The annual levy for the village of Gilman was set at $187,624 during the November village trustee board meeting. That said, there was an empty chair and a missing face when the Gilman Village Board met to conduct otherwise regular business at its monthly meeting November 11, down at the Village Hall. Eugene “Bob” Mechelke, a village trustee had passed away five days prior after being absent for the previous month’s meeting to recover from surgery. In addition, Mechelke had also served on the Western Taylor County Library Board, helping to oversee the recent library addition with an official opening on November 23. Born on the Fourth of July 1950 to August and Luella Mechelke of Ladysmith, the 70-year-old later graduated from Flambeau High School and attended Taylor County Teacher’s College, spending 20 years with the Gilman School system. In short, he was devoted to community and serving it, “If you have someone you want to encourage, go ahead,” DeStaercke told those present of filling Trustee Mechelke’s post. Also mentioned at the November meeting were elections statistics, in which Gilman saw major turnout.

Mirroring high turnout seen across the area and the country, Gilman, Wisconsin saw 205 voters and 19 registrations for the fall Presidential election. Similar to other rural towns across the nation, it went predominately for Trump, by an exact margin of two to one, with 134 votes for Trump versus 67 for Biden. Of the remaining three votes cast for a party ticket in Gilman, one went to the Constitution party ticket of Blackenship -Mohr, and two went for the American Solidarity ticket of Carrol – Patel. No one in Gilman voted the Libertarian party ticket headed by Jo Jorgenson. Countywide in Taylor, Trump received 7,657 percent of the vote versus 25.22 percent or 2,693 votes for Biden. American Solidarity received 185 votes, the Libertarian party ticket received 113 votes, and the Constitution party 31 votes. The November election over, the Village of Gilman heard the village clerk’s report at its meeting November 11.

“Intergovernmental revenue, the state shared revenue, we’ll be getting that, so that will bump up our income,” Village Clerk Candice Grunseth said during the November 11 regular village board meeting in Gilman. “It’ll probably put us at a hundred percent,” she said. There didn’t appear to be any more big bills coming through, and the alley was paid for.“ We paid for the alley, and we did get reimbursed by Jimmy and the fire department already,” Grunseth said. “They both paid, so that’s been going fast.” Meanwhile, the alley drainage extension behind Mike Kinas and proceeding to North 2nd Street was done and the bill had arrived. The month before, a resident named Steve and known locally as Bones had appeared before the council to seek permission and partial funding to install alley drainage. “I’m hoping there’s nothing else big coming through,” she said, the federal CARES grant being an exception. All the paperwork had been submitted. From the Clerk’s report it was into Old Business, chief among which was the library expansion.

“Ok, let’s move on to the old business,” Village President Jane DeStaercke said, saying that the library had been covered but there was a ribbon cutting on the project November 23.

“It’s going to be an outside event for the most part,” she said, adding, “they’ve taken lots and lots of precautions to… follow all the rules.” The library had been open for some time, and it was time for an acknowledgement, DeStaercke said. From there it was into voting and approval matters. Among them was a resolution approving a hazard mitigation plan for Gilman (which passed unanimously), a three percent increase to water rates in line with the times.