Mulliken council votes to switch auditors, moves toward sidewalk snow-removal ordinance

The Mulliken village council spent much of its February meeting working through numbers for the new budget year and cleaning up unfinished business, but the two formal votes of the night were a switch to a new outside auditor and a decision to have the village attorney draft language on sidewalk snow removal. Both motions passed.

The council agreed to move away from its longtime auditing firm, Drake, after the treasurer said the firm has not been responsive, especially when the village had to adopt new state accounting requirements. The board voted to hire a Grand Rapids-area firm recommended by an outside accountant who works with several Michigan municipalities. The new firm would cost about $10,000 for the first year to set up the switch and about $9,000 a year for the following three years, roughly in line with current costs.

Sidewalks took up a large share of the discussion. Trustee Sherry Kempf read from a memo from the village's law firm explaining that a village may either require property owners to maintain and repair adjoining sidewalks or handle it itself and bill the owner. After debating whether to require owners to also repair broken sidewalk sections, the council settled on a narrower approach: an ordinance requiring business and property owners to clear snow and ice from the sidewalks in front of their property. The attorney will draft that language for the board to review before it's formally adopted. Separately, planning continues on a new sidewalk section along M-43 near Dollar General and the bank, where a narrow right-of-way is complicating efforts to meet state accessibility standards calling for sidewalks at least three feet wide.

On the budget side, the treasurer flagged several areas running well over what was set aside for the current fiscal year. Sewer repairs and maintenance were budgeted at $50,000 but had already reached about $61,000, largely tied to getting the village's maintenance worker certified and having to bring in outside help. A general drain line budgeted at just $1,300 had climbed to roughly $52,000 because of unexpected work related to a local waterway. Both will need year-end budget adjustments. For the coming year, the council raised the sidewalk budget line from $22,000 to $42,000 and increased equipment maintenance from $7,500 to $15,000, while leaving the tree-service budget for board members to revisit after a call to the village's tree contractor. Catch basin repairs on village streets also came up, with a full basin replacement estimated at around $15,000, versus cheaper fixes for basins that only need new casting rings.

Council members noted the village hasn't raised taxes since around 2012, even as services such as trash and recycling pickup have been added since then. Recycling costs have become a sticking point: last year's budget for hauling recycling was $2,000, but the village had already spent roughly $4,050 this year after losing a grant that used to help cover the cost. Some members questioned how much of what residents put out is actually recycled rather than landfilled, and the county is reportedly planning a broader overhaul of its recycling program in the next few years.

On a lighter note, the board discussed bringing back Christmas decorations for Main Street this year. Because public money can't go toward religious displays, the plan would focus on lights, ribbons, candy canes and wreaths, with a possible budget around $2,000. A separate, privately organized nativity display was mentioned as a possibility at a local lodge, not funded by the village. The board also discussed using leftover money in the $10,000 parks and recreation budget for small additions to the village park, such as spring-mounted playground animals.

The village's old sweeper truck drew no bids after being listed for sale for a month. The council discussed raising the asking price and relisting it, and confirmed with its attorney that any board member may bid on village equipment as long as bids are sealed and that member doesn't vote on the sale.

The council also discussed staffing for grounds and snow removal work. Members clarified that the village's current maintenance employee is paid hourly, unlike a past salaried employee whose hours fell short of what was needed. A maintenance-worker interview was held after the meeting. One trustee raised concern about negative comments on social media targeting village vehicles and staff, calling the behavior unacceptable.

In committee reports, Eaton County 911 logged just two calls for Mulliken in January — a domestic situation and a traffic stop — a quiet month overall. Council members also discussed an upcoming special election in May on a new county policing millage, expressing skepticism about how the request is being promoted and questioning how much of the county's general fund already goes toward subsidizing police costs elsewhere in the county. The zoning report was quiet, with cold weather limiting activity and no active ordinance violations beyond a parked vehicle issue that resolved on its own. Public comment during the meeting was limited.

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.