00:00:03,600 City Council meeting for Tuesday, September 1st, 2026. You would like to take a roll call, please. All right. Mayor Deshler. Here. Council member IBO. Here. Council member. Camus. Here. Council member. Kaiser. Here. Council member. Austin. Here. Council member. Here. Council member. Cummings. Here. We have a quorum. All right. 00:00:34,530 If we could please rise for the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. First item is we are. We have a approve the agenda as we received it. Anybody would like to. We have one item on our agenda. 00:01:07,100 I’ll make a motion to approve the agenda. Okay, John. I’ll second that motion. Any discussion? Okay. All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Okay. Motion carries. Next item is consent agenda. Consent agenda is where we read some topics that are routine and non-controversial. Nature. 00:01:29,000 And and we approve them in a single motion. I’ll read them off. And then if there’s any that council members would like to take off and discuss further, we sure can. Approval of the minutes from the following meetings. City Council work session meeting on August 13th, 2026. City Council work session on August 18th, 2026. City Council meeting on August 18th, 2026. 00:01:57,270 Approval of disbursements over 25,000 submitted by the Finance Department. Approval of list of license applications submitted by the City Clerk. That was a pretty late touch. Consent agenda. Is there any discussion? Anybody? I’d like to make approval to John. I’ll make a motion to approve the agenda as written. Okay, Tracy. I’ll second that. 00:02:20,670 All right. Any further discussion? Okay. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Okay. Consent agenda passes. All right. Open forum. Open forum is a time, uh, that, uh, residents, businesses, whatnot can come and visit with us. 00:02:44,200 We have about three minutes for addressing us and no one topic we’re going to, uh, usually we kind of cut it off in about ten minutes. And so, um, you know, you can share your opinions and your comments, your ideas. Good, Pat, whatever. We don’t necessarily we’re not going to, uh, vote on anything tonight. 00:03:05,300 We don’t discuss it, but it’s something if you bring up something, we’ll set a future meeting. Or we could put it on a future agenda. So first person here is, um, gentry. Good evening. Mayor, Council members. Um, prepared just a little list for you guys with some things that I’ve been working on over the past few weeks. 00:03:30,070 I’m sure you guys already know what topic I’m here about. Um, I appreciate everybody who’s reached back out after the emails that I sent for us. Tracy. Mayor. Um, so let me get at it. We all share the same goal protecting youth and improving public health. However, good intentions do not always guaranteed good results. 00:03:49,370 Today I want to talk about policy that sounds effective on paper, but completely fails in the real world. Comprehensive bans on flavored tobacco products and vape products. The data shows that flare flavored prohibition does not eliminate demand. It simply shifts where people get those products, often creating dangerous unintended consequences. 00:04:10,900 When a state or city bans flavored products and adults do not magically quit, instead, they drive across the border to buy them. In Massachusetts, when enacted a comprehensive flavor ban in 2020, a study published by the Reason Foundation revealed that while cigarette sales dropped within Massachusetts, the neighboring border county spiked dramatically in 12 months following the ban, an additional 33. 00:04:35,870 36 million packs of cigarettes were sold in counties just outside of Massachusetts. Consumers simply took their tax dollars and their business elsewhere. Prohibition. When cross-border shopping isn’t an option, an illicit black market fills the void. In California, which instituted a statewide flavor ban. Unregulated and illegal disposable vapes quickly flooded the market. 00:05:01,430 Data from the CDC Foundation highlights that illegal, non-compliant, disposable e-cigarettes made up a staggering 94% of all e-cigarette sales. Following the ban, the illicit black market vapes are entirely unregulated, lacking quality control and clear labelling. They jeopardize public safety and funnel millions of dollars into criminal networks rather than legitimate businesses. Smoking rates can actually increase. 