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Menlo Council Votes To Leave Mileage Rate Same

By GENE ESPY
Editor
After a quiet, quick regular part of Tuesday’s night’s Menlo City Council meeting, the group handled several items after coming out of an extended closed session.
Before the closed session, the council decided unanimously to leave the city’s millage rate at five mills, the same as it was last year.
“What is the latest possible date that we can make a decision on the mileage rate?” council member Carol Mitchell asked.
“I have no idea but the tax notices for the city go out pretty soon,” council member Chuck Powell said.
Powell was running the meeting in the absence of Mayor Theresa Canada.
Menlo Clerk Tim Day said that last year’s decision on the millage rate was made in the September meeting.
“I make a motion to leave it at five mills,” Mitchell said.
The council also approved building a list of all city equipment, even equipment that is not on the city’s list of equipment of items that are insured. The call was also for knowing where all of the equipment is located.
Council member Mitchell said that she had asked for the list of all city equipment.
“The whole purpose of the renovation of the city hall and moving to that building was to get the equipment stored . . .,” Mitchell said. “We are looking at a facility where there is renovation. Whether it is here at this building (present City Hall) or building a new building, we need to know what is going to be put in it. If there is a new building built, where and what type?”
Council member Mitchell said she had asked for the list and was given a list of everything that was insured.
“The city needs to know what equipment it owns anyway,” Mitchell continued. “There needs to be a list on file with Tim and update it once a year.”
“So, what about power saws, weed eaters, mosquito sprayers and all the trucks the city owns?” Mitchell continued. “Those are not on here. We need an inventory list of city-owned maintenance equipment no matter how small or how large and the location of where it is.”
She said some of the equipment is at the water treatment plant and some of it is at the well.
The motion was for a complete inventory of all city-owned equipment and where it is located. The motion passed unanimously
After the closed session, the council voted to table until November a bit of business concerning a cell tower to be built on city-owned land in Menlo so the council could get all the information together and have everyone there to discuss it.
“We’ve had some problems with some of the fire hydrants around town,” council member Chuck Powell said. Some say they are not working, and some say they are working. So, we have decided that the ones that are not working are to be fixed, but we need the fire chief to go with the city employees to check these and if they are not fixed, fix them, and when they do their yearly inspection, the fire chief needs to go with the city employees to do the inspection.”
He added that way they would know if one was not working.
“I feel like that is very important,” Powell added.
The motion passed unanimously.
The council also approved an additional expenditure on the original quote to renovate the bank building. The vault’s door in the building will not close all of the way and could be a safety hazard and folding doors need to be put in after the heavy vault door is removed. They also found that the soffit underneath is decayed and needs to be replaced.
The motion to okay the additional expenditure for both of $4,700 was approved unanimously.
“This will finish everything where we can move in and start business?” Powell asked.
“Yes,” Mitchell said.

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