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HomeMy WebLinkAbout08-10-26-WSApproved: September 14, 2026 CITY OF ARDEN HILLS, MINNESOTA CITY COUNCIL WORK SESSION AUGUST 10, 2026 5:00 P.M. - ARDEN HILLS CITY COUNCIL CHAMBERS CALL TO ORDER/ROLL CALL Pursuant to due call and notice thereof, Mayor Grant called to order the City Council Work Session at 5:00 p.m. Present: Mayor David Grant; Councilmembers Tena Monson, Emily Rousseau, Kurt Weber and Brenda Holden Absent: None Also present: City Administrator Jessica Jagoe, Assistant Public Works Director Lucas Miller, Assistant to the City Administrator/City Clerk Julie Hanson, Community Development Director Jake Reilly and Contracted Finance Director Gayle Bauman 1. PUBLIC INQUIRIES/INFORMATIONAL Marissa Nikleson — 18 10 Janet Court. She lives in the cul-de-sac right across the street from Mounds View High School. There are ten homes on that cul-de-sac. Currently 2-hour parking is allowed. There have been ongoing issues with students parking on their street for the entire school day. It is not the best use of resources to have law enforcement monitoring this situation. Her family has three small kids who are often in the yard. At the end of the cul- de-sac there is a group home that has quite a few medically complex adults who live there. Directly across from her house is a home daycare. This spring students were parked on both sides. There is a sharp turn when you enter the cul-de-sac. Students were parking on the curb and daycare families were not able to get through the area. Parents had to park at the end and walk their children down the street to drop them off at daycare. There is no way an ambulance or fire truck would be able to get through that. She isn't sure what the process is for approving or denying passes, but she knows when students get denied, all of the sudden the neighborhood is filled with cars. It will be good for a week. Then kids start parking there again. The cops are called and the cycle starts all over. Neighbors would love to see it posted as no parking during a school day. That would allow parents to park during sports and other events. ARDEN HILLS CITY COUNCIL WORK SESSION — AUGUST 10, 2026 2 Councilmember Rousseau asked if she anticipated there being an issue with service vehicles, if someone were doing a remodel or something. Ms. Nikleson said that is a good point. There isn't a lot of street parking, other than students. There are daycare families who park on the street for a brief time, to drop off their kids. The group home workers occasionally park on the street, as well. She suspects that if this can be resolved the families who may have a service vehicle at their home, would allow those service vehicles to be in their driveway during their work. Neighbors will be willing to work with whatever solution the City can find. Mayor Grant said if there is need for a long term contractor to be parked there, they can request a temporary parking permit so they won't get ticketed. Councilmember Holden asked if the parking lot is full. Are there more cars than spots for students to park them? She remembers hearing students park on the streets to avoid the expense of a parking pass. Council agreed to begin discussion on Agenda Item 3A, as it is related. 2. RESPONSE TO PUBLIC INQUIRIES None. 3. AGENDA ITEMS A. Mounds View High School Parking Assistant Public Works Director Miller said this hasn't been consistently enforced by Ramsey County Sheriff Office (RCSO) or the high school. We could leave it as is and work with RCSO to enforce it correctly. Roseville has some language that has received great feedback and no complaints. Theirs is no parking 9am-2pm, September through May. Staff is open to other suggestions. Councilmember Monson likes the idea of no parking during school hours and months. She wonders if there is a clear visual deterrent that makes it clear parking is not allowed there. Whatever we agree to, we need to make sure all of the neighbors agree through organized outreach. Councilmember Weber said he is sympathetic to the neighborhood. He wonders if the school should be a part of this conversation. His daughter goes to Irondale but attended first period at Mounds View because the class wasn't offered at Irondale. She didn't get a parking pass. He isn't sure if there are enough spots for each student or if the parking pass is too expensive. He thinks having someone from the school to answer those questions would be helpful. Councilmember Holden said one of the things happening is the students were parking butted up to driveways and that doesn't allow residents to easily leave their driveways. The signs were respected for years. She said when the new lacrosse fields open people will be parking in the street in the Fairview neighborhood and walking through those yards. That will be after 3:00. We will need to get the school involved so this doesn't keep happening. She thinks it should be no parking between lam and 5pm. ARDEN HILLS CITY COUNCIL WORK SESSION — AUGUST 10, 2026 3 Mayor