Hampstead 2009 Election Issues

for the latest news please see the UPDATES section

 

FACTUAL Information

The Financial State of The Town of Hampstead

Response to the letter by Gina Caligiuri, tabled by Councillor David Sternthal at the Sep. 8 Council meeting

At the Sept. 8 council meeting, David Sternthal tabled a report by a charted accountant, Gina Caliguiri, which made serious allegations about Hampstead’s financial state. When Councillor Sternthal was asked at the meeting if he minded if the Town responded to his report, he replied that he didn’t mind, as “the numbers speak for themselves.” The Town has now responded with three letters from: 1. the Town Treasurer, 2. Goudreau Poirier, the external auditors who prepare Hampstead’s financial statements, and 3. Mercer, the actuary who has administered the Hampstead pension fund for over 30 years.

Why is the Sternthal slate trying so hard to keep this report from you?

At the Oct. 1 council meeting, a motion was made to distribute the Town’s report to all Hampstead residents, along with the original Caliguiri report. The only two councillors to vote against the resolution were Sternthal and Gonshor. Having failed to defeat the resolution, Sternthal then filed a complaint the next morning with the Director General of Elections (DGEQ) to block this information from being mailed out. The DGEQ reviewed the documents and ruled that they were factual and not electoral and gave the Town permission to distribute them. The Hampstead report, linked below, has been mailed out to the town.

When comparing the claims of the Caliguiri report with those of the Town of Hampstead and its external auditors, it is important to know the credentials of the parties. Gina Caliguiri admitted in public, at the Oct. 1 council meeting, that she had never done a financial statement for any municipality and does not know the rules and standards for doing such statements. Furthermore, she admitted that she did not know the rules pertaining to some of the conclusions stated in her report.

In contrast, Jocelyne Poirier, the principal partner, wrote the letter for Goudreau Poirier. She has had 27 years experience auditing municipalities, is the President of the municipal administration committee of the Quebec Order of Chartered Accountants, and plays an active role on the Municipal Finance Committee of the Quebec Municipal Affairs Ministry. Her firm has audited more than 100 public organizations including 40 municipalities.

The 10 most important facts from
the Hampstead Response

• Hampstead is in excellent financial health!
• Hampstead does NOT have a deficit of 3.75 million as Team Sternthal claims.
• The Town had a surplus of just under a million dollars in 2008.
• Over the first three years of this mandate the total accumulated surplus has grown to 2.1 million (from an inherited surplus of $300,000).
• The Town has never had a deficit in any year of this mandate.
• The Town’s inherited debt is 9.24 million and NOT 7.5 million as the Team Sternthal implies on their web site.
• Long term debt at the end of 2008 was just under 13 million and it will be 13.72 million at the end of 2009. It is not  and has never been  16 million, as Team Sternthal claims.
• The increase in debt is 4.5 million, most of which is from the 4.4 million interest-free loan that Hampstead got from the Quebec government. This will save the Town about 3.3 million in interest over the 20 year life of the loan.
• Debt service, which is the best measure of the Town’s ability to repay its loans, is the fourth  lowest of the 14 demerged towns on the island of Montreal. (the Quebec Government web site has financial snapshots of every Quebec municipality)
• Therefore, our town has a solid financial foundation on which we will continue to build a better Hampstead.

The Reports

The documents that were mailed out are linked below. Please read them carefully and judge for yourselves.

The Town's Treasurer and Assistant Treasurer's response

Goudreau Poirier's letter

Mercer's letter

Hampstead's Financial Statements

External auditor's report of Hampstead's financial statements as of December 31, 2008.
External Auditor's Report

Financial Statements 2008 (long version - in French)

Jack Edery's Independant Investigation of Hampstead's Finances

www.jackedery.com

Hampstead Council Attendance Statistics

The total number of Municipal Council Meetings missed by the Mayor and City Councillors.

Complete Attendance Statistics

 

Map of Roads Paved 2006-2008

Map of roads paved from 2006 - 2008

 

Langhorne Rd. Residents Could Control Council

Letter to Hampstead residents from Councillor Clifford Borden

I am concerned about the contentious tone of the upcoming mayoral election and as importantly the emergence of three Langhorne Road residents running for half the town council seats.

While I am not running for re-election, serving the Town of Hampstead for the past four years as head of the Finance and Traffic portfolios has been a great experience. Challenges remain; however, I believe your current Council and Mayor have served to provide Hampstead with a solid foundation for dealing with our town's main issues.

