The owners of about a dozen properties in the Village of Suttons Bay who haven't paid water and sewer bills for six months or more may receive "shut-off" notices in the mail this week and will have their water and sewer bills applied to summer tax rolls.

At its regular monthly meeting Monday evening, the village council voted 6-0, with trustee Kara Petroskey absent, to adopt a resolution authorizing the village treasurer to add delinquent sewer bills to 2008 tax bills. If tax bills become delinquent, they are turned over to the county treasurer for collection after the village receives its money from a county tax “revolving fund.” About $17,000 in unpaid water and sewer bills were more than six months delinquent, according to village officials.

Village officials were forced to raise water and sewer rates substantially earlier this year to help pay for a new wastewater treatment plant which the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality ordered them to build. The plant was designed and built to accommodate about twice as many users than are currently using the system because it was believed that a planned development in the village, BayView, would more than double the size of the village within a few years.

Development of BayView has been virtually halted, however, requiring that the cost of the system be spread among fewer users than anticipated.

In a related action Monday evening, the village council voted 6-0 to adopt a new Water Use Ordinance to update one that had been in force for many years.

Village president Larry Mawby said he believes it is important for the village to enforce its ordinances, and the resolution to apply water and sewer bills to tax bills would help do so.

“Some of those who haven’t paid their bills may be seasonal residents who don’t care if they get shut off for a while,” Mawby said. “But I believe that enforcing the ordinance will get peoples’ attention and may help some people keep from getting so far behind on their bills.”

In other business this week, the Suttons Bay Village Council:

• Adopted a resolution to apply for an estimated $55,000 in grant funding from the Partnership for Change Sustainable Communities program for a joint master plan project the village is working on with Suttons Bay Township. The grant could require a local match of up to $10,000. The council voted 5-1 to adopt the resolution with trustee Jackie Freeman opposed.

• Voted 6-0 to adopt a resolution to apply for a Coastal Zone Management grant that could cover 50-percent of a $97,625 project to improve Sutton Park on the waterfront off S. Shore Drive.

• Voted 6-0 to endorse an application for $30,000 in tribal “2-percent” casino revenues from the Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians to support the village police department’s budget.

• Voted 6-0 to adopt a quarterly amendment to the village’s budget based on updated State Shared Revenue projections and other anticipated budget changes. Primarily as a result of lower payments expected from the state, a general fund revenue estimate of $803,229 was reduced to $797,260.

• Voted 4-2 to give no further consideration to a proposal from local businessman Kevin Pryor who sought the right to rent small watercraft and sell food items at village parks. Council members said they believed the village’s parks and other local businesses would be negatively impacted, but trustees Freeman and Steve Mentzer who voted in the minority indicated they believed the idea deserved further consideration.

• Voted 6-0 to endorse Mawby’s nomination of Martha Johnson and Cecilia Hamer to serve as village representatives on the Suttons Bay-Bingham District Library board. The two will replace Jackie Russell and Andrea Seeley, according to library board president John Krug who suggested the names of the two new appointees.