City Councilman Joshua Paladino ’18 offers comment as his former opponent for office Penny Swan records the meeting. Thomas McKenna | Collegian

[EDITOR’S NOTE: The original article misnamed Karen Hill as “Faith Hill.” This has since been corrected.]

Mayor Adam Stockford rejected a petition to remove Councilman Joshua Paladino ’18 from the library board and denied rumors that the Hillsdale Community Library may be closing in a series of Facebook posts last month.

A Change.org petition has gotten more than 270 signatures calling for the removal of Paladino from the library board, where he serves as secretary, along with an edited video of Paladino saying that he wanted to close the community library, according to Stockford.

Stockford said in a March 9 Facebook post that he has no plans to remove Paladino from the library board and said a petition will have no effect on that decision.

“I will not bring forward a vote to remove Josh from the library board under any circumstance, other than for the conviction of crime related to his service on that board,” he said. “I will not do it.”

He said the council is the only one who can remove Paladino from the board, and the only way to do so would be for the mayor to propose a “reverse appointment.” Stockford said he has made it a rule not to remove board members for expressing their opinions.

“I don’t want our deliberations and committees to become so cowardly as to fear that there’s always going to be some repercussions for expressing an opinion a good amount of people don’t agree with,” Stockford said.

According to Stockford, much of the support for the petition came from people who thought Paladino wanted to close the Hillsdale Community Library after a video was posted on social media of Paladino saying, “We don’t even have to have a library… we could vote to not have a library.”

Paladino clarified in an email that he did not say he wanted to close the library and that he was referencing his former city council opponent Penny Swan.

“I mentioned that my opponent had accused me of wanting to close the library, when I had simply proposed that we stop funding sexual propaganda and that we focus resources on essentials for literacy and education,” Paladino said. “I noted that she called herself a libertarian and that libertarians generally oppose public funding for education. Several bad actors then edited and circulated a video of my comments to make it sound like I wanted to close the public library.”

Stockford denied all rumors that the library may be closing.

“There is absolutely no discussion, or chance, that the community library will or would be closed,” Stockford said in a Facebook post on March 23.

Paladino sparked a controversy last year when he proposed a policy that would prevent sexually explicit material from entering the children’s section of the library, and he has recently been under fire for proposing to remove the requirement that a school board member should sit on the library board.

The Hillsdale County Democrats, in a March 23 Facebook post, called for the community to email Stockford requesting to replace Paladino on the library board with Councilman Bruce Sharp.

Hillsdale County Democrats Chair Jeff Cooley said he thinks Paladino’s statements regarding the library have been harmful to the community.

“Mr. Paladino has repeatedly made statements that not only have sown division in the community but also appear to be in direct violation of his oath of office,” Cooley said. “Despite having ample time to either clarify or retract his harmful statements, Mr. Paladino has chosen not to, instead doubling down on them.”

Cooley disagreed with Stockford’s policy of not removing committee members, and said the mayor should remove Paladino.

“As mayor, Mr. Stockford is tasked with the responsibility of ensuring board appointments are fulfilling their duties in the best interest of the community,” Cooley said. “I believe that it would be in the best interest of the city and the library if Mr. Paladino was no longer on the board.”

Stockford said that people on both sides of the issue have been reacting to false information.

“I want everybody to take a step back and have a breather and realize that a lot of things that are being said are either outright lies or they’re misconstrued or the results of editing,” Stockford said.

According to Stockford, there is currently one open challenge in front of the library board to prevent children from checking out a particular book that a Hillsdale resident challenged. As far as the library board proposal, a public hearing will be held May 1 to decide if the requirement for a school board member to sit on the library board will be removed.

“There is no discussion regarding banning books, burning books, or the like,” Stockford said.

Karen Hill, the acting president of the Hillsdale Community Library board of trustees, said the events of the past year have caused division in the community.

“I think we can see that based on the number of people coming to library board meetings and city council meetings,” Hill said. “Controversy can bring people out and make them aware of situations, but it can also divide people. I think people are pretty passionate on both sides.”

Stockford said that he will not try to stop city council members from expressing their opinions as the council continues to have discussions about the function and organization of government in the community.

“I don’t think that Councilman Paladino is going to change his views that offend so many people,” Stockford said. “I think he’s committed to them and he’s committed to having those sorts of conversations. I’m not opposed to having those sorts of conversations. And I’m not going to muzzle a city council member, and I’m not going to punish a city council member for expressing views.”

Stockford said that he hopes the public controversy will die down as misunderstandings are corrected.

“I would urge the public not to respond to this emotionally,” Stockford said. “Not to call people who want to have discussions about the content of our library fascists or Nazis. And I would urge people not to call those who are concerned with the First Amendment, not to call them pedophiles. I just wish everybody would sit down, be grown-ups, and talk about this.”