Al &uot;Minnow&uot; Brooks is one of the newer members of the city council, but he probably put it best Monday night.

Tuesday, October 23, 2001

Al &uot;Minnow&uot; Brooks is one of the newer members of the city council, but he probably put it best Monday night. Most of his time as an alderman, he said, has been spent making decisions about things like &uot;buying trucks&uot; — the important day-to-day work of a city government, no doubt, but not exactly something that people will remember in 5 or 10 years.

Now, though, Brooks and the rest of the council is faced with a different kind of decision, one that could leave a lasting legacy and make more of a difference than all the trucks in the city garage.

Destination: Albert Lea, acting on proposals that have collected dust for years, proposed a one-percent local sales tax to pay for a variety of projects designed to make Albert Lea shine. The double thrust of their plan includes downtown revitalization and lake improvement.

Visionary is not a word that’s commonly used to describe the Albert Lea City Council; they are good at managing the town’s finances and fixing the infrastructure, but they aren’t really designed to be an activist body. Proposals like last night’s, however, offer an opportunity for them to do more. Grassroots citizen activism has brought them an idea, as well as a group of people willing to donate their time to make it work.

The council, in its usual cautious fashion, decided to wait until its next meeting, then hold a public hearing before deciding whether to pass the proposal on to the next step. They want to gather input from constituents, they say, before committing.

That’s important, but it’s also important to recognize that council approval at this point only paves the way for a legislative proposal. And even if the legislature approves it, nothing can happen until the city’s voters go to the polls; if the residents say no, the idea is dead. All Destination wants from the council right now is the chance to move forward and to continue fostering discussion on the topic.

This is exactly the kind of subject that warrants the year of intense debate it would provide if placed on the 2002 ballot. The questions Destination is raising are ones that many ask, and which deserve answers: Why aren’t we using a historic downtown to our advantage? Why doesn’t Albert Lea have much of a night life? How can we make our children and grandchildren proud of this city? How can we get our young people to stay here?

These are not the kind of questions that can be answered easily, but even if the sales-tax proposal never becomes law, bringing them to the forefront can help Albert Lea make some important decisions about its future.

It can only happen if the city council conjures up a little bit of vision and allows the proposal to proceed.