City Councilman Joshua Paladino ’18 offers comment as his former opponent for office Penny Swan records the meeting. Thomas McKenna | Collegian
The Hillsdale City Council may vote on a proposal to remove the requirement for a school board seat on the library board as soon as April 3, according to Councilman Greg Stuchell, who represents Ward 1.
The council’s Operations and Governance Committee met Wednesday and unanimously sent the proposal back to the council.
“We’ll probably put it on the agenda for the next meeting,” Stuchell said. “The turnout tonight was a lot of people. For a subcommittee, this was over the top.”
Councilman Joshua Paladino ’18 proposed an amendment at the March 6 council meeting to remove the city charter’s requirement that the library board’s fifth seat be filled by a member of the school board.
“The ordinance proposal upholds the authority and responsibility of the mayor’s office,” Paladino said. “It defends the principle of no taxation without representation for the city’s tax-paying citizens, and it protects the city as an independent and self-governing political body.”
In the same meeting, the council voted 4-3 to reject the nomination of Hillsdale Community Schools board member Daniel LaRue to the library board. LaRue said he was fine with sending the amendment back to the council.
“I think it’s completely fine and acceptable to go to the full council for the bill,” LaRue said. “This way, all the city residents can reach out to their councilmen to share their views that way.”
About 43 members of the public attended the committee meeting Wednesday, most of whom spoke during public comment.
Jim Bowen, who works as a technical support analyst at Hillsdale College, said the amendment was not in the community’s best interest.
“I think it’s important to have a liaison there so that the school district is abreast of what’s going on with the library,” Bowen said. “If the library board wants more information from the district, they have an easy way to get it.”
Professor of Philosophy and Religion Nathan Schlueter said he thinks the amendment would expand the chance for community members to sit on the library board.
“I see that this ordinance simply does not exclude anyone,” Schlueter said. “It simply expands eligibility to include someone like me or others that I know. There’s no reason why they could not still choose someone from the school board.”
Mayor Adam Stockford said the school board’s seat is the swing vote on the library board.
“I’ve tried to appoint a diverse cast of characters to committees because I thought that was fair to have a representation of all sorts of people that live in the community,” Stockford said at the March 20 council meeting. “But that representation should also be a representation of what this community is, which is about 75% of the conservative way of thinking.”
Paladino, who serves as secretary of the library board, drew fire last year when he attempted to relocate books he said contained sexually explicit and LGBTQ content from the children’s section of the library. The library board president, Scott Cress, resigned following the conflict in June 2022.
Councilman Bruce Sharp, who represents Ward 3 and sits on the Operations and Governance Committee, said he thinks Paladino should not be serving on the library board.
“The council member who serves on the library board should not be on there from what he has said on tape,” Sharp said.
Sharp said he would be willing to serve on the library board if Paladino steps down.
“I am a Democrat — oh, God, help us,” Sharp said. “I also vote Republican, too. It’s not always about politics, it’s about what they stand for.”
Stuchell said he thinks it is important to focus on policy, rather than political drama.
“We’re just people like everybody else, and the emotions come through,” Stuchell said.
