Mulliken council sets $125,000 asking price for elevator property and backs sewer grant application

The Village of Mulliken council met Monday, November 2, 2026, and approved the October 5 meeting minutes and treasurer’s report. The treasurer said the sewer fund is unusually low after emergency repairs and work needed to meet state requirements. Sewer bills had gone out that day, and officials said they hoped collections over the next few weeks would help cover the village’s required discharge.

The treasurer reported a planned meeting with state Treasury staff to discuss the falling sewer balance. The village is also pursuing FEMA assistance: officials said a grant of about $36,000 may be possible, with a potential increase to roughly $70,000 if future steps to prevent a repeat problem qualify. They said the process would take time. The village may need to move money from the major street fund to cover sewer costs while the fund recovers. Council members discussed a future sewer rate increase, but made no decision on one; the discussion pointed to revisiting rates after a year.

Officials said the repaired sewer outflow line was operating without leaks and had received a permit for additional work. Because the line is currently working and a grant application may cover a replacement, they suggested focusing available money on eroded areas between the lagoons, especially between lagoons two and three. The maintenance report also put the temporary discharge pump rental at $2,700 for a month, with fuel and laboratory costs in addition. The sewer operator’s rate was stated as $60 an hour, and officials said village staff were handling many of the daily samples to reduce costs.

The council approved setting an asking price of $125,000 for the elevator property. Members discussed the condition of the buildings, whether to clean up the exterior, and possible uses by prospective buyers. They also discussed zoning limits and whether a future buyer could use the property for housing; any proposed change would need to go through zoning. The property had previously been posted without receiving bids, and the council did not decide to hire a real estate agent.

The council approved paying a grant writer $500 to begin work on a sewer funding application. Officials said the consultant would bring an application to the December meeting, and that future grant work would require council permission. The proposed arrangement also included a five-percent fee on grant money received. Members said the village needs outside help preparing applications and noted that an earlier grant effort had cost substantially more.

A maintenance report included a planned repair to a 12-foot section of sidewalk on Ames Street, estimated at $2,000. Officials also expected about $2,000 in work to clear sludge from several sewer manholes. A resident’s sewer connection repair was discussed, and the council approved a $100 sewer inspection permit for work on private sewer lines connecting to the village system. Officials said the village would document the work before it was covered.

Members discussed motorized vehicles being ridden on a sidewalk and agreed to obtain two signs directing them away. A county commissioner who attended said the county ordinance does not cover village roads and that vehicles are not legal in the village without a local ordinance. The council did not adopt a new vehicle ordinance. Members also discussed requiring permits for private sewer repairs and agreed to the inspection fee.

The county commissioner described a proposed county road funding measure that residents would vote on the next day. He said Mulliken had received about $12,067 so far in the current fiscal year and estimated annual village payments in the low $20,000s, though he cautioned that the figure was approximate. He said the proposal would support local road work, including ditching, and warned that local roads could deteriorate if it failed. Residents also raised concerns about the lack of road patrol coverage. The commissioner said he would continue pressing the issue. The council adjourned after the discussion.

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.