Grant said it was successful in the past. But then students graduate and you get a new class of students who don't know the rules. He would support no parking on Janet Court, maybe one side of the road from lam to 5pm. An officer can pull in, and any car parked there is ticketed. They wouldn't have to spend time marking tires. If a homeowner wanted to park after 5 they could. He agreed the school needs to be involved and announce the change and let students know they will be ticketed. Fairview is another spot that has issues with student parking. He thinks we need a public meeting to get the Fairview neighborhood buy -in. A Monday -Friday 7am-5pm may work there, as well. He said Crystal has fewer issues because of the distance but Crystal should be included in any determination along with Janet Court and Fairview. Councilmember Rousseau agrees we need to have a conversation with the school district. She is concerned about kids walking 6 blocks and the parking issues expand into other neighborhoods. She also agrees the neighborhoods should be involved and residents need to be made aware of the permitting option. Councilmember Monson isn't sure if 5pm works. Activities start earlier than that. Yes we have to talk to the school. She isn't sure if we need to have them come to a council meeting. She said staff can talk to the school to fully understand how the parking system works. If we want to make a change before the upcoming school year, we need to work quickly. This timeframe will make it difficult to poll all the neighborhoods about this change. City Administrator Jagoe said she doesn't think there is enough time for council to take action on the August 24 meeting which is what would need to happen to resolve it before the beginning of the school year. If there is Council direction to split the conversation, we may be able to move forward with Janet Court. Then we could do an open house to talk to property owners adjacent to Fairview and Crystal and bring the school into the conversation. Councilmember Holden said the Roseville High School doesn't have a lot of neighborhoods directly next to the school. The signs work there because they don't have any neighborhoods nearby. She said no parking signs mysteriously disappear. Is there anything to do to make signs last longer? Assistant Public Works Director Miller said all four signs are there right now. He knows one went missing but it was replaced and is still there a year later. Other options may be to install taller signs. Councilmember Holden said she know the Venus and Crystal neighborhoods have neighborhood emails. Getting people together will be fairly easy. Mayor Grant said Valentine Crest Road has a walking path between the end of that cul-de-sac to Janet Court. Students have been known to park there and walk across. We may want to include that neighborhood. He said restrictions don't have to be 7-5. We could do 8-4. He wants it to be a block of time so when the sheriff comes by they know the car shouldn't be there and they can ticket immediately. We could contact Irondale instead of Roseville. Irondale is right in the middle of residential neighborhoods. New Brighton surely has experienced issues. Residents want this solved. They aren't going to care if it's a week or two into the school year. They want a resolution. Councilmember Weber said a longer term solution will involve the school. In the meantime, we need to remove the two-hour time frame. RCSO isn't going to come back. If it turns out the school ARDEN HILLS CITY COUNCIL WORK SESSION — AUGUST 10, 2026 4 doesn't have enough parking for their students, maybe that needs to be looked at again. Kids need to have a place to park. Councilmember Holden thinks we should solve the Janet Court issue before the school year starts. The kids know they aren't supposed to park there but they still do. We can change the rules later, if that is warranted. Discussion ensued to summarize the discussion that any restrictions should be seasonal so residents can use the streets during the summer. The time frame of 8-4 or 8-3:30 may work on Janet Court. The daycare and group home should have input, too. Consensus was for the sheriff to be able to pull in and easily know when someone is violating the rule and allow a mechanism for them to ticket without having to return. The school needs to be involved and notify students that this is being implemented. Further discussion ensued that if someone gets a temporary parking permit and kids see that, every kid will park on that street. Suggestion to place signage that says, "permit parking only between these signs". Then if the group home needs to park there, they can. B. Recycling SCORE Update Assistant to the City Administrator/City Clerk Hanson outlined there is $1,420 remaining of SCORE Incentive funds, following the spring Recycling Day. In past years we have done a fall clean up day with Recycle Technologies in Blaine with an average cost of $3,200 and Christmas light collection at the end of the year with an average cost