Residents along two blocks of St. Joseph Avenue are up in arms over city plans to reconstruct their street, but the project will go ahead despite their protests.

&uot;We like the street the way it is,&uot; said Luvern Jensen, who brought a petition with 14 signatures to the city council Monday. &uot;We hope it can at least last a few more years.&uot;

Jensen and others on the street are unhappy with plans to widen the street by three feet, which would mean the removal of large trees from the boulevard. The cost of the project, which the council unanimously approved, also had residents protesting.

Carilee Squires, who lives on the corner of St. Joseph and Fifth Street, said she’ll be charged $5,000 for the St. Joseph project and expects to pay again when the city fixes Fifth Street in the near future.

&uot;I have a set income. I’m a single parent,&uot; she told the council. &uot;There’s a lot of elderly people on our block.

&uot;If you guys pass this, you’re asking me to move, because I won’t be able to afford it.&uot;

City Engineer Dave Olson said the project, which covers St. Joseph from Fifth Street to Seventh Street, is necessary because the sanitary sewer line under the road is severely deteriorated and undersized, and that could lead to sewage backing up into basements over parts of a 30-block area to the south and east.

&uot;It could be very expensive and very troublesome for those people who would have to deal with sewer backups,&uot; Olson said.

Delaying the project would be unwise, Olson said, because now that the city has identified a problem, it risks being held liable for property damage if the sewer line collapses or otherwise backs up and forces sewage into basements elsewhere along the line.

Engineers decided the only way to replace the line effectively would be to dig up the street and perform a total reconstruction.

Since the street will be replaced, it must be built to the latest city width standard of 33 feet &045; three feet wider than its current 30 feet, Olson said. That means the construction will infringe upon the root systems of the large trees on the boulevard, and if any of those trees should die and fall as a result, the city would be liable for the damage. That means the city will remove them.

Council members voted unanimously to proceed with the project.

The $342,000 project includes the replacement of the 6-inch sanitary sewer line, installed in 1930, with a new 10-inch pipe; replacement of the water main, installed in 1932; a new storm sewer, replacing the old one from 1923; and new pavement, sidewalks and curbs. The city will assess 18.8 percent of the cost, or about $64,000, to the property owners and pay the rest.

The street was most recently overlaid in 1987, and many of the current property owners paid assessments for that work as well.

&uot;If I let this thing go, it could be more of a problem than if we fix it,&uot; said Councilor Al Brooks, before he voted in favor of the project. &uot;I feel I’m benefitting the city if I fix a problem that needs to be fixed.&uot;

Also Monday, the city council:

&045; Removed an order for demoltion of a house at 1520 Hawthorne St.

Voting 4-2, the council agreed to give the owner of the dilapidated house more time to make improvements.

According to city documents, the house is rotted and deteriorated, its foundation walls are gone, there are no sufficient footings, the walls are sagging and the roof must be replaced. &uot;Said building is beyond the possibility of economic repair,&uot; according to the city’s order for removal.

The house’s owner has a building permit, issued in April 2000, to make improvements.

&uot;By visiting the house, I realized it does not look in very good repair at the present time,&uot; said Councilor Jeff Fjelstad. &uot;But there is a building permit there, and he has put quite a lotof money into this.&uot;

With councilors Mary Kron and Warren Amundson opposing, the council and Mayor Jean Eaton voted to remove the demolition order for the time being.

&045; Approved a request to hold the Albert Lea Farmers’ Market downtown for the second consecutive year. The market was successful in its first year at its new location, said Councilor Randy Erdman.

&045; Appointed city residents to a committee that will recommend a management plan for Fountain Lake.

The members will be Brad Arends of Greater Jobs, Inc.; Ken Peterson of the Albert Lea-Freeborn County Chamber of Commerce; Tony Trow, Terry Anderson and Dave Christenson, all Fountain Lake homeowners; Nan Johnson of the Bayside Ski Club; Paul Moore of the Audubon Society; Gary Anderson of the Fountain Lake Fishermen; and Neil Lindeman, who will represent the community at large.

The group will craft a lake plan, just as a separate committee helped create a plan for Albert Lea Lake, as part of Freeborn County’s watershed management efforts.

&045; Approved an interest-free $60,000 economic-development loan to the Albert Lea Business Development Center. The money, from the city’s revolving economic-development grant program, will pay for interior improvements to accommodate the ALBDC, a small-business incubator that was a joint project of Greater Jobs and the Albert Lea Port Authority.

&045; Agreed to waive half the building permit fee for the new Freeborn County Courthouse. The $25.2 million project would carry an $88,000 building permit fee, but it will be reduced to $44,000.