00:05:29,200 Perhaps the most alarming consequence of the substitution effect is when adult vapers lose access to flavors that help them switch from away from traditional smoking. Many revert back to combustible cigarettes. A 2026 report from the Katko Incidence Institute analyzed flavor restrictions and estimated these policies increased traditional cigarette sales by 9.6%. 00:05:57,000 Furthermore, a study by researchers at Yale University found that a local flavored ban in San Francisco actually correlated with the odds of high school students smoking traditional cigarettes, more than doubling. The conclusion is flavor bands are just a failed experiment in prohibition. They do not stop youth vaping. They cripple small businesses. They rob states of tax revenue, and they push adults back towards deadly combustible cigarettes. 00:06:16,770 If we want real progress, we should focus strictly on enforcing age verification laws and regulations, regulating the market responsibly, increasing fines and reparations for when businesses do fail to ID check or sell to minors. Prohibition didn’t work for alcohol. It hasn’t worked for drugs, and it’s failing right now for tobacco. 00:06:41,930 I would just like to remind everybody was just a few short years ago. We used to do multiple compliance checks throughout the year. Now we only do one. I’d be in favor of quarterly checks. I’d be in favor of stiffer fines, harsher penalties, higher license fees at a. 00:07:00,100 I’d even be fine with an extra additional tax for the city of Crystal to go towards education to our school systems and keeping youth away from these things. These products are not intended for youth, nor should they be sold to youth. But a prohibition would not stop youth from getting them. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. For. 00:07:22,900 All right. Elizabeth, what is it? Labadie. Okay. Thank you. Good evening. Mayor and city council members. My name is Elizabeth Labadie. I wanted to speak about a statistic from California who has an exponentially higher rate of traffic than we do. 0.05% of the total number of passing cars are actively wanted by the police. That means that 99. 00:07:56,100 95% of the cars these cameras are tracking are ordinary citizens going about their business without committing any crimes. If every one of you and all of your family members were decent, law abiding people, but one of you had a fourth cousin that broke the law, would that excuse all of you having your 00:08:11,170 every move recorded and held on to, because you may or may not have ever given them a ride to a family reunion or something with the council or the police department like themselves and every one of their family members recorded everywhere they went school, church, doctor’s office, the neighbor’s 00:08:26,730 house, the park, Steve Ose, the VFW, hotels, deja vu. Besides the extremely low percentage of times Alpa cameras capture pictures of vehicles on hot lists, I want you to remember that more than 32% of the time, the cameras report a false positive identification. 00:08:46,730 As a former firefighter right next door at station two, I can tell you unequivocally that if we had a piece of equipment that didn’t work one third of the time, we would never even attempt to use it. It would be removed from service immediately without any long discussions about it. 00:09:01,900 No matter what lies the manufacturers or salespeople told us about its efficacy. I also wanted to address a comment made by I’m sorry, I don’t know everybody’s ranks, but one of the chiefs at the most recent work session, it was his opinion that because other places use the cameras, it wouldn’t do any good for us not to not to, um, I have two 00:09:20,530 things I want the council to consider about that remark. The first is that many cities don’t have them or are ending their contracts and removing the cameras altogether. All over the country. 00:09:41,230 Some of these are very large cities Minneapolis, Duluth, Saint Louis County, Sherburne County, Isanti County, North Branch, Saint Paul, West Saint Paul, Columbia Heights and this list will continue to grow. The second thing I want to say about the chief’s remark is about how it wasn’t really too well thought out. For example, there are people who thought that marrying their cousin was a good idea. 00:09:58,030 There was an entire family in Kentucky that had actual blue skin from doing just that. The Fugate family, others were able to extrapolate from that, that just because other people were doing it did not make it a good idea to play Monkey see, monkey do, and marry their cousins. The same goes for the cameras. 