of $575. The difference between the remaining grant funds and what is the estimated cost to provide both initiatives is approximately $2,350. There was a $20,000 net impact on the recycling budget after the City was awarded a grant to purchase recycling carts. The $20,000 that had been budgeted for carts can be used for other recycling initiatives. Councilmember Weber wanted clarification that the $20,000 was budgeted for replacement carts. Assistant to the City Administrator/City Clerk Hanson said that amount was not needed to purchase the carts because the Ramsey County grant was for $100,000 and there were no matching funds required. City Administrator Jagoe said through the budget amendment process that $20,000 was shifted to the general recycling fund. It is no longer earmarked specifically for recycling carts. Councilmember Rousseau said a Buy Nothing Day has been on the agenda planning list for a while. She is okay with staff recommendation in the short term. She would like to see a buy nothing initiative wrapped in with a cleanup event in the future. City Administrator Jagoe said Staff is hoping to organize a trash to treasure type of event in conjunction with our spring cleanup. Councilmember Holden said she hears people asking for a secured shred day. Ramsey County has them once a month. You have to go all the way downtown. It's not secure. People want to see the items being shredded. Council agreed to move forward with a cleanup day with Recycle Technologies and the Christmas light collection. ARDEN HILLS CITY COUNCIL WORK SESSION — AUGUST 10, 2026 5 C. 2027-2031 CIP Discussion Contracted Finance Director Bauman said at the last meeting we got through the presentation and were getting into the financial statements. She said this is the original presentation so any changes discussed at the last meeting have not been incorporated yet. The changes had a positive impact on the PIR fund. The Natural Resources amount came down and based on what Director Swearingen had, the meter replacement was moved out a year and the sewer lining numbers were adjusted based on actual numbers that came in since our last meeting. Contracted Finance Director Bauman said if all of the projects go through the estimated ending fund balance will be positive for 2027. Starting in 2028 there will be a problem with the PIR Fund. The reason is the park projects. There is no funding source for those park projects. The street projects levy increase last year brought it to $430,000. We're closer to meeting the total costs but are a little short. Councilmember Holden said there are a lot of trails in the capital improvement. This doesn't net out the revenue from the other side. Contracted Finance Director Bauman said she understands a change to the cost share policy at Ramsey County may be coming. That's not reflected here but the revenue that we do know about is already included. Councilmember Rousseau asked how much permitting revenue we are anticipating this year. Contracted Finance Director Bauman doesn't have that information with her. This is based on the CIP accounts. City Administrator Jagoe said the permit revenues have been lower this year. The only potential change is the state plumbing plan fees. Rum River does those reviews and we get a portion of that. Councilmember Rousseau asked what fund the Comprehensive Plan is in. She thinks that is typically $150,0004200,000. Contracted Finance Director Bauman said that is being budgeted in the general fund for next year. Councilmember Weber said this past budget cycle we significantly increased the PIR levy by $180,000 to reach the threshold of $1.5 million, we need to collect, on a yearly basis, from all revenue sources, to consistently fund our roads and trails. The City's previous Finance Director indicated we aren't there yet. We never got a breakdown of how we are or aren't there. He would like to see how we're projecting state aid income and all of the different things that go into the $1.5 million, to determine whether or not we're there. With the focus on developing parks it is safe to say we aren't sufficiently funding that fund. Contracted Finance Director Bauman said there was $125,000 put into the park development fund in 2021. That came from a developer to do future trail maintenance on a trail that was built with the project. There is only about $75,000 sitting in the park development fund that could go to the PIR fund. ARDEN HILLS CITY COUNCIL WORK SESSION — AUGUST 10, 2026 6 City Administrator Jagoe said it was the trail installed around the Round Lake Senior Living project. There was a land swap, the trail was built and the amount calculated for 20 years of maintenance. We verified that maintenance agreement. Councilmember Weber asked if it is standard practice at other cities that parks come out of the same fund as streets and trails? Or is it a park development fund? Contracted Finance Director Bauman said it depends on where the city is. If a city isn't built out that city is still getting in park development revenue