A Surrey city councillor wants residents to have dibs on access to all recreation-related programs including skating and swimming lessons “for a minimum of two weeks” before these are opened up to people from other cities.
Council approved Coun. Harry Bains’ ask Monday night for city staff to report back to the politicians with a plan to implement this in a timely fashion.
Coun. Doug Elford questioned “how challenging” it would be, in terms of online registration, to filter out non-residents.
Laurie Cavan, Surrey’s manager of parks, recreation and culture, replied that online registration makes up for roughly 67 per cent of registrations annually, “recognizing we have hundreds of thousands of registrations annually.”
The current process involves “self-disclosure” from registrants concerning their address. “We don’t do a physical verification or online verification,” she said.
“It won’t be without its challenges but staff are working on it and we will come back with some options for consideration on how best we could meet this desired outcome,” Cavan said.