My concern relates to three Langhorne-area residents running for council as part of the Councilor Sternthal team: Daniel Miller, Phil Gordon and Roz Gross represent three of five homes bordering Langhorne Road. Since Hampstead, unlike most towns does not determine seats geographically, it is conceivable that all three could get elected. This would give Langhorne-specific issues an uncomfortable influence over town matters. Langhorne area issues that affect the whole town include the Langhorne dog run, an extremely successful venture which has increased dog license sales from 35 to over 300 and reduced dog-related issues everywhere. These candidates have fought to have the dog run closed or moved to another park. They are also the leaders of the dog run lawsuit against the town. This case has cost the town $13,000. Do these candidates not have a blatant conflict of interest?

They may also exert a disproportionate influence over the future redevelopment of the Langhorne/Macdonald fire station. This project will be crucial to future tax revenue growth.

Candidates for town council should be driven by a desire to serve the entire town in an unbiased fashion and the Langhorne slate has not exhibited this propensity throughout three years of town meetings. In fact, over the last several weeks they have made misleading claims related to our financial position that are OUTRIGHT LIES and in direct CONTRADICTION to assertions and statements made and provided by our auditor and director-general Richard Sun and our treasurer Charles Ohayen. Also, I doubt that slates are even appropriate for small town elections. Will Mr. Miller, Dr. Gordon and Ms. Gross be required to follow the group's platform? Council independence has proven massively beneficial over the last term; this will be lost as a result of candidates running as a team.

I hope that bringing these issues to you will allow you to make a more knowledgeable decision when you vote. — Sincerely, Clifford Borden

Map of candidates running in the Hampstead election

 

Official Town of Hampstead web site

www.Hampstead.qc.ca

 

Mayor Steinberg's Recommendations for Town Council

To ensure that Hampstead keeps moving forward in the direction that I have led us, the last four years, we need the best possible people on council.
It is crucial that honest, hard working and dedicated individuals of the highest integrity are elected.
I do not think that slates are a good idea in small towns and the candidates that I am recommending are independent, running on their own platforms.

This will guarantee that ALL segments of our community are well represented.

Mayor Steinberg's Recommendations

 

IN THE PRESS

[David] Sternthal’s numbers ‘outlandish’

Letter to the Editor in the Suburban (August 2009) by Hampstead Councillor Clifford Borden.

It is regrettable that I must address some of the outlandish and false claims made by David Sternthal in regards to the financial situation and spending habits of Hampstead published in last weeks Suburban opinion page. Sternthal’s claims run counter to the facts , as know by our auditors, our finance head Charles Ohayon, and our director general Richard Sun. For example … Read more …

Battleground: Hampstead

Article in the Gazette by David Johnston (September 8, 2009)

They say in politics that you should keep your friends close - and your enemies even closer. This is what Hampstead Mayor Bill Steinberg has done with David Sternthal, the town councillor running against him this fall for the mayor's job. When Sternthal shows up for tonight's regular September council meeting, he will have to sit down in the seat immediately to the left of Steinberg - not three seats to the right of the mayor, his old spot. Steinberg introduced the seat change in July, after he learned that Sternthal, his arch-enemy in council, had declared his mayoral candidacy in the Nov. 1 municipal elections. Across Quebec, similar monthly council meetings set to unfold this week spell the start of hundreds of other municipal campaigns. Read more…

Steinberg is Correct

Letter to the Editor in the Suburban (September 2, 2009) by Hampstead resident, Syd Cohen.

Hampstead Mayor William Steinberg, in his article titled Promises made, promises kept, states that the town has a surplus of “over $1,500,000” while his opponent, Councillor David Sternthal, in his opposite article titled Why I am running, states that the “Town owes over $16 million in debt.” A quick glance at the audited financial statements of the town shows that the “accumulated surplus” of the town is $2,137,602 therefore, the mayor is not only correct but is being conservatively correct. Read more …

Hampstead Mayor William Steinberg will not put election signs on public property

Article in the Monitor (August 17th 2009).

Hampstead Mayor William Steinberg announced today that he will not put any election signs on public property. He will limit his signs to the lawns of private residences. In the 2005 election campaign, Hampstead was blanketed with a glut of signs of all sizes. Residents made hundreds of complaints but the election law permitted the signs and nothing could be done. The freshly elected Hampstead council passed a resolution in February of 2006 urging the Quebec government to change the election law to limit the number and size of signs. Read more …

New water-gate invention expected to save Hampstead hundreds of thousands of dollars

Article in the Monitor (July 16th 2009).

The Town of Hampstead just announced that it has recently acquired a new Water-Gate system designed to stop the flow of water in the case of water main breaks and divert it back to the street. This new acquisition is expected to save the Town hundreds of thousands of dollars annually in potential insurance claims for flooded basements. Hampstead will be the first town on the island to use the Water-Gate flood water diversion system. Read more …

With Grey!