when a new project comes in. Arden Hills isn't receiving much park development revenue. The previous city she worked for had a capital improvement fund that was no longer bringing in park development money so it all came out of the same "special projects fund". When they had extra money, they put it in a special projects fund and were able to fund projects out of it. Councilmember Weber said if we stay on this path of paying for our parks along with the trails and roads out of the same fund then the $1.5 million a year isn't enough. It's called out for streets and trails but probably doesn't account of the additional trails planned in the future. The amount we need is higher. The plan we had last year to consistently fund and increase the PIR fund isn't going to cut it. He thinks we added some trails with the hopes that the upcoming change to the Ramsey County cost share participation would benefit us. He would prefer to have this conversation once we know the final cost share percentage. That will make a huge difference on the outlook of this fund. We may not have any choice but to bond for those projects. Contracted Finance Director Bauman said alternative revenue sources can be franchise fees, which we're already doing. Another option is local sales tax but that is a difficult one to get. She is not sure if a CIP bond would be allowed. It may have to be a referendum bond. Councilmember Weber asked if we can say we want to bond for the entire Old Highway 10 project? Contracted Finance Director Bauman said that is a question for Ehler's. For streets you can do a 429 because we do assessments. There are CIP bonds you can do, but she believes that is only for infrastructure, not park projects. She will doublecheck with Ehler's. A referendum bond would have to go to the voters and they would have to approve the bonding. Councilmember Weber said he wasn't a part of the decision in instituting the franchise fees. He believes the decision made last year to put the fees toward fire department funding, was the right thing. Despite the concerns about a lack of guard rails, franchise fees affect everyone in the city with an electric bill. That includes everyone. Everyone uses public safety. He would like to see any excess fees put toward public safety. Mayor Grant read from page 2 of 4 of the memo. He said we're short but aren't massively short. However, the fund balance for the CIP will be $2.3 million in the hole by 2028. The CIP budget is being pushed by parks and trails. Contracted Finance Director Bauman confirmed. She said if you look at the PIR fund for the five-year period, it's averaging about $1.5 million for revenue sources. There are two assessments during that time period where we are expecting prepayment on assessments, causing a huge bump. The $1.5 million is strictly for $60 million in streets and trails. There are three huge trail projects. ARDEN HILLS CITY COUNCIL WORK SESSION — AUGUST 10, 2026 7 Mayor Grant asked if the deficit is being pushed by parks and trails, not roads. Contracted Finance Director Bauman said yes if we're dedicating the levy money all to streets. Mayor Grant said the Joint Engineering for Ramsey County group sent an email that we will be capped on the share amount. He said regarding franchise fees, we did that on electric, not gas service. We found a surplus and used it for the fire department building. He thinks we could consider capital only and not operating for the fire department. There is more than enough capital. Contracted Finance Director Bauman said the levy being proposed to handle the capital for LJFD is $120,000 next year. Mayor Grant said he proposes creating an enterprise fund that captures the excess franchise fees and puts it in a fire department enterprise fund. There has been discussion of prepaying bonds. We have to go nine full years and we could start paying them off in year ten. Councilmember Holden thinks the enterprise fund is a good idea because when the fire department tries to go full time, permanent, people need to realize what that costs. When you mix trucks and operating and capital together it is harder to see where it goes. At the end of year nine we can see what is left in the enterprise fund and put it toward the bonds, if we need to. She asked if we will have a surplus this year. Contracted Finance Director Bauman said she hasn't taken a look at that yet. Councilmember Holden said she is confused about the trails. She said some of the trails are programmed with us paying 15% and some of them aren't. She doesn't understand the reasoning behind that. City Administrator Jagoe said Director Swearingen plugged in this year's projects at the 50/50 cost share. The potential change to the cost share agreement was built into future projects. Councilmember Holden said if Old Highway 10 trail drops to 15%, that's $400,000. Does it cost the same to bond $1 million vs. $3 million, as far as the consultant's time. Contracted Finance Director Bauman confirmed. Councilmember Holden could understand bonding for