Scott Sessions served as mayor from 2013-2017. Thomas McKenna | Collegian

Scott Sessions was sworn in as mayor of Hillsdale during the Nov. 17 city council meeting after winning the Nov. 4 election against Ward 2 Councilman Matthew Bentley. 

Sessions told The Collegian during his campaign that Bentley and former Mayor Pro Tem Joshua Paladino were to blame for the resignations of five Hillsdale city officials, including the city engineer, zoning administrator, the Hillsdale Airport manager, and two supervisors from the Board of Public Utilities. 

The meeting ended with Bentley saying Sessions “ran on negativity” and refused to debate with him in public. 

“I would suggest to the community at large, the media, and civic organizations, that they should expect, if not demand, that there are public forums where the mayoral candidates meet face-to-face and have discussions so the people can make informed opinions instead of surrogates slinging negativity,” Bentley said during the meeting. 

Sessions responded that he had been open to discussion with Bentley while attending the weekly Hillsdale Farmers’ Market. 

“I was actually in the public every single Saturday for three hours, and I only saw you down there a couple times,” Sessions said. “You could’ve come to see me, but you didn’t.” 

Sessions said during Monday’s meeting that he ran against Bentley because of the negativity he said Bentley and others sowed among city officials. 

“The negativity came from the resignations of five different people from the city of Hillsdale. That’s where the negativity came from. It was in the resignation statements. That’s all I put together. That’s what I ran my campaign on because there was negativity there,” Sessions said.  “I’m sorry if you didn’t see that. I did.”

Bentley said he had no interactions with the city’s engineer or the public utilities supervisors who allegedly resigned because of him. 

“I reject that there was negativity for the previous year under mayor pro tem’s tenure, and the whole narrative I would challenge you, rhetorically, to name the five bodies that he or I caused. I reject all five of them as being caused by either one of us,” Bentley said. 

As mayor, Sessions said he will enforce a chain of command in which communication between council and its staff must first go through the mayor and city manager. 

Sessions previously told The Collegian the chain of command would solve the “free-for-all” communication between the mayor pro tem and new city council members. 

Bentley said he will not follow Sessions’ chain of command and that councilmembers and staff previously emailed each other directly without issues. 

“Mr. Mayor, with all due respect, I will not be following the chain of command,” Bentley said. “Generally we all email each other to let us all know what we’re doing.”

Bentley said he would have preferred if Paladino had remained mayor pro tem instead of having any election at all. 

“I am 70 years old, and have seen a lot of campaigns in my life,” said Ward 1 Councilman Greg Stuchell. “I’ve never seen one that wasn’t negative.”