Mayor Jeremy Levi says he “was stunned and shocked” when a former town worker alleged during a council meeting that colleagues have been harassed.
Hampstead Mayor Jeremy Levi says any necessary corrective action will be taken after a former employee of the town alleged at a council meeting Monday night that colleagues have been harassed and discriminated against with the knowledge of several superiors.
The former employee, Jeremy Biskin, alleged during the public question period that he “witnessed multiple instances of discrimination, verbal harassment and verbal abuse toward my colleagues and to an extent myself” while working for Hampstead for two years and that the incidents “created an extremely hostile environment to work in.”
“I can speak for everybody at this table when I say that I’m completely stunned by what you just said,” Levi told Biskin. The mayor added that he would speak to the town manager immediately after the meeting and said the matter would be “thoroughly investigated.”
“I’m at a loss for words because I’m literally stunned,” Levi said. He added: “You can be certain that since you brought this to council, council will take this extremely seriously.”
However, Biskin said an investigation is already underway.
On Tuesday, Levi told The Gazette that he learned in a caucus meeting following the council meeting that the situation described by Biskin is “an already existing issue we knew about. An investigation is underway.”
The matter involves one employee’s complaint against one other employee, Levi said. The town has about 140 full-time, part-time and auxiliary workers, he said.
In October, the council voted to award a $19,000 contract to an external human resources firm to conduct “an investigation on psychological harassment in a workplace,” as the resolution states.
“When I said I was stunned and shocked,” Levi said of his reaction Monday night, “I thought this was something different and totally new.”
Local 429 of the Canadian Union of Public Employees, which is the municipal union representing Hampstead white-collar workers, told The Gazette it’s aware of a “process underway” to examine the work climate in Hampstead.
Levi said he’ll act on the recommendation of the report from the external investigation.
“We under no circumstance will ever tolerate harassment, abuse, discrimination, anything like that in our workplace,” he said.
“When we have people come to work for the town, we want them to feel 100 per cent comfortable and at ease. And for my understanding, that is the case. If it’s not, you can be darn sure that I’m going to take corrective action.”
The mayor said there’s no problem with employee morale.
“We have our holiday party this Saturday night, and I’m told that we’re going to have the highest number of attendants of employees that we’ve had in years, which is a very good sign,” he said.
As part of the agenda on Monday, the council voted to award $300 bonuses to all blue-collar and white-collar employees of Hampstead. The town will spend $18,600 on the bonuses for 62 employees.
Levi said it’s not the first year Hampstead was offering bonuses to deal with the high cost of living. This was done even during COVID when the cost of living was out of control, he said.
The council also voted to offer $100 to $300 individual bonuses for eight employees who have reached 10, 15, 20, 25 and 30 years of service with the town. Hampstead has offered length of service bonuses for years as a “token of appreciation,” Levi said.
The CMQ report, released in January, concluded “reprehensible acts were committed” against Hampstead, including “contraventions of the law, abuse of public funds and a serious case of mismanagement.”
The trip to Disney World in 2019 was to attend a conference on municipal business and didn’t involve a visit to the theme park, Levi said in January. At the time, the town ordered an external investigation of expenses and Levi said the town needed to improve “expenditure documentation.”