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Page 2 of 3 The new station location will provide better response times to both southern Arden Hills and Shoreview; converting the Lexington Station to 24/7 will also provide better coverage to North Oaks, northern Shoreview, and TCAAP when built. Between 2019 and 2021, the Arden Hills City Council, along with the other two cities, passed resolutions of support for the new station, and have also approved a Joint Powers Agreement to facilitate future funding of the new station. Along with the new station project, the department has also been discussing staffing, specifically hiring at least six new full-time Captains. The board did recommend that the new staffing was their preferred option moving forward. The department previously applied for a SAFER Grant and was unsuccessful at the time, and is pursuing one this year, too. The fire department gave a presentation to the City Council in July and August of 2022, and the City Council was supportive of applying for the SAFER Grant and the associated new positions. Fire District The board has also been discussing the possibility of creating a fire district, which would be its own separate taxing authority. A fire district is viewed as a more efficient form of governance versus the current board as the fire district board could independently approve projects. The fire district would bring the fire department off of each City’s tax rolls, but would still have implications to each City. The first being how would the fire department’s cost be split amongst the cities. The cities would have the option to split the cost based on a formula, which could be similar to the one we use today. Another option would be to have it based on overall market value. The