In my last article I described the shocking spending of the Hampstead council on trips to Europe, expensive hotels, lavish meals and 40% salary increases, all at taxpayer expense. That was bad enough, but the current council has also totally mismanaged the town as you will see below.
Taxes and fees
In my final year as mayor, the local tax increase for single family homes was 1.35% which was below expected inflation for the coming year. It was the 14th year in a row of below inflation local tax increases. The local tax increases for the new administration have been 3.0%, 4.0%, 4.9% and 4.0%. In every year those increases were above the expected inflation rate for the coming year.
On top of that, this year the council quietly raised the water tax rates by 25%-30% for most residents. For example, if you used 175,000 gallons last year your water tax would have been $470 but now it is $610, a 29.8% increase.
It isn’t just taxes that have increased. The new council raised almost all fees for demolition and construction permits. Cat and dog licenses were up by 67%, as well as fees for using the tennis courts and pool. The increases ranged from 38% for Tennis Seniors up to 275%, almost triple, for Child Pool Day passes. In fact, the dramatic increases led to a front-page story in the Montreal Gazette with many residents saying they could no longer afford to take their family to the pool on a hot day. To add insult to injury, this past summer the pool hours were greatly reduced to save money.
Even free overnight parking passes decreased from 12 a year to 6 and the fees for annual parking passes have increased.
Infrastructure
As I write this, the Hampstead web site shows the expenditures on roads and sidewalks for only 2022 and 2023 of the current administration. These were about $1.3 million per year, about 20% lower than the $1.6 million per year that my administration spent in 2020 and 2021. Of course, the reduction in expenditures did not affect the road and sidewalks in front of Mayor Levi’s new house. Those were redone in 2022 after Mayor Levi’s election.
The new council let the cost of the tennis courts climb from 1.3 million to 3 million and the courts were completed more than a year after the date promised by the new council.
Events
The free 10 concert series on Tuesdays in Hampstead Park, attracting up to 1,500 people, were dropped by the new administration. The popular Halloween Haunted House has been eliminated. In addition, there are far fewer programs and events.
Communications
One of the first things the new council did on December 6, 2021, just after the November election, was to fire Laurie Kezas, our brilliant Communications person. Laurie had totally revamped our quarterly printed newsletter, made our weekly e-newsletter much more attractive and informative, greatly increased viewers on all our social media platforms and, finally, totally redid our web site. Thanks to this ill-considered decision, we no longer have a quarterly newsletter, no printed annual brochure with all programs and activities, views of our social media have decreased dramatically, the weekly e-Hampstead is boring and repetitive with little news since the new council is doing so little. The same applies to our web site.
The firing of Ms. Kezas was done against the advice of Hampstead’s outside labor lawyer who warned that the Town had no grounds to fire her and that we would lose the inevitable court case. She sued and the Town eventually reached a settlement a few days before I was scheduled to testify as a witness for Ms. Kezas. Since there is a non-disclosure agreement, I do not know the exact amount, but I do know the amounts of the earlier offers that Ms. Kezas refused. Those offers were in the tens of thousands, and this was for an employee who had worked for the town for less than three years. The council really did not want the truth to come out and they bought her silence with taxpayer dollars.
The new administration does not care about communicating with residents. There are no more Mayor’s messages and numerous residents have told me Mayor Levi is slow in responding to e-mails or voice mails, if he responds at all. There are also no more monthly reports by the councilors on their portfolios.
Money wasted on outside investigations
Had the Town been run properly there would have been no need to pay for outside consultants to investigate. $54,000 was paid to Sirco to examine Richard Sun’s credit card spending. $19,000 was paid for an investigation of an employee’s harassment complaints.
