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ARDEN HILLS SPECIAL CITY COUNCIL WORK SESSION — AUGUST 25, 2025 25 Mayor Grant asked if we know that. Councilmember Holden said they are. Because when Paul retires we know the interest rates will go down. If you can't see that writing on the wall, you're an idiot. The longer we wait to bond, the better the interest rates will be. Mayor Grant agrees. That is why he said he doesn't think we should bond now. He is leery to jump in now and mortgage our future for 20 years. Things are happening with TCAAP. We don't know where the County will land on Lake Johanna Blvd. They had a design. Will they hold to that? Will they scale it back? They may choose a different project. There where three projects being considered. He doesn't know what happened to the other two and he doesn't know if Staff knows. Councilmember Holden said one of them is being done. Mayor Grant said then there are two of them and he isn't sure what the County's appetite is. Councilmember Monson asked if there is an advantage to bonding the PMP in 2026 vs. 2028. Finance Director Yang said it just pushes out the Fund Balance. If we bond in 2026, we have a little more Fund Balance capacity. If we wait until 2028, we will drive down the Fund Balance before we get the cash from the bond to come in. Councilmember Monson asked if we would just need a levy to balance that dip. Finance Director Yang said we could. Or we could continue to utilize Fund Balance until we get to 2028 when we would have to increase the levy to fund that debt service. Councilmember Monson summarized that the advantage of a 2026 bond is that we would attack the problem now and we smooth the levy. Would we keep the levy lower, if we wait until 2028? Finance Director Yang said we can increase the levy and build up a reserve until we get to 2028. There are various options. If we bond in 2026 that means we are increasing our overall Fund Balance capacity. Councilmember Monson is interested to know the value of waiting the two years and how that will hit the levy. Councilmember Holden said even at 1 % interest rate will make a big difference in our debt service. Discussion ensued recapping all the different scenarios Council discussed and would like to see. Councilmember Weber said he would like to see all of that but he is in favor of solving this problem now. This is a clear problem that is coming at us, head on. He wants to attack it, head on. Now. Mayor Grant would like to see each of the years, the roads and projects and what their current PCI ratings are.