00:10:15,400 We have seen the data and have local proof of their misuse, as well as their failure. If you truly want to save community, you need to work on building trust, not warrantless surveillance. A free nation does not track innocent citizens. That is the beginning of slavery and control. I have a question. 00:10:32,600 Do you feel it’s appropriate to spend public funds to build a private, shareable database for warrantless mass surveillance searches of every single driver’s pattern of life without probable probable cause or opt out? Thank you. Thank you. You. See, Kent Morris, please. Oh, hello. Thank you. Um, my name is Kent Morris. I’m a resident of the Broadway neighborhood. 00:11:03,470 Uh, flock camera was recently installed in Broadway Park. Um, without any prior notice or public comments before I was installed. And I drive by that several times a day. Uh, I and many other residents strongly oppose the decision to install the flock cameras. 00:11:25,400 Uh, flock is a for profit tech company, and the data from those cameras resides on their servers. Uh, data that has already been used in this country to stalk women or by other states to surveil their state residents in in not their state. 00:11:50,330 Uh, to for things that are not crimes in the state that are happening, such as women seeking abortion outside of Texas. Uh, I think there was also a case of somebody driving to Wisconsin to buy marijuana and arrested on the way back because of flock evidence. This is data that could be hacked or given to other companies, like repo or bail bondsman flocks. 00:12:11,730 AI even categorizes bumper stickers on the car, which can be used to create a database of political leanings of people and associating with their license plate. My issue with this is the lack of accountability on how this data is used. 00:12:33,600 I know that the city of Bristol, if there was a misuse of a license plate reader data that we installed and we had our servers, I could show up at this meeting and I could talk to you. You face the, uh, electors every election, the voters, every election. But flock has zero accountability. There’s any misuse if there’s any, uh, hacking of that data. I have no recourse to go to that company. 00:12:56,600 And so that’s why I oppose this and feel strongly about it. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Are you going to come to the meeting tomorrow night? Yes I will. Okay. Do you know about that tune tomorrow night meeting? Okay. Thank you. Um, I. Will just say. it also is updated to be moved here. 00:13:15,800 Just everyone knows. I was told that it was at the community center. Yeah, they’re redoing their, uh, gym floor or something. And so is it going to be upstairs? The community room or downstairs. In the. Upper community room? Okay. All right. Brian Johnson. Um. Well done. I don’t care about the data hack, all that. 00:13:46,230 Um, I don’t break the law. I don’t speed. I don’t, uh, I try to be the best example in front of my kids all the time. The flack cameras aren’t even anywhere near where I live. And Flack is, I think, getting misused because lacks a brand. 00:14:07,630 I’m just gonna say surveillance, right? Um, I, I wish I could make it easier to catch criminals, but one thing I could maybe say is let’s increase the penalties for actually breaking the law. Um. To which I know you don’t necessarily have anything to do with that, but, um, and follow through. Um, set examples of people and start young. 00:14:31,170 Uh, I, uh, until recently ran a business in the North Metro and had multiple assists from the various police departments, catching people that took from my business. So I know the benefits of it. I don’t care, they far outweigh the the privacy. 00:14:51,370 And, uh, as much as people are for progress, I think that, um, in their current state, if they’re just harmless license plate readers, that’s fine. But the next iteration and the one after that will eventually turn into facial recognition and tracking, and the data will be used for all sorts of different, both noble and nefarious, means get rid of them. Get rid of them. 00:15:13,930 They I don’t necessarily think the good outweighs the bad. Um, and please turn comments back on your social media. Uh, I can’t I’ve actually communicated with you a fair amount of times on that platform, and I won’t make it to that meeting tomorrow because my daughter, her orientation at Beacon Academy is tomorrow night, and I’m 00:15:33,470 gonna go meet her teacher in such and stead. And as I said, I don’t often get a chance to attend these meetings because of my work schedule. 