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ARDEN HILLS SPECIAL CITY COUNCIL WORK SESSION — JANUARY 31, 2026 9 something that hasn't been specifically raised. She has three big hearted children whose friends and teammates are feeling threatened going to school, threatened about their parents' safety, threatened about if they can attend practice and participate in daily life. She has heard about people who are naturalized citizens having to carry their passport around. There are people who were born here who are worried about if they will be nabbed. The idea that people need to walk around with a phone number of who to call if someone doesn't come home at night. There is stress just in existing. Her kids come home every day sharing these stories. She wanted to speak up for her kids and all of the people in our community who are here, contributing. They are immigrant neighbors. They have businesses. They are in our schools. They are in our doctor offices. They are in our places of worship. They are everywhere. It is important to her to share that she thinks it's important for us to let these members of our community know that they are wanted, valued and welcomed. Making the actions that were brought up today public and giving the members of our community opportunities to get behind this and to demonstrate that we love our neighbors, is very important. It's part of who we are as a community. She hopes Council will consider and take as many actions as possible. Ben Lindau, Arden Hills — He thanked Councilmembers Holden and Weber for bringing this up at the last Council meeting and for having this conversation today. He concurs that if he looks at a class photo from his kids' classes, half of the people look like they could be from another country. There is fear going through the community and the classrooms. When he thinks about a healthy family unit, whatever we can do to get the fear out of the rooms will help these kids and families. From the City, he would like to see a letter from the Mayor sent to representatives to the president that states we need to keep public safety in the forefront. Immigration and customs enforcement, like any other law organization needs to have levels of accountability; including no masks, badges ID and body cameras. Public safety depends on holding the officers accountable, like any other law enforcement. That is a reasonable request. He thinks a letter from the Mayor as the leader of a city that has public safety forefront, is reasonable and it should be done. Aisha Elmquist, Arden Hills — She thanked the Councilmembers for holding this meeting. We have families in our community who are being ripped apart. We have students who are afraid to go to school. We have basic constitutional rights being violated throughout our state. She echoes many of the things that have already been said. One additional recommendation. Shoreview has a Human Rights Commission. New Brighton has an Equity Commission. New Brighton also has a full time staff member who does fantastic equity work in the city. How can we create a sustainable framework within Arden Hills to do more work to show we're a welcoming community and that we have strong relationships throughout out community. A group like that can make recommendations to City Council on how we can do better in terms of human rights and equity in our city. Stephanie Harms, Arden Hills — She said we have a moral imperative to live our city's vision and value statements. This is support strong neighborhoods, fiscal soundness and support businesses. With what is going on right now, staying silent and not taking affirmative resolution is against those values and our vision statement the city has adopted. She thinks the constitution that we all live under protects separation of powers and Arden Hills needs to remain independent and speak independently. Allowing ICE to use our parks, our property and our parking lots is a negative drain on our resources. It's an unconstitutional overreach and it blurs accountability. Even if we ignored the moral imperative, think about the legal risks that we are under if Arden Hills allows staging in our parking lots, parks and communities. Imagine these unlawful, masked, unbadged individuals pointing firearms at innocent residents. Being fiscal stewards of our