Hamilton Mayor Charles Gosling dismissed as “nonsense” the suggestion of rivals Team Hamilton that he is an unknown to north Hamilton residents.Mr Gosling said the challengers had also unfairly portrayed the present council’s opposition to legislative changes to the municipalities and their voting scheme.Contenders Team Hamilton told city residents at a town-hall meeting last week, that Mr Gosling’s team had fought with up to $500,000 to stop businesses from losing the vote.The Mayor said he had been more concerned with municipalities being stripped of power.Mr Gosling told The Royal Gazette: “There was a campaign with an amount of money spent — I can’t recall the sum, but I know it wasn’t $500,000. It was the municipality’s money.“A large part of it was because the legislation had only been made public a week or two before it was debated in Parliament. I have a document from Cabinet talking about turning the municipalities into quangos.”He added: “We were in support of the franchise including businesses as well as residents. But frankly, when support from business was silent as best, as far as we’re concerned, that legislation has taken place, the change as been made, and we’re moving on.”Challenger Graeme Outerbridge has said the current administration has neglected north Hamilton.Mr Gosling responded: “If you have a drive along North Street, King Street and Woodlands Road, it’s virtually impossible to distinguish the boundary of Hamilton from the rest of Bermuda. And I say that in that what we are dealing with here is a national issue and not a city issue.”He said certain neighbourhoods had fallen behind others because “it has been too easy for those in power to deal with issues by containing them”.“Those in power have, for the last 50 years or so, particularly since the drug culture first showed itself in the early 60s, have been happy with the idea of containment in various easy-to-identify areas,” he said. “That’s one of the primary reasons why north Hamilton and the surrounding areas have been held back dramatically and why they are economically challenged.”Added Mr Gosling: “It’s not any group within City Hall that is deliberately holding back development of any particular area. It’s the whole continuing Bermuda powerbase concept, as I said, ‘Let’s keep these guys where we know then, and the rest of the Island will be happy’.”As for the accusation that he only recently took to the streets to campaign for voters, the mayor said: “I’m often in north Hamilton, as it’s definited by the Government and not by the City. I walk these streets every day. I’ve done walkabouts of various areas in north Hamilton and the entire city, with the city secretary and city engineer, and members of the council. My face is most certainly not unknown in these areas. The concept of us having done canvassing for the first time is a load of trite nonsense.”As for the idea of Hamilton adopting the “chess park” model of New York’s Washington Square Park, the mayor conceded it was “a nice idea, for a city of millions”.He added: “I think we have issues of more depth right now.”