00:15:48,500 So the way I communicate to you is via social media, as much as I’m not young enough to completely live on it, and I’m not old enough to not understand it, I use it in, in this case, as a tool of communication and so away. I know when these meetings are coming, and if you don’t like the comments, I’m sorry. Right. Peop some people are bad actors, bad apples out of the community. 00:16:07,270 You know who’s commenting on those posts? You’re active all the time and I’m just pointing you out in a good way. Hopefully you understand that. And so are you. Yeah. Um, I raised a concern about, uh, the lights at my park on a weekend or something, and I think you sent me a message at 9:30 p.m. 00:16:24,000 on a Friday night or something. I mean, that’s very admirable. Thank you. Okay. Well. You know, on those on those comments is there was several like, residents that were very offended by some of the comments and they wanted us, the city, to just delete them, which in a perfect world that. would solve our problem. But we can’t. 00:16:44,870 Because them let all the comments stand. Everyone’s voice needs to be heard. Yeah. Maybe we’re going to have to revisit that, because I see a lot of those comments on Facebook. That I would say the same thing. With the the police department’s comments have also been disabled. 00:17:04,330 They they you need the criticism and you need the, the kudos, like you really do. Um, and I think we talked about it for a second, I think that if there’s been 11, I think 11 cities that have pulled back on flock and otherwise this year in Minnesota, and there’ll be more and they’ll be bigger cities. Crystal’s not big. Yeah, right. 00:17:23,000 Columbia Heights, they got bigger problems. They got rid of it. Saint Paul way bigger problems. They got rid of it. I don’t necessarily I just don’t think the benefit is worth the privacy infringement. And again, I’m straight up guy. I, I don’t have anything to worry about from him or him or anyone else. Yeah. 00:17:42,700 Don’t track me. Don’t follow me. My business is my business. And and. Yeah. So I didn’t write anything down. Sorry. That’s what I got. Oh. You did a good job. We appreciate your comments. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Linda. Nicole, is it Nicole? Okay. That is a fun last name to say. 00:18:12,700 It’s just sound like she’s fun and energetic. I’ll say that. Linda Crichlow. Okay. Well, I met you at the corn roast. Oh. I was working in the concession stand. I asked you about the parking stuff. Yeah, you told me I should talk to my councilperson. Anyway, that is why I’m here. 00:18:34,000 Is about the parking permits. Um, I’ve lived in my residence for 48 years. I’m on the corner of 53rd and Veracruz, and I have a neighbor across the street that continually comes up here to the city and gets, uh, for years, it was a two weeks at a time parking permits for his vehicles. 00:18:57,000 He has many vehicles, and he has many in his driveway. But. And I know this is nothing that you can do about this, but he also has a very big business with a very, very empty, large parking lot. And he continues to park. I think he’s got, I don’t know, one, two, three. 00:19:16,270 He probably have 4 or 5 permits for vehicles that he parks in the street. Um, three of which are dual tire trucks. Um, any parks right behind my driveway. So I can’t I back up. I have to be very careful because I broke my neck last year. 00:19:33,970 My head does not turn to the left in the right very well. And I have to watch out because. And sometimes it’s not only the trucks. Sometimes he’ll have like a a 50 foot trailer park there. And I know. You’re. Not these, but I brought some pictures just in case you wanted to see them. 00:19:52,470 Um, and I’ve been kind of documenting this for, I don’t know, probably 7 or 8 years. I don’t know when was the first time I came in here to talk to the police department about the parking permits, and now he. Now I see and he’s got him in his windows. 00:20:09,070 They’re like seasonal permit for like, he can park there as much as he wants, as many vehicles as he likes. And I have to look at that. And it’s it’s a safety concern too because I live right on the corner and it’s a T intersection and people come around the corner or this way, then they, everybody has to move over to my side of the street to get through. 