WRFH/Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM - Collegian Week in Review: March 5th, 2026

Episode Date: March 6, 2026

This week on the Collegian Week in Review, hosts Catherine Maxwell, Tayte Christensen, and Alessia Sandala first discuss a defamation lawsuit involving a library board member and a city councilman. Then, they talk to Gemma Flores about an update on the Hillsdale special assessment districts and the grand opening of a Marshalls in town. Next, they talk to Elaine Kutas about the new owner of Ad Astera Coffee. Finally, they talk to Moira Gleason about a student musician and potential military fellowships offered at the College. 

You're listening to the Collegian Weekend Review on Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM. Here are your hosts, Catherine Maxwell, Alessia Sandella, and Tate Christensen. Welcome to Collegian Week in Review, where we give you an inside look into Michigan's oldest college newspaper. Where are your hosts, Tate Christensen, Alessia Sandela, and Catherine Maxwell. Today, we're talking to Jima Flores about SADs and the opening of Marshalls, Elaine Kudis about Ad Astra Coffee and Morrigleason about a student musician. I'm Alessia and today I'm talking to our co-host, Catherine Maxwell, about a piece she wrote in City News. Catherine, you wrote about a coming lawsuit against the City of Hillsdale and City Councilman Joshua Palladino for defamation by a library board member Eric Moore.

Can you just explain the situation? Yes. So the simple summary is Eric Moore, who was recently appointed to the city's library board, claims Joshua Palladino damaged his reputation by comments Palladino made in a city council meeting in January. So the background to this is at the January meeting, the council was discussing Moore's nomination to the library board. and Paladino read an email from Moore at the meeting and said, based on the email, Moore believed the city and the library could not regulate its content for children regarding violence, vulgarity, etc.

Moore said this misrepresents his actual positions and is suing Paladino seeking damages of $250,000. More and his attorney gave Palladino and the city multiple chances to retract their statements and apologize. Those retractions have not happened, so they are pursuing legal action against the city as well. What happened at the latest city council meeting? At the most recent meeting, there was some discussion over a resolution in which the city would have retracted Paladino's statements on behalf of the city, which sounds confusing and was really the main conversation in the meeting with multiple council members saying that it doesn't make sense to retract something that they didn't say. Councilman Will Morrissey made this point,

essentially saying it doesn't make sense for him to retract something that someone else said when he did not actually make the statement. Another part of the resolution would have been a disclaimer saying that Palladino's comments were his own and did not necessarily represent the beliefs of the City of Hillsdale or the other councilmen. and some council members believed such a disclaimer would make sense. Others said that position should be obvious. So ultimately the resolution was voted down 6-2 with Mayor Scott Sessions and Councilman Greg Stuchel voting in favor of it and everyone else voting against.

What did Moore's attorney have to say? When I asked Moore's attorney for a statement, he said, Paladino painted more in a false light and that his statements carried reputational harm. He provided the email that Paladino read at that January meeting and said, Paladino essentially made up the beliefs that he attributed to Moore in that section. of the email, Moore had expressed concerns that the city could face legal or financial troubles if library board trustees voted to remove specific books. He said if those potential actions were deemed intentional, there could be a denial of insurance coverage, and that would mean the city could be financially responsible for any uninsured claims, which could result in higher insurance premiums or damage their ability to renew insurance. So that's the paragraph that's at the heart of this

lawsuit with Palladino saying it means one thing and more in his attorney interpreting Paladino's statements as defamatory. And then what does Palladino's lawyer say in return? Paladino's lawyer says the case is without legal Barrett. He says Paladino has absolute legislative immunity, which means what is said in, for example, city council meetings is covered by this immunity and the First Amendment. And he has cited court cases that have repeatedly ruled in favor of such immunity. And he is confident that immunity applies in this case, Moore's lawyer says immunity does not apply in cases of defamation. So that's one argument to watch as this case unfolds. Previously, when Moore had requested a retraction, he had also asked Palladino to pay him $25,000. And Palladino's lawyer said, paying that money

