Library Board Amendment Passes 6-3
Stockford, Stuchell, Vear, Morrissey, Socha, and Paladino in favor; Pratt, Sharp, and Wolfram opposed
We were in attendance at last night’s meeting of the Hillsdale City Council, and we are pleased to report that Mr. Paladino’s library board amendment passed 6-3, with Mayor Stockford and Councilmen Stuchell, Vear, Morrisey, and Socha voting with Paladino. Cindy Pratt, Bruce Sharp, and Gary Wolfram were opposed.1
Veteran auditors of the mighty public comment battles at previous library board meetings, we were frankly surprised at the lackluster performance of our friends on the Left, both at the podium, where their commentary fulfilled Fr. Steven Allen’s opening prophecy that Paladino’s opponents could marshal only emotion, and in the audience, where the discontented jeering and mocking laughter never quite achieved confidence.2
The tone was set early by former children’s librarian and current Hillsdale Community Schools employee, Lauren Jones, who stepped up to the microphone to cast anguished glances in Mr. Paladino’s direction and to declare that she felt “powerless.”
Jim Bowen and Karen “Take Two” Hill were trotted out to provide their usual dose of ALA-approved bleeding heart liberalism on behalf of the “disadvantaged.” Hill twice accused Mr. Paladino of having a “personal axe to grind,” and may have implied—the horror!—that he didn’t have a library card; but it was clear to the room that, like the French chivalry at Agincourt, these venerable library war horses had spent their spiritedness.
It was all really quite civil, despite the best efforts of former Republican and noted anti-smiling activist Penny Swan, who wrote the headline and lede for her new party by lamenting “a sad day in Hillsdale” and blaming the college for “dictating our city.” Democratic hero Councilman Bruce Sharp even earned a surprise round of applause from his sometime opponents in the audience when he warned that a “social district” might encourage potheads to relocate to our town.3
The Paladino partisans, on the other hand, were out in force and were in fine fettle. We reserve particular praise for one Josiah Lippincott, the enfant terrible of the Van Andel Graduate School of Statesmanship, whose stentorian assault on the “weak mayor” system was particularly authoritative. And we appreciated the dose of reality that Dr. Kevin Slack offered to those convinced (“why now?” they repeatedly wondered) that Mr. Paladino is to blame for courting controversy in the public square.
“This is occurring in little towns and cities all over the state of Michigan and all throughout the country, and would have happened without Mr. Paladino,” Slack said. “Why not turn it over to the citizens of Hillsdale?”
In closing, we should say that we admire our mayor’s public confrontation what he described as his own “cowardice” in dealing with Dan LaRue’s candidacy for the library board. Councilman Sharp warned the assembled that Stockford is in his last term as mayor, and we were grateful for the opportunity to reflect on the man’s remarkable willingness to face the music, both digitally and in the flesh.
See Clovis’ coverage of the March 22nd Operations and Governance Committee meeting that considered the proposal here.
We exempt from this criticism, of course, the incoherent ramblings of Jack McClain, which might have been genuinely offensive if they could have been understood.
Incidentally, the council also approved the establishment of the social district.