform, Nakagawa said that work is “years down the road” and she can’t pretend she didn’t hear calls for action. “I cannot support any increase to the police budget, recognizing even if it is the cost of increased wages, etc.,” said Nakagawa, who wanted all police staffing and initia-
tives funded out of its existing budget. The NewWestminster Police Department had a $31.6-million budget in 2020, with a $33.33-million budget proposed in 2021, an increase of $1.73 million.While annual wage increases and benefits account for the bulk of the increase, the draft budget
also included $44,000 for personal protective equipment and Naloxone to address COVID and the opioid crisis, and $90,000 for a position required to support development and implementation of a diversity, equity, inclusion and antiracism framework.
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