would have set a bad precedent because it could mean that the next time someone on city council says something that makes someone mad, they could come back and say, you defamed me, you must pay me, X amount of money. So taking this case all the way to the Supreme Court, if necessary, the lawyer said, is important to ensure legislators have free speech and are covered for the things they say. So on both sides of the issue, there's a lot of claims being made, attorneys contradicting each other as attorneys do. So it'll be interesting to see how everything unfolds and who comes out on top. Thanks, Catherine. Of course. You're listening to the Collegian Week in Review. I'm Alyssa, and today we're talking to Assistant City News editor, Gemma Flores. Gemma, you covered the

city council meeting this week where they talked about SADs and a motion was made regarding them. What exactly was this motion? Yeah. So, Councilman Matthew Bentley motioned during the meeting this Monday to suspend the use of SADs until the upcoming mayoral election is completed. So that would be November 26. So SADs go towards funding the road repair on specific streets. it taxes the residents of those districts a little bit extra.

And it's been pretty contentious recently. So Bentley wanted to suspend the use of them until the next mayor takes its seat. And how much do SADs cost residents? And what is some of the background of what's been happening lately? So if residents pay the entire sum of their additional taxes in one lump sum, that would cost them about $5,000 up to, yeah, there we go. I was going to say at least. of $5,000 extra.

However, a lot of residents aren't able to do that. So they opt for payment plans, which incur interest, which can add another $1,200 to $1,500. Will the council be drawing up alternative plans to special assessment districts? Yeah, so city manager, David Mackey, said that at the next meeting, they're going to have two or three alternative options. since the motion was voted down, the council won't be suspending the use of SADs until November,

but since public sentiments pretty staunchly against them, it seems like they're going to try and find some other kind of happy medium to look to. So Gemma, you also covered the opening of marshals in Hillsdale. You went this morning for the grand opening, and can you tell us a bit about what you saw? Yeah, so residents seemed pretty excited. I got there at about 745 and there was already a line going down the Kroger Plaza there. They had a bunch of the regional representatives as well as a lot of the store staff outside and they actually did a little ribbon cutting where the first customer in line, who must have been there for a while, with her two kids cut the ribbon to officially open up the store. Was it worth the wait?

I mean, I love marshals. I shopped till I dropped. it was pretty fun. You also talked to Councilman Flynn about the coming of marshals. What did he have to say? Yeah. So Councilman Flynn is really seeing this addition of marshals as kind of an indicator of how Hillsdale's commerce has kind of been on the rise recently with the addition of Aldi, KFC, Meyer in the past couple years. So Councilman Flynn said that with this kind of retail chain coming to town, and hopefully more people will choose to spend their time in Hillsdale rather than going to a bigger city like Battle Creek or Jackson to go do their shopping. And he also said he hoped that people from kind of surrounding areas will make Hillsdale the destination rather than those places.

So kind of keeping business in Hillsdale and maybe even adding to it. You also talked to some students. How is the student body feeling about marshals? Yeah, I mean, students also seem pretty excited. It's just nice to have another thing in Hillsdale. So, yay. Thanks for coming on, Jemma. Yes, you're welcome.

The Collegian Weekend Review continues. Now we're talking to Elaine Kudis, our sports editor, about a piece she wrote for features this week, about Jackson Busby, the new owner of Ad Astra coffee in Hillsdale. Elaine, who is Jackson? And when did he buy Ad Astra? Yeah, so Jackson is a Hillstale local. His family moved here recently in the past. couple years. His dad took a job at the college and he, when they decided to move here, he wanted to find a company where he could work roasting coffee. He's had a history roasting

coffee started when he was 10 years old, roasting his own batches and selling them to people at his church community. And when he moved to Hillstale, he just wanted to continue that passion, hoped to find a job working for a roastery and ended up contacting Patrick Wayland, who owned at Astra at the time. He was looking to sell and Jackson ended up buying the company in September. And yeah, he was 18 years old when he bought the company. He's now 19, still running it, roasting coffee, and serving lattes on Saturdays at St. Joe's Cafe in town. And you mentioned he was quite young when he started roasting coffee. And you wrote in the piece that when he was 10, he got his first coffee roaster. What did his story look like from there learning how to

