KEEPING COPS ON OPERATION SWEEP

Enhanced policing in Whalley will cease in a few weeks if funding
isn't found to keep extra officers in the area.

As part of Operation Clean Sweep, 10 officers have been posted in the
area, stopping cars, cyclists and vagrants in an attempt to clamp down
on the amount of drugs and prostitution in Whalley.

Those officers have been on overtime, and that funding runs out at the
end of this month.

Surrey's public safety committee has asked the city manager to prepare
a request to council for more money to keep up the pressure in the
area.

"Operation Clean Sweep has funding in place until the end of
September, and of course when that ends, the bad element will return
to the levels it was before," said Coun. Gary Tymoschuk, who chairs
the pubic safety committee.

The city manager has been directed to seek funding for the rest of
this year, and "to further look at funding in 2004."

Tymoschuk says the Whalley clean-up will require a sustained
effort.