00:20:26,870 We have lots of kids in our neighborhood, people on bikes, kids on bikes. Um, people walking their dogs. And I’m waiting for something to happen before anything’s going to be done about it. 00:20:47,470 But I don’t think that he anybody in the city should be allowed to have that many permits, maybe 1 or 2 permits. But just it’s just too many to have that people have to look at. It’s it’s. There’s a reason why we don’t park on the street is it’s not supposed to be that way. Yeah. Um, so that’s that’s my story. And you said 5050 third and Veracruz. Corner of 53rd and Veracruz. Yes. Does he. 00:21:08,970 Keep the Brown house? Kind of. Pardon. You have that brown brownish house. Brown house. With the little with the beautiful driveway. Yes. Okay. Does he keep the trailer attached to the car or truck. overnight. 00:21:26,130 It is attached to his truck because I think he sometimes he does it. He’ll hook it up in the evening and then he’ll pull it up and he’ll be there until, like, he leaves in the morning with it. And he’s going like to Florida or something with it. 00:21:44,070 Um, he also has a U-Haul business, although he doesn’t bring his U-Haul trucks here, but he did take pictures of it, of his business, and he parks all of his U-Haul trucks all over, around his business. And they have a giant parking lot, and he doesn’t want to park his vehicles there. And I’ve asked him before, why don’t you park at your business? Well, because it’s not a very good part of town. 00:22:00,330 And, you know, people are going to break into my cars. Well, put up a pole barn, you know, or pull them into your business. He’s got a body shop. Pull him inside your shop then, you know. But we have to look at all of them. 00:22:16,530 And there’s only really the oldest child I know, the the daughter. She goes to school in New York. I think she’s probably going or she’s gone now. And then there’s really only two other drivers and there’s like sometimes eight vehicles. Oh. I’m just getting really tired of looking at it. And it just, it’s I’m worried something’s going to happen. 00:22:33,300 There’s going to be an accident. Some somebody’s going to get hurt. Not to mention the four way stop that is not only a two way stop. And I, I can sit on my swing and I can see people right before I came here flying right through that because it’s, uh, it’s a two way stop, and people don’t stop. Yeah. 00:22:50,400 And there’s lots of little kids, so. Well, I’ll give your name and number to the city manager here, and we can have the police department follow up on the number of permits. And, um, maybe also with the police department for the. Yeah, I did. I did. 00:23:05,170 Send a I wrote a letter in the comments or whatever to the city, and I did get a call from the police department and they said, it’s not really the police that deal with that. It’s the, um, the city that does the permits or whatever. So. All right. So 53rd and Veracruz. 00:23:22,230 I’m sorry, I didn’t have everything written down. No, that’s. Never done this. In. And a number of parking permits, I guess. You know, I don’t know how many parking permits each family can. Because it says element of three per household per calendar year. But you can’t have trailers attached. I don’t believe. Right. Is that. 00:23:41,500 If they’re attached to. A vehicle, I believe you can, but they cannot be detached. It can’t be. Okay. Well, thank you for coming. I really. Appreciate it. Thanks. Yeah. All right. 00:24:10,330 Anybody else here for open forum? I stand before the council for a fourth time, asking you to terminate our city’s contract with Flock Safety Incorporated in an OC, and not get into bed with any other. Alpa provider. As promised. I’ll be here as long as this takes. At every meeting I’m able to attend, as I want to get everything correct, I need to offer a correction. 00:24:26,330 The flock contract wasn’t just one unelected signing on the line, but rather it was part of the consent agenda. In June June of 2025, I’d only checked back to previous agenda items. I hadn’t referred to the consent agenda and I apologize for my error. 00:24:43,500 When I first spoke before this council, the only cities in Minnesota that had terminated, suspended, non-renewal, or removed their cameras where Columbia Heights and Brooklyn Park as as other speakers mentioned. Now that list includes Duluth, Saint Paul, Champlin, Winona, Isanti County, Sherburne County, Saint Louis County, Dayton, North Branch, and West Saint Paul. 00:25:02,670 Why not add Crystal to that list and put things on pause until we figure out what direction we went ahead? I also wish to renew my public records request from July 20th for the flock audit logs, which has yet to be fulfilled. Of the 20 departments I requested records from in June or July. No one provided less complete records in Crystal. 