roast and just learning from different people? Yeah. So his passion kind of started. when he was eight. He said he would wake up early and make his dad coffee before he went to work. And then he decided that, you know, he wanted to get to know how coffee was actually made. And he asked his mom if they could grow coffee beans, which doesn't work in our climate in North America. And so he decided to start roasting his own beans. Got his own roaster when he was 10 and started doing that. He would, like I said, sell to the customers at or the parishioners at his church. And then ended up meeting a gentleman who owned a roaster in town. He lived. He lived. lived in Cordillane, Idaho at the time and began roasting coffee with a guy who owned a roaster

in town. And by the time he was 15, he was the one doing the majority of the work at the roaster. And just learned the ins and outs of what it takes to make a good roast, a good batch of coffee. And currently now with Ad Astra, he has four different roasts, all that are done slowly. He thinks that that gets the best flavor out of the beans. and so he's done a really good job of just learning how the coffee works. When he was a young teenager, he decided he wanted to start learning to make coffee as well and make lattes, learn how to actually make a good pull of espresso. So he started doing that as well, and now he's just can kind of do it all when it comes to coffee.

And what did it look like for him to start learning how to do lattes and espresso and stuff? You wrote in the piece a little bit about he did latte competitions. What did he talk with you about that? Yeah, it was a super cool story that when he was about 16, he decided he wanted to work for a coffee shop. So he got a job as a barista and started making coffee. And he got really into learning how to make the best latte art. He said he would watch tons of YouTube videos and practice all the time, which is just so awesome, such a cool hobby. And from there, the people at his coffee company that he worked at saw his potential and decided to enter him into a couple competitions.

And he said his first few ended up pretty horribly. He was super nervous and failed, especially at the first one. But from there, he really just got his feet under him and learned really well how to make a good latte art. He ended up competing at a national competition in Seattle. And yeah, just kind of got all of these awards for his latte art, which is super awesome too. So Busby took over at Astra in September. What did he tell you about how the company stands right now and what his plans are? for it moving forward. Yeah, so he's just hoping to continue producing high-quality beans and to make

really amazing blends of coffee. They have their roaster located in the back at St. Joe's Cafe. And so he's there once a week roasting. He has a couple relationships with places across the country. And he just encourages people to order his coffee online. And one of the things he does is as soon as he gets an order, he will roast to the coffee so that it sends out at the freshest it is so that when people get it, it's perfectly ready to be drank. So he puts a ton of effort into the timing and into the actual roast of the beans. And he hopes to continue the company just to make it more well known across in the Hillsdale area. He wants to get his beans in different places at Hillstale that serve coffee. He hopes to be the distributor of coffee beans to a whole bunch of

different, you know, cafes or restaurants in town. And he's been doing a lot of things with Hillsville Renaissance to kind of get his name out there. He'll be at different events and things like that. And you talked with a couple of students, one of whom works with Jackson. What did they have to say about Ad Astra and about Saturday mornings at St. Joe's? Yeah, so I talked to a current student, his name's Gavin Todd, and he helps with the roasting process at Ad Astra. And he said that Jackson taking over just brings such life to the company. He's young. He has ambitions for the continued goals of the company. And he really just wants it to become something that is well known and, you know, just a beloved company in town. And Gavin said that his work ethic is so strong. He

really just wants everything to go well and to continue to, you know, share good coffee with the people in the community. Awesome. Well, thanks for joining us, Elaine. Thank you so much. This is the Collegian Week in Review. I'm Catherine, and today I'm talking to executive editor, Mora Gleason, who wrote a piece about a student musician. Mora, thanks for joining us. Yeah, thank you for having me. So who is Frank Farringer, and how long has he been a musician? Frank Farringer is a sophomore at Hillsdale, living in Simpson residence.

He has been playing music since he was nine, he said. He used to go to this music store where his older brother took trumpet lessons and he would just kind of like play around and they had a bunch of ukuleles. And the guy behind the counter would like kind of teach him to like strum on the ukulele or whatever and he loved it. So his mom bought him one and the journey started from there. Got his first guitar a couple years later, completely self-taught, never took any lessons. and now he's released a number of singles, an EP, and finally an album on Spotify. So tell us about this album he just released.

