Mulliken council locks in playground upgrade, opens budget talks on road and roof repairs

The Village of Mulliken council spent much of its January 10 meeting laying groundwork for the 2023-24 budget, while also finalizing a nearly $24,000 playground replacement project and approving routine business.

The council approved the minutes of the December 15 meeting with only minor wording corrections, and approved the treasurer's report on a 5-0 vote. The treasurer noted the village paid McKenzie more than $18,000 to tear down the old salt building and also spent on new snow-removal equipment; overall income was light and salt costs remain low because of a mild winter so far.

Looking ahead to the fiscal year that begins March 1, the treasurer walked the board through current fund balances: the general fund stands at roughly $247,000, the sewer fund at about $276,000-$277,000, the major street fund near $167,000, and the local street fund around $55,000. The village must keep its "community stabilization" and "revenue sharing" state funding separate this year under a Michigan requirement, and a roughly $70,000 carryover from last year's budget is earmarked for park and building projects. No formal budget was adopted; the board plans to finalize numbers at the March meeting.

Road and building needs dominated the budget discussion. Major road repairs ran well over budget last year, and trustees discussed rebuilding about a half-mile of Eaton Highway using a pulverize-and-regrade method estimated near $150,000, while noting French Street needs underground work before it can be repaved and Potter Street also needs attention. The board also discussed increasing next year's building/capital budget — about $30,000 was budgeted last year and roughly $19,300 spent — toward $40,000, largely to reroof the pavilion and the leaking recycling center. Separately, the village has one-time county and state funds (including money it can't spend on pensions) that must be used within a several-year window, potentially on roofing or infrastructure. The village's state-required audit cost is expected to rise from $7,500 toward $8,000-$9,000.

The playground replacement at the park is set: total project cost is about $23,990, made up of roughly $18,000 in equipment, a discount of about $5,662, shipping of about $2,933, and an $8,600 installation charge, which the board said is priced high because only the manufacturer's installer will do the discounted equipment. The project is funded from the general fund's parks and recreation budget, with a $500 donation from a local motorcycle club going toward the cost. Installation is expected in spring; the board discussed keeping the merry-go-round rather than the older, worn equipment, checking on a warranty, and posting a liability disclaimer near the new equipment.

On sidewalks, the village is seeking bids for a new sidewalk along the north side of Grand Ledge Highway from Ionia Street to the existing sidewalk near the bank; residents with questions were directed to Village President Dennis Kepitis. Board members also expressed long-term interest in eventually adding a sidewalk toward Eaton Highway, and flagged uneven sidewalks on Sherwood and Potter streets for a future budget. This year's required state spending on non-motorized paths was satisfied through survey work done for a planned Dollar General sidewalk.

Public safety ideas floated for the coming budget included security cameras — three outdoor and one indoor, roughly $300 plus a $100 annual cloud fee — to monitor the pavilion and a nearby barn, and a solar-powered, portable radar speed-limit sign, similar to ones used in neighboring communities, estimated around $3,500 and movable to whichever street has a speeding problem. Both ideas will be developed further before the March budget meeting.

On overnight parking, board members noted that cars left on the street overnight make snow removal harder and pointed to an existing village ordinance restricting it; the clerk normally reminds residents through a note on the sewer bill and the board discussed posting the reminder on the village website as well, especially with more winter weather ahead.

On code enforcement, a Village property near the ETM building was sold at auction to McKenzie, which plans to eventually tear down the existing house. A separate, long-standing problem property is facing county legal action over unpermitted structures; if the owner doesn't obtain a permit, the county may hire a contractor to remove them, potentially adding roughly $60,000 in cleanup costs to that owner's tax bill. A business sign was also flagged again for sitting too close to the property line and will need to be moved. Rather than naming a single ordinance enforcement officer, the board agreed to add a recurring "ordinance review" item to future meetings and to send enforcement letters and citations under the village council's name as a whole.

In other business, Consumers Energy inspected a tree in a resident's yard after a complaint and found no problem; a broken limb had already come down in a storm and been removed, so the tree will not be removed. A board member, speaking as a resident rather than in her official capacity, noted that a township fire department's holiday food-basket program serves families identified through the Grand Ledge Emergency Assistance Program, in response to rumors about who the program helps.

The council approved a schedule of regular meeting dates for 2023-24, beginning March 6, 2023 and running through February 2024, with the July date shifted to account for the July 4th holiday. The 2023-24 budget, along with the road, roofing, camera, and speed-sign proposals discussed, is expected to be finalized at the March meeting.

How this report was produced

This article was generated by an automated pipeline, and we think you should know exactly how. First, the audio of the meeting was converted into text by automatic speech recognition — software that infers words from sound, without a human listening along. That machine-made transcript was then read by Willbot, American2Day’s AI reporter, which condensed it into the report above. No human transcribed the meeting, and no human wrote this summary.