00:25:20,130 I also renewed this request during my August 18th public comment, and it was mentioned in the August 24th letter to Crystal leadership submitted by Dee Flock, Crystal, new Hope, and Robbinsdale. If the city really wants us to believe that they need this technology, perhaps it’s due time that they comply with open records law. 00:25:35,270 What do you have to hide? Why not be transparent in the process? I will remind this council that thus far, during meetings and work sessions thus far, during meetings and work sessions, there have been zero public comments in favor of keeping these flock cameras. And tonight you added 3 or 4 more to that. 00:25:56,600 Not even a single comment that could be stretched, bent, or construed to be inflated in favor of flock. So why are we still using them? Because one department wants them and council refuses to listen to the voice of the people they were elected to represent. Stop dragging your feet and end the contract. Thank you. Thank. You, thank you. 00:26:18,700 Are you aware the meeting tomorrow night? Did you hear that? Okay, I’ll make sure.. All right. Any. Any any other, uh, people here tonight to talk at open Forum. All right. Seeing none. That concludes open forum. We will go on with our city council meeting. Thank you everybody. For those that came and visited tonight. I’m sure I’ll see a few of you tomorrow night. Two. 00:26:44,570 All right. Our first and only agenda item is City Council. Consider the first reading of an ordinance amending council salaries. Adam, if you’d want. To take Madam Mayor on this from the council. Um. As was discussed, um, you have the memo giving a little bit more of the background. 00:27:07,600 Um, just for the public’s information. The the base salary, wages, uh, amounts were set last in 2015. Um, in 2017, the council at the time amended the ordinance to set a inflator or a way that would adjust it. It was every other year using the CPI for urban areas, for all consumer goods. 00:27:34,300 Um, that what that did not do is account for any inflation that took place in the alternate years. Um, under state law, the council salaries can be set by ordinance, which our charter dictates, but it can only be done. It has there has to be an election, a general municipal election, uh, before the salaries can change. 00:27:52,400 Um, so what staff is proposing, based on the discussion in our budget meetings and looking at some, uh, staff did a wage study, uh, to compare the Crystal Council salaries, uh, with the surrounding kind of our comparable cities, as well as the surrounding cities. 00:28:14,370 And we’ve gone back and take taken the original amount and increase that with the CPI W, which is the annual wage for workers and clerical workers. Um, that’s the same calculator that is used for Social Security increases. And so the the new proposed ordinance does two things. Uh, changes that base salary, which would be effective January 1st, 2027. 00:28:39,430 And it also changes the old language, which I also need to mention referred to, a previous statute section that, uh, incorporated the governor’s salary cap or limit on municipal compensation, local government compensation. And so that has been removed since that’s no longer relevant. That was repealed in 2024. 00:29:05,600 And it uses the CPI w as the new annual uh adjustment tool. Uh, I included in the packet the uh, the draft ordinance, as well as where that list of uh, within the list where crystal would be in comparison to the other cities. Um. So any any other changes or questions on what is being proposed? Well, do you, do you want to say what the salaries. 00:29:30,100 Would be? Sure. Uh, so with the, uh, with that, that adjustment, uh, using the CPI w it comes out for the council member position, it’s 11,189. A year. A year, and it’s paid monthly. And then the mayor position is 14, uh, $544. 00:30:00,600 And those are the the. Sorry, I had I don’t have it in front of me. Uh, it rough or it was, uh, roughly about 12,300 for the mayor. And nine 9380 or 49 nine 9300 some dollars for the council members. 00:30:26,270 So what that does is it brings us up to, uh, we’re still not we’re in the top half of the 12 comparable cities. So just to be clear, for myself and the wonderful audience here, um, so the the annual salary was nine, about $9,000 in 2021. Right? That was when this or what was the dollar for for 9000. In. 20 25. Or 2020? Okay. 00:30:51,370 It was adjusted every other year. Other year. Okay. Using that that year’s CPI, uh for goods. Um, so it was only taking place looking back at the last 12 months. Okay. So again, to clarify that what now we’ll be doing is looking back the 12 months from a June to June period. 00:31:10,530 Um, so we can do it for the budget, have it in time, have it ready in time for the budget. Um, what it wasn’t doing before is taking the previous out of those 24. So it only was changing every other year. Um, so in 21 it would have changed. 00:31:25,200 But then 23, 25. So it was on track to already change by 3.5% for the using the old metric, uh, for 2027. Um, but we, we went back and kind of filled in those, those missing years. Gotcha. So this essentially just is catches the council annual salary up with inflation. 00:31:56,400 And then it makes it so going forward every year depending on the CPI which is an indicator of inflation, we get updated every year with that and. Adjusted on an annual basis. Yeah. Okay. The ordinance won’t unless until the council wants to change it again, which would have to do in or before an election. 00:32:22,000 Um, the ordinance itself has the language and kind of the vehicle to, to make that annual adjustment. And one thing to note, um, the CPI obviously fluctuates year to year, but and it’s the it’s produced by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. But if there is a negative, uh, chance of inflation. So deflation, um, it would not increase it stay at zero, but it would not. 00:32:44,930 decrease either. Um. So there are really two things. Again, just to reiterate, um, we had to update the ordinance to eliminate the old language that was no longer relevant. Um, and then we adjusted the base salary to the what it would be now. 00:33:19,700 So, you know, speaking for myself, you know, we get like, what do I make 12,000 a year. about that? Then once a month, I like to change in my checking account about $664 because I have extra taxes taken out, because that money on top of. But we you know, there’s no benefits, there’s no car allowance. Um, no vacation, no cell phone. 00:33:42,070 I mean, it’s not like we’re well paid, but you do it because you really love the community and you want to see better things for the community. So, you know, I hate when people are struggling so much to have to vote to give myself a raise. 00:34:01,870 But on the other hand, it’s expensive to fill up the gas tank and head to all these meetings and, you know, all the the time it takes. I think it’s justified. But maybe others won’t feel that way. I don’t. Know, John. 00:34:22,600 Me personally, I’ve been on the council for almost 14 years and, uh, there are quite a few years where we did not take an increase in pay. And those were years in which obviously we went through some really tough times with the mortgage crisis. Um, the most notable I the Great Recession would be part of it as well. Um, we have looked for ways in which, you know, um, pay increases would be fair. 00:34:40,830 Uh, we spend quite a few number of hours monthly here at the city, um, working through various issues involving our constituents as well as making sure that the city is viable. And, um, um, you know, I, you know, the it’s nice to receive a stipend every month. I mean, it is, you know, beneficial. 00:35:06,470 We do spend a lot of time away from our families. Uh, we do spend a lot of time driving back and forth to various meetings and whatnot. So there is an expense that we have to incur as well. And this kind of helps, kind of like, uh, take care of that bump. 00:35:23,870 And so I personally, um, very thankful that the, that there is some type of, um, stipend salary for this position. I don’t think it’s the number one benefit or reason why I ran for, uh, local, government. I think the reason why I got involved was because of being a representative of my community, and hopefully I. 00:35:45,000 That’s the that’s the number one reason for me as well. Uh, lastly, I am going to support this, um, this measure and I would be the person I think I would, would make the motion to, to approve it. So and I think the community further supported me in the past. Thank you. 00:36:04,670 Anybody else want to make any comments? Yeah, I guess I would just say this is obviously like really awkward for everybody. Um, I think you can all feel it, but I would just say like right now, I mean, I, I, I’ve done the numbers and I make way less than, um, minimum wage on an 00:36:20,130 average month. The amount of work that I put into the council and I take this job really seriously. It’s my second job. Um, and it’s also my favorite job. 00:36:39,330 Don’t tell my my normal boss that, um, but I think that, as John mentioned, just keeping this position up with inflation is important because one thing that we’ve struggled with in, in crystal in the past is making sure we have really competitive elections. I think competitive elections create better representatives. And just by having a kind of a competitive part time council member wage, um, hopefully is the thing that helps. 