Does he play a specific genre? Is there a connecting theme to his songs? Yeah, I mean, talking to him and his friends, it's, he says he kind of struggles to put himself in a genre. He said his main influences are musicians who are just, like, voice and guitar, so people like Jack Johnson, very acoustic guitar focus. He also mentioned Ed Sheeran, a little bit outside of that category, but still cool. And Bob Dylan was another big influence on him. But if you listen to his music, I might put it in the indie category. Acoustic guitar and vocals, pretty simple.

You also talk to his brother, also a student at Hillsdale. What did he have to say about Frank's music? Yeah, so his brother is his self-proclaimed manager. His name is Ted Ferringer. Wasn't able to talk to him in person because he's studying abroad in Spain right now. So that's cool. But he said, he was very supportive of his brother. He said that, you know, Ted apparently used to play trumpet in high school. And he said, like, oh, okay, I've left that behind. But like, I'll sing back up for Frank anytime, basically. like very supportive of his brother said that Frank has totally taught himself and he's gotten to watch that. Apparently a lot of the songs he writes are reflections on personal experiences and a lot of those are kind of sibling adventures. The most recent album is mostly about a summer he spent. Frank and Ted both spent working at a summer camp in Maine.

So they have that kind of shared experience. You talked to some of Frank's friends who said he said he's. doesn't really talk about his music and it took them a while to find out that he was a musician in the first place. How did they find out? And what does he do to promote his music? He doesn't promote it much. It sounds like he, it seems like very much a personal passion for him. He's been working on this for I guess like four years putting music out. And yeah, his his friends said that he just, he plays for them a lot. He plays for friends. He used to play kind of, um, performances in Simpson freshman year apparently with Dave Belay,

he's another campus musician. But yeah, his friends all think he's really talented. They're telling him, like, dude, you got to put this out here a little bit more. And they made him a vinyl of his music recently, which is like that is a five-star friend group right there. He has played a couple of performances, but it sounds like he's mostly been working on it by himself. He might be putting it out there a little bit more going forward.

Maura, you also wrote a front-page story about Hillsdale being considered for active-duty military fellowships. What are these fellowships, and what's the background for Hillsdale being on this list? Yes, the Department of War listed Hillsdale as a potential partner for active-duty military graduate fellowships. There are a number of these fellowships, and they go to active-duty military personnel. as well as civilians employed by the Department of War. And usually the government will pay for these people to go pursue graduate studies or research at elite institutions. And they're still active duty, so they're still being paid by the government. The problem is that Hillsdale does not accept federal funding.

So it's unclear how this fellowship would work. So as far as I could find out, nothing has been officially arranged. but the Department of War listed Hillsdale as a potential partner institution when it cancelled a bunch of other fellowships at the Ivy Leagues and other elite institutions. I put in an inquiry at the Department of War and they responded to me and said nothing further to mention at this time. So we don't know how this might proceed. Hillsdale has said in a public relations statement that we're open to having active duty

military service members study at Hillsdale, but we stand by our new federal funding policy. So keep an eye on this because I don't know how this is going to unfold. What were some of the other schools named besides Hillsdale? Other schools named included Liberty University, Baylor University, at the University of Michigan. It was a pretty wide-ranging list. There are a number of state schools as well as small private schools listed. I didn't really discern a pattern. There were the ones that I listed in the story, Baylor and Liberty. Those are similar in size to Hillsdale, possible competitors. But, yeah, not a very coherent pattern.

A lot of the schools that were canceled, where the fellowships were canceled, were either Ivy Leagues or other well-known institutions that the Department of War has discerned are not serving the needs of the military any longer. So that was the criteria where, like, are these institutions? representing America and informing our soldiers as well. Well, I know the Collegian will be keeping an eye on this story. Mora, thanks for your reporting. Thank you.

You've been listening to the Collegian Weekend Review on Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM. I'm Catherine. And I'm Tate Christensen. And I'm Alessia Sandela. You can find the Collegian Weekend Review online at cwIR.transister.fm. You can find more news at Hillsdale Collegian. or at our Instagram at Hillsdale Collegion.

Thanks for tuning in to Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM.