Matt Schonert

Mayor Michael Sessions has brought an ugly tone to Hillsdale’s mayoral race. A few weeks ago, Sessions publicly endorsed Tony Vear and rebuked Douglas Moon, but his motivation for doing so is not clear.

Perhaps the only valid concern he has raised is Moon’s vote against rezoning the hospital, which Moon said was done to protest the way that Sessions prematurely ended discussion of the issue and forced it to a vote.

Sessions has also argued that candidate Doug Moon’s employment in Coldwater will make him unavailable to respond to emergencies in Hillsdale.

If Sessions truly believes that Moon will be unable to give his personal and immediate attention to such crises, it is only fair to ask Sessions what specific crises have required this type of response in his four years as mayor. Specifically, what mayoral crises have required a response time of 30 minutes or less?

In comparing the candidates, Sessions has suggested that the value of Moon’s city council work pales in comparison to Tony Vear’s work on the planning commission.

In order to take this seriously, we must ignore the irony of quibbling over which candidate’s city government experience is more applicable to mayoral duties that were previously carried out by a high school student.

Sessions is free to endorse any candidate he pleases, but it seems vindictive to endorse one candidate so forcefully and attack the other without a severe reason for favoring one over the other.

If there is a serious reason why Doug Moon is unfit to be mayor, then let us hear it. The petty grievances Sessions has raised do not explain the excessive zeal that he has shown in his attempts to undermine Moon’s campaign.

(Published in the Hillsdale Daily News on October 30, 2010)

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Last summer, the Hillsdale Daily News reported that local police arrested a woman for alleged trespassing during a service at Allen Baptist Church, which is part of a tiny rural community along U.S. Route 12 in Michigan.

Today’s Wall Street Journal caught my attention with a familiar theme: “Banned From Church”. I quickly realized that the international newspaper was leading its feature with the same saga of Karolyn Caskey, the 71-year-old dissident arrested last June (and again in July) during church services.

The charge was trespassing, but Mrs. Caskey’s real offense, in her pastor’s view, was spiritual. Several months earlier, when she had questioned his authority, he’d charged her with spreading “a spirit of cancer and discord” and expelled her from the congregation. “I’ve been shunned,” she says.

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