millions of dollars, but not $400,000. She believes the final decision on the new cost share structure will be this month. Discussion ensued that originally it was going to be this month. The engineering staff at the county are going to review the counter proposal. They are going to take a little more time to revisit at the regular September meeting. Councilmember Rousseau said we received notice from RCSO that we should anticipate a 10% increase in the contract. Does any of that have to do with the capital equipment fund or is it all wages? City Administrator Jagoe said it is mainly attributed to wages and they want to restore two positions. ARDEN HILLS CITY COUNCIL WORK SESSION — AUGUST 10, 2026 8 Councilmember Rousseau said last year we increased the park fund. We did the park system plan and we had heard from other cities that it was a challenge because suddenly they had a plan but no funding. She thought we put a little aside to start to supplement that last year. Contracted Finance Director Bauman said she doesn't think a levy was done. There may have been a transfer out of the general fund. Councilmember Rousseau wants to make sure we continue to build that fund, even a little bit. She asked for clarification that bonding would require a referendum for parks. She asked if trails qualify under parks or infrastructure. Contracted Finance Director Bauman said she will check to see if a referendum is the only option. Councilmember Rousseau said when we initiated the franchise fees we weren't sure what the exact amount was going to be. She would be interested in reducing that amount. She thinks the $165,000 doesn't show the full true cost of the fire department. That makes it challenging to explain to residents. Councilmember Monson likes the idea of a special projects fund rather than transferring one time surpluses to the general fund to cover reoccurring costs. Would having a special projects fund help us if we have unexpected revenue that can be applied to the capital improvement fund. Contracted Finance Director Bauman confirmed. At the end of the year, if there was a surplus in the general fund they would transfer to any of the capital fund. They had a special projects fund to put wish list items in that may or may not get done. It works very similar to all of the other capital projects funds. Councilmember Monson would like to explore this topic more. She doesn't like to use one time surpluses to pay reoccurring costs. She has questions on the PIR fund assumptions. She said last year we had several options laid out before us. She asked if the information has any of the projects split. Contracted Finance Director Bauman said there is one this year, one in 2028 and one in 2030. Councilmember Monson said we could shrink the PMP and incur delays. She doesn't love that idea, but it's an option. We need to keep building this fund, via the levy. She doesn't want to create all of those scenarios. She would like Staff to give a recommendation on how we can do this. She asked if there is anyway that the next presentation can have the trails paid at the new assumed cost share percentage. If we can have the scenario assumption with that new split, it would be helpful to her. She wants to figure out a way for us to fund our parks and trails. Mayor Grant had some conversations with a county commissioner letting them know we do the preliminary levy and final levy. They surprised us last year. We were okay but other cities got that information after the preliminary was set. He asked staff to make sure the Ramsey County staff know we have to set the preliminary before the end of September. He said three picnic tables cost $10,500. Are they that expensive? ARDEN HILLS CITY COUNCIL WORK SESSION — AUGUST 10, 2026 9 Assistant Public Works Director Miller said that is in line with the park projects we've done lately. It's a rounded number, but that's about right for three tables with no shade. They're ADA, metal and coated. Mayor Grant said we could take picnic tables and get our own composite and use existing frames to build them over the winter. That would be less than $3,000. He asked staff to vet that number a little better. For the fire department, he likes the idea of taking a surplus and saying it's capital and it's locked away in an enterprise fund. In terms of bonding, our capital needs are what they are. The money is fungible between accounts. Councilmember Holden is not in favor of lowering the franchise fees. We're one of the cities with the lowest franchise fees. If we lower it, it will hurt Arden Manor. Right now they are receiving a subsidy for the franchise fee. Mayor Grant said it is an automatic bill credit but it's not tied directly to the fee. Councilmember Holden said she just doesn't want to lose that. She asked Staff, if we do a referendum, how much time is needed? City Administrator Jagoe said it is too late to get something on the ballot for thisyear. Councilmember Holden said discussion with Staff is that some prices are coming down on asphalt and other