Mulliken council orders new speed-limit signs, patches French and Potter pothole, and signs on for five-year generator upkeep

The Village of Mulliken council approved a handful of small infrastructure and maintenance items at its May meeting, while holding off on bigger decisions about a neighboring property dispute and a possible flashing speed-limit sign.

Treasurer Kelli Waldo reported the village received its regular quarterly road-funding distribution from the state. Bills for the period included pavilion roof work billed at $15,675. Waldo also noted that roughly $16,500 was moved between the village's local street, major street, and sewer funds to reimburse the general fund, a routine year-end accounting step to balance the budgets since day-to-day bills are paid out of the general fund. The council approved the treasurer's report as submitted.

On roads, the village had no takers on its request for catch-basin repair bids; one contractor reportedly declined to bid, citing negative comments about the village seen on Facebook. The council did approve a motion to have a temporary asphalt patch put in at the French Street and Potter Street intersection, where repeated pothole repairs have failed to hold, at an expected cost of under a couple thousand dollars.

The village is moving ahead on new road signage through a Michigan Department of Corrections program based in Ionia, which uses inmate labor to refurbish and restripe old aluminum signs at a low cost, with the village getting credit for signs it turns in. Trustees discussed ordering several 25 mph and 35 mph speed-limit signs, along with reduced-speed-ahead and camera-notice signs, and set a spending budget of $500 for the order. The board also discussed the idea of a solar-powered flashing speed sign to help slow drivers down but did not vote on it, saying it would be researched further. Separately, trustees discussed adding a larger address sign at the village building on North Street.

A sidewalk project near the Dollar General remains on hold until weather improves, with the village still working to secure an MDOT permit. A trustee who works for MDOT said potential conflict-of-interest concerns limit how directly involved they can get, but passed along contact information for MDOT's Lansing office so the village can track down the permit. A leaning street sign on Jacqueline Street was also flagged for a closer look.

Two trustees reported attending a zoning training class and said the village needs to update its master plan, noting that trustees also serve as the village's zoning board given its small size. They said a current master plan would give the village firmer footing when handling requests like recent zoning questions, and said they hope to bring in a speaker with more information. On code enforcement, the village continues to have at least one property with overgrown grass; trustees also noted that East Lansing has paused mowing-related tickets in May to allow dandelions to grow for pollinators.

Trustees noted a house demolition project got underway without the village being notified, after Eaton County issued a permit; the village said it will keep an eye on the site to make sure the sewer connection is properly abandoned, or continue billing for sewer service if it isn't.

A sheriff's deputy gave the monthly public safety report, noting a stolen lawnmower on Charlotte Street and one domestic dispute in which both parties were charged but not arrested, along with routine calls, alarms, and welfare checks. The deputy said the department is short-staffed but has several new recruits moving through training and the academy. In response to resident complaints about a loud vehicle regularly passing through on Potter Street, the deputy explained the department can only enforce state noise laws, not local township or village noise ordinances, and asked residents to try to get a license plate number if possible.

The council spent time discussing a boundary dispute involving a small strip of land between two neighboring properties, where a garage appears to encroach and the property title has not been formally transferred following a death in the family. Trustees agreed to leave the matter alone for now rather than take on legal costs, since no party is currently disputing the arrangement, though they noted the issue should eventually be resolved through the deed.

In other business, the village's new security cameras are now hooked up and operational; the council is weighing a cloud storage subscription of about $100 a year, which was already included in the camera budget, so footage would be backed up automatically rather than stored locally. A recent tree removal near village property cost $830, and trustees said they were pleased with the contractor's work. During public comment, a resident asked about a traffic counter recently placed near the Dollar General; it was explained as a routine MDOT traffic count conducted every three years and not tied to any specific project.

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.