00:37:04,730 Um, you know, a spouse explained to their other spouse like, hey, this is something I really want to do, and you shouldn’t get really upset at me for being gone three nights out of the week. Uh, because, hey, at least I can help make our car payment this week. Uh, from it. 00:37:23,170 So, um, I do think that there’s value in the stipend because it does recognize the hard work that we put in, and just making sure it matches up with inflation, even though it’s still going to be like probably less than $15 an hour. Um, on the whole as well, I don’t know what the mayor might be more, but you do you do more, you get more phone calls. So yeah. 00:37:39,970 I’m on litter. Patrol. All right. Anybody else want to comment? Do you remember when the state legislature, about four or 5 or 6 years ago, and they went from about 25 or $28,000. to 57,000, and nobody wanted to vote on it. So they put together a committee of, you know, private people to decide their salary. 00:38:08,500 I thought, God, that was what we should have done. Here. I could see why they did. That. So do you want to make a motion? I will make a motion, uh, approving an ordinance, amending section 211 of the Crystal city code pertaining to salaries of elected officials. Anybody want a second? It. I’ll second that. Okay. Any further discussion? Okay. 00:38:33,330 All in favor say I. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? You just voted ourselves to raise. Well, one. Point of clarification here. This second reading. Oh, we gotta do it again. Next up. Well, and this goes into effect for next year, right. The ordinance will go into effect 30 days after publication. The change in salaries will go into. 00:38:58,170 A 2027 next. Okay. So if I lose my election, then I didn’t just vote for my. Yeah, okay. Okay. Yeah. All right. Does that I think that concludes our, uh, city council meeting this evening. We just have a few, um, comments and announcements to make. 00:39:25,130 City offices will be closed on Monday, September 7th in observance of the Labor Day holiday. Next city council work session is Thursday, September 10th at 630. In the Upper Community Room. Next City Council meeting is Tuesday, September 15th at 7 p.m. in the Council Chambers at City Hall and via zoom city’s free annual vehicle community event. 00:39:49,170 Vehicle Fair Community event will be held Saturday, September 19th from 10 to 2. And that’s really popular, especially if you have kids. Uh, city is accepting applications for several volunteer positions on our boards and commissions. For more information about those openings, please visit. Uh, Crystal myGov slash volunteer city council meetings and work sessions are open to the public. 00:40:14,500 Current and previous meetings are available to view and listen to at. And then finally, as a reminder, tomorrow night at 630, we’re going to have a community meeting to discuss flat cameras. So it’ll be open for public comment. 00:40:35,070 Please, chief and Deputy Chief are going to kind of lead the discussion and, you know, kind of sort out fact versus fiction. And. Um, how’s the community? But upper community. And upper community room at City Hall. So that’s at 630 tomorrow night. So we hope to see you. 00:40:53,970 Is there any other comments or announcements that we missed that you could think of? I have a comment. Um, so right now there’s a survey going on for the Indy Committee. Um, there’s various, um, um, signs around the city. Just scan the QR code. And inclusion and diversity for those that. Yeah. Oh. Thank you. 00:41:10,470 Uh, scan the QR code and please, you know, complete the survey. It took. I just did it before the meeting tonight. Took me about five minutes to complete. So, um, they’re looking for some valuable information, so if you have a chance, please do that. All right. If I see nothing else, you’ll make a motion to adjourn. John. 00:41:27,370 I would like to make a motion to adjourn. Okay. Tracy. I will second that. All right. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? You know what? How many years have you been making the motion to. Adjourn? About, um. Did we? Yeah. We did. Okay. We’re adjourned. Okay. Now we’re gonna go back to our work session.