materials. Is regular inflation built into these numbers or was it minimized. Assistant Public Works Director Miller said we use historical CIP estimates and inflate them accordingly. We have been seeing some competitive prices with bids. Councilmember Monson asked how a separate franchise fee enterprise fund would work in terms of constraints, what it can be used for. Contracted Finance Director Bauman an enterprise fund is for user charges. It's run like a business. We currently have a public safety capital fund. That is strictly for the LJFD capital items. There is a $120,000 levy proposed for next year. With that we are maintaining a positive ending balance in that fund over the next five years. She is hearing that we are okay with using the excess $165,000 to help cover this capital item. Her suggestion is leave the franchise fee in the debt service fund and transfer $120,000 into the capital projects fund just to keep that funded. The rest of it would stay in the debt service fund. Councilmember Monson asked if that money in the debt service fund is totally available for us to move wherever we want, whenever we want? Contracted Finance Director Bauman said it is in a debt service fund and use of the franchise fee money will depend on how the franchise fee was adopted and what it was specifically allocated for. City Administrator Jagoe doesn't believe the ordinance included language that said it had to be for LJFD. Councilmember Monson said it is unrestricted right now. We could restrict it but we'd have to do that via an ordinance. A future Council could take that money and use it however they want. ARDEN HILLS CITY COUNCIL WORK SESSION — AUGUST 10, 2026 10 Contracted Finance Director Bauman said the money can also just be left in the debt service fund. Normally you don't touch that money unless Council says to. We have to use the money for debt service first, or we have to levy for debt service. We have to either levy for it, or we tell the county that we are using franchise fees in lieu of the levy. We are not levying for debt service because the franchise fees are covering them. Every year we have to do a resolution to the county stating that we are forgoing our levy because we have sufficient funds from our franchise fees to cover the levy. Councilmember Monson said she likes the idea of an ordinance that states that those franchise fees go to the public safety capital fund. Councilmember Weber said it must go to debt first, but after that, it's a grab bag. He feels like we are using it responsibly for fire safety. If putting it into a specialized fund puts guard rails on how any remaining funds can be spent, great. Otherwise he thinks this Council should do something to put some guard rails on it. He is going to tick through several items. He would like to know the condition a vehicle that states it qualifies for replacement because of age. There is a snowblower that looks to be in excellent condition and is wondering if that replacement can be extended. There is a pressure washer to be replaced. It doesn't say when that was purchased. There is no information on the City Hall security system. What's wrong with our security system? Has it been tested? How does the building become more secure with replacement? The funding sources include an "other" category. He assumes that is special assessments. There is a trail that is off by $100,000 based on the price at the top vs. the price at the bottom. Mayor Grant said the park planning Councilmember Rousseau was referring to earlier is $10,500. He also wants the franchise money to be locked away in a specific fund, with the guard rails. It won't cover all of the capital but it makes our operating levy for fire look better than the operating total for fire. Councilmember Holden said we're doing Perry Park. She keeps hearing other cities are making money hand over fist on softball fields. We are unable to use our fields there for renting or tournaments. Perry Park used to be a premium park for tournaments. How much would it cost us to grade the fields? Assistant Director of Public Works said there were several recent walk throughs for the parks project. There are spots that may be repaired with minor grading but there are some pretty significant ones, too. We would have to remove the fences and salvage or replace them. He doesn't have a number. It's more than we were expecting to do with the park project. Councilmember Holden said this wasn't even in the master park plan. We are missing out on that revenue. She would like to see that added to the budget somewhere. Councilmember Rousseau is also interested in checking the language on the franchise fees. She asked if the security system is a one time item. Could we pull some revenue from a different source? Contracted Finance Director Bauman said that came from the reserve study that happened last year. City Administrator Jagoe said the $15,000 that is included in the CIP for next year is a replacement for the pads for the security system. We've had a number of