Allow me to paraphrase Hillel’s famous quote and relate it to what Hampstead residents can do.
If we are not for ourselves who will be for us?
Certainly not our elected council who have exposed themselves as being corrupt, greedy and self-serving with expensive trips to Europe, luxury hotel stays, fine dining, and a 40.5% salary increase for councilors. See Hampstead council’s outrageous use of your tax dollars for details. To make matters even worse, they have totally mismanaged the town as shown in The tragic decline of the Town of Hampstead.
If I am only for myself, what am I?
55% of residents did not vote in the Mayoral election and an even larger percentage did not vote in the council races. Hampstead has many very wealthy residents who don’t care how high their taxes and fees are. If services decline for residents, they have their clubs, vacations and other amusements. But what of residents who are house rich and income poor, often seniors? What of residents who have lost their jobs or businesses? Shouldn’t we care about them? Others are just too busy with kids and jobs but what kind of example are we setting when we ignore corruption and incompetence and leave the responsibility of voting to others.
If not now, when?
The next Hampstead election is in less than five months. That is not much time to find quality candidates for council, organize and get good people elected. But it can be done if each of you gets involved. For my part, I am looking for good candidates for Mayor and councillor positions. I will manage the database of supporters, help with the campaigns and guide the new candidates. I will work with the new team to create a platform to bring back Hampstead to the way it was and go from there. The basic items of the platform are already listed in the last part of my article on the tragic decline of Hampstead.
Before I explain what you need to do, and in keeping with the Jewish philosophy theme of this piece, I want to share the words of Rabbi Berel Wein, a Jewish historian, author and international lecturer. The complete lecture on Combating Corruption can be found here.
“An even more subtle shade of corruption exists and is exposed in Jewish thought. This is the corruption of self-interest. It clouds our minds, imposes upon us a narrowness of vision…”
“This corruption stems from prejudice, ignorance and the inability to control one’s desires. ‘Since I want to do it, it must be justified and correct’ is the mantra that creates such an insidious form of self- corruption. “
The wildly excessive salary increases, the trips to Europe, the expensive hotels, the priority paving of the Mayor’s road and sidewalks, etc are all examples of this type of corruption. I doubt that anything is illegal, but the actions were immoral and unethical. They also violate Hampstead’s Code of Ethics which they had sworn to follow.
Here is what you can do
Simply click here to let us know you support a new ethical council that will work for us and not for themselves. It takes less than two minutes to complete the simple form. Then ask each voter in your house to do the same. Then take one more step and find 5-10 neighbors, friends or relatives who will sign themselves up. To help convince them, forward this article to them after speaking to them first.
Many of you know I have a database of hundreds of supporters, and you may be on it, but people move out, e-mails and phone numbers change. Every four years I went door to door covering the entire town to update my database but there is no time, so we need you to do your part to get yourself and others onto this new database.
So don’t assume that because you voted for me, had my lawn sign or donated to my campaign, I know that you will vote for my choices this time. Only by signing up will you be part of the new team against corruption. It is a small ask but I can’t do it for you.
Wednesday, July 2 Council meeting
Last meeting, Mayor Levi had me evicted after continuously interrupting me as I tried to ask questions. It was less than 15 minutes and no one else had a question to ask. The next day I was all over the media exposing the misdeeds of the Hampstead council. Nevertheless, Levi will probably try to shut me down again because he has no credible responses.
The important thing is to sign up by clicking on the link but if you want to let the council know what you think come to the meeting at 7pm Wednesday in the Hampstead Community Centre. I will give a list of potential questions to anyone who asks me for one. He can’t shut us all down.
As an incentive, those who come will discover another major misdeed that I have yet to write about. A councillor pushed for and voted for a resolution that saved him several thousand dollars. Quebec law does not permit a councillor to do that. The law requires a councillor in that situation to recuse himself and not discuss the issue before, during or even after the meeting. I will provide details at the meeting.
2 Comments
I wholeheartedly agree with you Dr Steinberg; I am (unfortunately perhaps) not a resident of Hampstead but just driving through it (haven’t driven past the mayor’s house) confirms a lot of your points
Thank you but it is only Hampstead residents who can get involved by clicking either of the links in the article above to sign up and show their support for replacing the current council.
Bill Steinberg