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ARDEN HILLS SPECIAL CITY COUNCIL WORK SESSION — JULY 28, 2025 14 Mayor Grant said using the 590 we would need to dump 5 bucketfuls to fill a truck. Public Works Superintendent Frid confirmed. Mayor Grant said the 590 and the loader are two of the older pieces of equipment. He said why buy two pieces of equipment. If a truck holds five yards and a 590 holds one yard and you dump five bucketfuls into the truck. It may take a few extra minutes but not that long when you're looking at $300,000. The 590 will need to be replaced, too. Why have two pieces of equipment to front end load when you know one of the front end loaders is used 10 hours a year. He doesn't know if we need two loaders. There are so many needs on the list. He'd like to see us keep the levy down as much as we can. Maybe we ease the burden in 2026 and pass it to 2027. Councilmember Monson said this case loader is very expensive. What we use it for is important but isn't used very frequently. We have to find a solution where we don't have to purchase one. Or we bundle it in 2029 and bond for it with everything else. It isn't palatable. She would like Staff to come up with a better plan to consider. We've had this conversation for 2025, we're talking about in now for 2026 and we're talking about pushing it to 2027. We'll have the same conversation next year. Councilmember Holden said when talking about bonding. It costs us $4 million to bond $3 million. She asked if local sales taxes are off the table? Finance Director Yang doesn't think it's been lifted. Councilmember Holden knew it was introduced but she didn't know where that was. Maybe we increase the Franchise Fee by a quarter. Mayor Grant said that is contractual for 15 years. Finance Director Yang said you have the ability to change those fees. Councilmember Holden said Shoreview did it last year. They raised it like fifty cents. Then we can have real money instead of paying so much debt that we are losing. She said Councilmember Weber keeps throwing out Cannabis. We lose money with bonding. If we can get money from a different source and collect interest, we have that money to spend. Mayor Grant said we learned from doing the fire station at 15 year bonding, $3 million costs us $4 million. Councilmember Monson clarified, it is $1 million dollars in interest. It is $4 million paid in total, on $3 million borrowed. Mayor Grant confirmed. A $3 million bond for 15 years will cost us $4 million total. Looking at the $300,000 loader is I tenth of that. Discussion ensued regarding bonding for the case loader. Councilmember Weber agrees with Councilmember Monson. He said it is the kind of machine you run into the ground. The resale value on it doesn't mean much if you're selling a $300,000 piece of equipment for $25,000 at the end. The maintenance costs on it are next to nothing. We