issues with the alarm ARDEN HILLS CITY COUNCIL WORK SESSION — AUGUST 10, 2026 11 tripping throughout the day with false alarms. The $63,500 we are trying to program into the levy is through the reserve study. That would get the fund in a place where it can support future building maintenance needs. She will recirculate that report. Public Works will be able to do some of those maintenance items, however that didn't change the building maintenance needs much. We also shifted the timing of some of the tasks. Contracted Finance Director Bauman reminded that this is just a plan and Council can say yes or no to any project that comes forward. She summarized what she is hearing. She said there is approximately $70,000 in the park development fund. That is available to move to the PIR fund to help fund these park projects. She said we can use that to offset some of those costs. She can take the levy out of the LJFD capital projects fund of $120,000 and we will use $120,000 of the excess franchise fees to cover that. That would reduce the levy slightly and the rest of those fees will be frozen where they can only be used for fire department costs. Council agreed to proceed with those changes along with the hypothetical scenario to include the presumed new cost share agreement with Ramsey County. Councilmember Weber said he isn't sure if we can get there but he would rather fund the parks directly from the park fund. It sounds like we are not levying appropriately for our parks. Contracted Finance Director Bauman said she can move all of the parks and trails projects over to the park fund and that fund will be negative. The capital improvement fund will be streets only. Councilmember Weber said it doesn't solve the problem that we still need money, but it isolates the parks into a more clear program. City Administrator Jagoe said Director Swearingen brought the CIP with the capital equipment replacement items to Council at the April work session discussion. She asked if there is more that Council wants to discuss regarding equipment. Director Swearingen implemented the feedback that he heard into what the Council is currently looking at. Councilmember Holden said she still has trouble with the $300,000 loader. City Administrator Jagoe said that April work session discussion informed this. Discussion ensued on if there was consensus on moving the parks and trails projects to the park fund. The net will be the same there will just be a park development fund line that will be red and capital improvement fund will be in the black. It allows for transparency to the public so they know what is PMP and what is parks. Council agreed. Councilmember Holden asked what all is included in the parks fund. Is it parks and trails? Is it open space where we have to cut down trees? Contracted Finance Director Bauman said that is up to Council. She noted the fund those projects are currently in shows parks listed next to it. She would just move those projects to parks and see how that changes the streets. Or Council can select certain projects to stay where they are. Councilmember Holden said we need to define it. Where would be put Hazelnut Park's parking lot? ARDEN HILLS CITY COUNCIL WORK SESSION — AUGUST 10, 2026 12 Contracted Finance Director Bauman said that would be for Council to decide. Councilmember Holden asked if having it in a separate fund will give us more access to grants. Contracted Finance Director Bauman isn't sure about that. It will give the residents a better idea of what we are looking at in parks. Councilmember Holden asked if we can transfer money from the PIR to the parks fund at any time. Staff confirmed. D. Code of Conduct Councilmember Holden said she thinks we should hire a consultant to work through the Code of Conduct item. She doesn't think we can do it at a work session. Councilmembers Monson and Weber and Mayor Grant would support getting quotes for that Councilmember Rousseau would be interested in them having a conversation about the civility index. Do we want to change the overall tone with the professionalism at the Council level? Or are we looking at some of the key areas in the packet? Councilmember Monson said she concurs there should be a scope for Council decorum. City Administrator Jagoe said she is hearing Council say this item should be pulled from the agenda. This topic will no longer be a placeholder item for the next few meetings. Staff will bring it forward when we have more information. There was consensus to move forward. E. Immigration Enforcement Discussion Not Discussed. F. Rice Creek Commons/TCAAP Discussion Not Discussed. G. Agenda Planning Not Discussed. 4. COUNCIL/STAFF COMMENTS Councilmember Holden said there were topics she heard during National Night Out. How does she get those added to the agenda? City Administrator Jagoe said she is working on a follow up. ARDEN HILLS CITY COUNCIL WORK SESSION — AUGUST 10, 2026 13 ADJOURN Mayor Grant adjourned the City Council Work Session at 6:51 p.m. r VEstlingg=",-,�David Grant Deputy Clerk Mayor