Hampstead Mayor Jeremy Levi

Ex-Mayor removed by police after Hampstead council disruption

Local Journalism Initiative / / / , , ,

By Joel Goldenberg
The Suburban

Hampstead Mayor Jeremy Levi had the SPVM expel former Mayor William Steinberg from the June 9 council meeting following a fractious debate between the two men over reimbursed expenses for hotel stays during conferences and council salaries.

“I hereby order you to leave these premises at once,” Levi told Steinberg.

Steinberg, who was accused by a member of the audience of violating council meeting decorum rules that he himself enforced, had declined to depart from the microphone after approaching it a second time. Levi had told Steinberg to wait for the second question period at the end of the agenda, but the former mayor remained at the microphone. A lengthy recess then took place.

(According to Article 12 of the town’s Bylaw 740, if a resident insists on speaking “without being granted the floor,” this may “justify the expulsion from the meeting by order of the Chairperson (Mayor).” Levi told The Suburban this bylaw was adopted by Steinberg and council and “I was enforcing his own rules.)

“This is exactly what I told everyone you would do,” Steinberg told Levi after officers entered the council chamber. The police then escorted Steinberg outside the Adessky Community Centre, where they told him he committed no crime but had to stay out of the council meeting.

During the meeting, Steinberg brought up pre-2024 allegations he posted at billsteinberg.ca, including a salary hike of 40.5 percent for councillors, Levi staying at a $900 per night hotel in Dallas, Texas during a conference and councillors travelling outside Canada to various locales for conferences.

Regarding councillors’ salaries, Levi responded that his predecessor (Steinberg) “erroneously advised council that the mayor’s salary had to have been three times the councillors’ salary. We looked into that and that was never the case. I looked at the amount of work that council puts in — this is not just about showing up to a council meeting. You know better than anyone else the amount of work involved.They deserve every single dollar.”

Steinberg countered that the salary difference between mayors and councillors is the norm, but not a rule.

Steinberg added, “We kept the salaries in line with the size of the town. [The councillors] conned you, Mr. Mayor, because of their greed, and you fell for it! Many residents want the councillors to pay back the money!”

As for the Dallas hotel stay, Levi said the Omni was the hotel of the conference, and that he did not book it. The hotel was $480 US a night, plus taxes.

Levi then countered with his own allegations about Steinberg’s own reimbursed expenses, including mileage. The former Mayor told The Suburban the mileage figures came from driving to agglomeration meetings and conferences in Canada.

Following Steinberg’s departure, Levi said slanderous accusations were made against the council, and that the items at billsteinberg.ca were incorrect. One audience member interrupted, calling the council “crooks”.

“Some of these councillors use their personal vacation time from their full-time employment [to attend conferences],” Levi said. “They are in constant communication [with the town] when they are away on personal vacations.”

Levi added that what happened at the meeting was “very unfortunate.This is not the way to address concerns about the allocation of resources. There is a proper way to ask questions, and it was not adhered to at all.”

Levi added that “there were accusations against me that I should reimburse the town. I haven’t taken a single dollar. Thank God I’m financially stable, I don’t need the town to pay for anything, certainly not to travel away from my family so that I can bring back better insights and resources to better serve the town. Every single dollar I’ve been paid as Mayor, I have donated to local charities. I take nothing from this town!” n

Ex-Mayor removed by police after Hampstead council disruption Read More »

Hampstead Mayor leads tax protest

Local Journalism Initiative / / / , ,

By Joel Goldenberg
The Suburban

Hampstead Mayor Jeremy Levi said he proposed, and the other mayors of demerged cities discussed, the possibility of all of them withholding their annual contributions to the agglomeration for such services as public transit, fire and police.

Levi was responding to Sharon Freedman, a regular at several council meetings. The CSL resident said demerged cities are paying a great deal to the agglomeration, “and getting very few services,” and she also brought up the ongoing delays of the Cavendish Blvd. extension between CSL and St. Laurent.

“Cannot the cities get together — I need some leadership here — and withhold their [agglomeration portions] until we can get services done and put the money in a trust fund — we’re not stealing the money. Why are we paying out this money when we’re getting bupkis? (Yiddish for absolutely nothing).”

Levi replied that all 16 demerged municipalities agree with Freedman’s sentiment.

“Last year, we had a private meeting of the mayors of the demerged municipalities and I proposed something similar to what you were saying,” the Mayor added. “I said if one of us refuses to pay the agglomeration, we will immediately be put under provincial trusteeship. We can’t do it.”

However, “I said if all 16 of us do it simultaneously and we just refuse to pay the absurd increase in the agglomeration fee, the province of Quebec would not have the administrative capacity to put 16 demerged municipalities under trusteeship — it would create a crisis. There were some mayors who liked the idea, and some that didn’t have the….What we’ve seen in the past two months is a resurgence for that passion for the first time that I’ve been at the agglomeration council meetings.We are now vocally voting against the increase.”

Regarding that latter point, at the February Montreal West council meeting, Mayor Beny Masella, also president of the Association of Suburban Municipalities, said that the organization has “taken a firmer position with the City of Montreal.

“Faced with the failure of our efforts to reach a new agreement on the sharing of the expenses of the Montreal agglomeration, we, the mayors of the Association of Suburban Municipalities (ASM) must now take a firm position. From now on, we will systematically oppose any expenditure or financial measure proposed by the Agglomeration, unless a direct, tangible, and equitable benefit is clearly established for one, several, or all the demerged municipalities. This decision, taken unanimously by the mayors of the ASM, is in line with the opposition already expressed last December regarding the adoption of the Agglomeration’s 2024 budget.”

Masella pointed out that at the previous agglomeration meeting, “the mayors of the ASM unanimously expressed their opposition to nine objects of expenditure deemed inequitable, representing more than $63M.

“For us, the situation is even more unacceptable considering that, in the fall of 2023, the City of Montreal itself acknowledged, through its Executive Committee Chair, that the current expense distribution system and the resulting municipal shares had reached their limits.”

Levi acknowledged that the dissenting votes from the ASM members are symbolic as the City of Montreal has 88 percent of the vote on the agglomeration council.

“It’s an unfair system. It’s taxation without representation. Last year, Hampstead paid more than 51 percent toward the agglomeration and we’re fed up.” n

Hampstead Mayor leads tax protest Read More »

Scroll to Top