It appears the fight in Austin over whether the new Mower County jail should go downtown has become trench warfare. Both sides are filled with anger to the point that it doesn&8217;t matter to them what course of action is right, just who gets their way.

Hopefully, calmer heads will prevail. The best course for a healthy Austin is keeping the jail downtown.

Mower County commissioners have little space for prisoners and for six years have debated the construction of a jail. While they are at it, they want the building they call a justice center to house the sheriff, county attorney, courtrooms, judges&8217; chambers and aspects of law enforcement. Essentially, &8220;justice center&8221; is a way to say &8220;new courthouse&8221; without the treasurer, auditor, recorder, assessor, planning, the commissioners and other administrative offices.

This decision affects Freeborn County. The economies of Austin and Albert Lea are forever linked through industry, commerce, media and politics. The health of Austin affects the health of Albert Lea and vice versa.

Having a healthy downtown Albert Lea mattered when Freeborn County decided to restore and expand the Freeborn County Courthouse. The Freeborn County Government Center opened in 2005, with county government still an integral part of the community. The county cares about the county seat.

Placing the Mower County justice center on the edge of Austin removes those county employees from the downtown. When this happens in other cities, (not all, but some) lawyers, bail bondsmen, court services and other justice-system-related businesses and agencies move their offices closer to the new location.

Add those workers up, and that is a lot of mouths to feed. It affects the restaurants who rely on the lunch crowd. It affects merchants who benefited from people who end up shopping close to their workplace. Soon some of them move to the new location, too, and the next thing residents see is boarded up storefronts.

It befuddles us as to why Mower County commissioners would want to do that to their own county seat. Anyone visiting Austin would conclude that it is a place where officials have done a good job of focusing on a busy downtown. Pulling out the courts, jail and law enforcement would be a surprise and a disappointment.