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ARDEN HILLS CITY COUNCIL WORK SESSION – JANUARY 13, 2025 15 <br /> <br />Mayor Grant said then we wouldn’t have income information at City Hall. <br /> <br />Councilmember Monson would support not having an equity component. If the program grows, <br />she would like to revisit it. The challenge is if you get someone in the lower AMI paperwork <br />becomes even more challenging. The support to get someone across the line would be significant <br />from staff. That would be a whole different strategy from now, which is just deploy the money <br />and fix this environmental issue. She can get behind not having an equity component but will <br />want to revisit it if we grow. <br /> <br />Councilmember Holden agrees. She said next year when we reapply, we look at it again. <br /> <br />Mayor Grant said we will award $41,000. He asked if anything on the calculations should <br />change. We’re at 50% of the first $5,000. <br /> <br />Interim City Administrator Jagoe confirmed up to $5,000. <br /> <br />Mayor Grant asked if Staff feels like we will use the $41,000 at that level. <br /> <br />Director of Public Works/City Engineer Swearingen confirmed. <br /> <br />Councilmember Weber asked how quickly it would be used. <br /> <br />Director of Public Works/City Engineer Swearingen thought around mid-third quarter. There <br />are already one or two queued up waiting on a decision. <br /> <br />Mayor Grant said it is important that we are able to award utilized the entire $41,000 we were <br />awarded. <br /> <br />Director of Public Works/City Engineer Swearingen is certain that it will get used. <br /> <br />Mayor Grant said we are an old enough community that we should be able to use that money. <br /> <br />Councilmember Holden thinks we need a policy. People have been hanging on and not <br />submitting because it was first come, first served. We didn’t get the information we needed. Then <br />the next person is on hold because the person in front of them didn’t get the necessary <br />information. We need to have a timeline for Staff that if someone applies, they have a certain <br />amount of time to get the work done. There needs to be a policy that states if someone doesn’t <br />utilize the money in a certain amount of time, it goes to the next person. She said someone can <br />hang on to $5,000 for the whole year. There was still money left in November. <br /> <br />Councilmember Weber supports a timeline. He also said, if we are looking at running out of <br />available funds in Q3, then it is better to take a spread-the-wealth disbursement approach. Maybe <br />50%, up to $4,000. Maybe a little less. Obviously using it all, is the most important thing, he <br />would prefer to see it stretch to help as many people as possible. <br /> <br />Mayor Grant agreed. From a practical standpoint, he wondered could this type of work be done <br />in Q4?