Beautification
Under the guidance of my wife, Doris, as an unpaid volunteer, almost all the public green spaces – Fleet and Queen Mary medians, and most of the parks were stunningly improved. There was an emphasis on perennials and trees which greatly reduced our annual budget. Hampstead was awarded 5 Fleurons, the highest-level award by Quebec. We were one of only 11 municipalities in Quebec to achieve that level, and the only one on the island of Montreal. The present council has let everything deteriorate dramatically even though Doris left them with detailed plans for every green space in the town. This was a penny-wise, pound-foolish decision as the look of a town impacts the value of our homes. Further, the neglect by the current council has led to the death of many perennials and the replacement by more expensive annuals.
Old Hampstead
The look of Old Hampstead is another reason that Hampstead homes cost so much more than homes in neighboring municipalities. We kept the FSI (a measure of the volume of a house) at .52 for Old Hampstead even though it was .80 for the rest of the town. The new council increased the FSI to .80 for Old Hampstead. They did this over the strong objections of residents and even though a consultant’s report showed that for many homes in Old Hampstead the size could double if there was a renovation, or even triple, in the case of a demolition. Still, the council went ahead saying that the look from the street would not change. That is absurd. If a charming house is demolished and a new one three times larger goes up, the look changes dramatically and not for the better especially when many mature trees will be cut down. Even for a renovation which doubles the house size mostly in the rear, the impact is devastating for the neighbors in the rear and on the sides. As time goes by the look of Old Hampstead will be destroyed and all our home values will decrease.
Further, the council even seriously considered selling Northcote Park so two enormous (FSI .80) homes could be built there. They were literally about to pass a resolution to award the contract to sell “4 lots” to a real estate broker without even mentioning that it was a green space until residents found out and showed up en masse to demand they do not. For a council that ran on transparency, this was totally hidden. They did the same with the dramatic increase of the FSI.
Court case fiasco
23 municipalities launched a court challenge against Bill 96 and its impact on bilingual towns. Hampstead declined to join and, instead, launched their own case with TMR. Obviously, this will cost far more than dividing the cost with two dozen towns. But it gets worse, the law firm decided to drop Hampstead and so did TMR. So now Hampstead has wasted their initial investment and is looking to do it alone with another law firm.
What can be done to fix this mess?
We must elect an entirely new council to restore the Hampstead we used to have by:
- Returning to local tax increases below expected inflation.
- Reversing the excessive councilor salary increases and limiting councilor trips to one conference per year in Canada. We must institute strict spending limits on meals and other expenses like hotel lodging.
- Reducing user fees to increase use of our facilities.
- Restoring good communications.
- Bringing back the summer concert series and other popular events and programs.
- Restoring the beautification of Hampstead.
We need a Hampstead council that will work for us and not for themselves
What are YOU prepared to do?
- Volunteer to get honest ethical people elected?
- Consider running for council yourself?
- Help in other ways?
If you said YES to ANY of these questions, then sign up here for Concerned Citizens of Hampstead (CCH).
3 Comments
You hit the ball out of the field… solid, fact based , substantiated information… no wonder they tried to have you “ gagged”…. Bravo
Bill
this is crazy.
regardless if Hempstead or Westmount good governance is expected or demonstrate against house of mayor 24/7 and call for SQ to investigate
I would say councilmen should earn what they do in similar ta base municipalities on the island.
expense of more than 25$ per councilman must be preapproved in public meeting.
paving of roads within 500 feet from councilman home only after all other completed prior 2 years.
Thank you. Under my administrations, the councilors never dared to ask for huge salary increases and we kept salaries in line with other similar towns. Councilors in larger towns got more and those in smaller towns less. We were right in the middle. As for choosing the roads to pave and sidewalks, we used a company to analyze every road and sidewalk on several criteria and the worst ones were done. Under Levi, a decision to do his road and sidewalks was made in 2021 right after the election and the work was done in the spring/summer of 2022.
However, to the best of my knowledge, nothing is illegal. They were elected and pretty much can be as immoral, corrupt and unethical as they wish. The only solution is an entirely new council. Residents must stop being complacent and sign up (above) for the new group Concerned Citizens of Hampstead. Some good people must agree to run for election, others should agree to volunteer.
What this council has done is beyond shameful but they will get away with it if everyone can’t be bothered to get involved.
Bill Steinberg