Editorial by Beryl Wajsman in the Suburban (July 15, 2009).

What little remains of our civil liberties in our personal lives is due to the efforts of a handful of Canadians. The imposition of politically correct attitudes and affects combined with the overbearing reach of the control state have made public officials, for the most part, feckless and weak. Pandering rules principle. Paramount among those who continue to seek to make law the shield of the honest and the staff of the innocent and not just a two-edged sword of craft and oppression is Montreal lawyer Julius Grey. He has devoted his life to the vulnerable and nearly-vanquished, and time and again to the only causes worth fighting for, the lost ones. In Quebec, he is singularly responsible for keeping the flame of individual conscience and consequence alive in the face of collectivist lockstep. He has said many times and in many places that “legislating niceness is not very nice.” When he said those words he was not talking only about the endless stream of nanny-state rule and regulation. He was also talking about the demonization of people for the views they hold. The suffocating rush to conformity that poisons every aspect of our public debate. Last week Julius Grey almost became a victim of these maladies we oppose so vigorously. Grey has been acting as counsel to the Town of Hampstead. Read more …

Shocking tactics

Letter to the Editor of the Gazette by William Steinberg (July 17, 2009).

Re: "Not Democracy" (Letters, July 15). Councillor David Sternthal has accused me of not respecting democracy by using my veto power. The exact opposite is true. A mayor has veto power to ensure that something cannot be passed by a minority of council when one or more councillors are absent. This power is not absolute, as the majority may overturn the veto at the following meeting. This is the third time in four years that I have used a veto and it has never been overturned. In fact, this is the second time that Sternthal has tried to get his agenda passed when councillors were absent. It is ironic that he tries to take advantage of the absences of councillors who seldom miss meetings, when he has missed more meetings (21) than any member of council. Democracy is best served when elected representatives attend meetings and respect the wishes of the majority. Read more …

Hampstead's lawyer has right to back Harel

Editorial in the Gazette (July 21, 2009).

Some members of Hampstead's city council have chosen to ignore, or else do not understand, an elementary fact of democratic life: That it is possible to dispute someone's political choices without doubting his or her professional capacities. Lawyer Julius Grey is, we believe, certainly misguided in backing Vision Montreal candidate Louise Harel in this fall's Montreal municipal election. But the attempt to have him dismissed as Hampstead's lawyer in a court case, because of this, was far more sorely misguided, and more evidently so. Read more …

With Grey and Bravo to Steinberg

Letters to the Editor in the Suburban.

Promises made, promises kept

By Mayor William Steinberg Special to The Suburban.
http://www.thesuburbannews.ca/content/en/2087

Demerged mayors snub agglomeration council

CBC News (December 1, 2006).

The mayors of Montreal's demerged suburbs say they're boycotting future agglomeration council meetings until the province intervenes to give them more decision-making power. On Thursday, the mayors walked out of a special agglomeration meeting about the Montreal budget, and vowed to skip out on any other meetings until Quebec reviews the agglomeration council's function. The council, which manages shared municipal services across the island, includes Montreal city councillors and demerged city boroughs. Demerged city boroughs have long complained they have no voice on the council, and now that Montreal has tabled its 2007 budget, they say they're fed up. Read more …

Hampstead pursues lower local tax effort, while curtailing water usage

Article on montréalexpress.ca by Martin C. Barry (January 16, 2008).

In its latest annual budget, the Town of Hampstead is opting for an environmentally-friendly approach that encourages residents to save water and pay less tax while doing so. Read more …

Law 22 provides major benefits for Hampstead

Mayor's Message (August 1 2008).

When I ran for Mayor, one of my promises was to fight for a fairer Agglomeration Council. To achieve this, I was the first of the suburban Mayors, along with Mayor Tutino of Baie D’Urfe, to start a boycott of the Agglomeration Council which all the Mayors joined and, as a result, the Quebec government began to pay attention. Since then it has taken 18 months of tough negotiations but we have succeeded in getting an excellent deal in Law 22 which was passed by the National Assembly June 21, 2008. Read more …

Hampstead mayor coped with severe hearing loss as a student

Interview with Mayor Steinberg in Inspirations by Mike Cohen (Fall 2008).

William (Bill) Steinberg recently returned to Hampstead Elementary School for one of his regular visits. More than 50 years ago he was a student there as a special needs student, having been born with a sensorineural hearing loss, with damaged hair cells in the cochlea. Today, he is the mayor of Hampstead and a successful businessman. Read more …

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