I would just like to bring to the community some facts. I feel we would be missing something if downtown Albert Lea becomes yesteryear’s.

They call the bottom of Minnesota, about one-third up, and the top 100 miles of Iowa the “Breadbasket of the World.”

We are the agriculture’s most fertile land. That is land that is able to produce the best crops, corn, soybeans, wheat, beef, pork and poultry.

We have the latest in machinery. Our tractors can even navigate themselves. We have technology at its best.

In agriculture, we are the leaders of the world.

Albert Lea is our town. Let it be a great, shining, clean, solid community of strength and integrity like it is.

We have a strong Albert Lea Tribune newspaper, Albert Lea broadcasting radio KATE that keeps us totally in touch.

Let Albert Lea grow to show the strength that it has with the strong architecturally designed buildings that were built to house its businesses and banks, etc.

Our community needs Albert Lea. It is a country town — the best. Albert Lea has it all. There are 13 small great community towns in the county that surround this beautiful town. Let’s hope that Albert Lea keeps getting stronger and stronger. Time has been hard on the downtown. Businesses left Broadway Avenue to first go to the Skyline Mall then more left Broadway to occupy the Northbridge Mall.

The heart of Broadway, the business, the shopping, the entertainment, the restaurants, which is the vitalization of a vibrant downtown, is suffering.

You know we’ve had our men and women in wars to protect our country and our freedom. These soldiers and veterans were people of great intelligence and strength. Let us stop and learn from them. They want the latest in science and intelligence. They’re used to working with the greatest of intelligence and science. I commend them for the Amber Alert sign that they wanted at the north end of Broadway, a sign that would have shown important information that we so desperately need.

You know country living, country music, beautiful lakes, good schools and hospitals — Albert Lea has it all.

In this agriculture area, as I have explained, we are expected to produce and to feed all of the starving people of the world. That’s a big job, because if we deviate from producing the food the world needs, like producing ethanol to help with our energy needs of which we are still using the “DDG’s” which is the corn after it is cooked, to feed our livestock, cattle, hogs and poultry. We’re just making the corn go farther. Yet we are criticized for taking the food from the starving people of the world.

Freeborn County is a very strong community, a place where families can have a good stable life with all their education, financial needs, health care and employment. We are truly fortunate and blessed.

The forefathers gave the town the main corridor, “Broadway.” Don’t let Albert Lea regress to the picture of a downtown long ago. I remember the Broadway Theatre marquee. It was a theater of elegance with red carpeting, the stage with beautiful drapes, with a seating arrangement that went from the floor all the way up to the ceiling rafters with it’s box seating cubicles, it was the finest theater for miles around.

Someone said they didn’t want Albert Lea to take on the flashing lights like Las Vegas. Albert Lea has no gambling or night bar scenes. I don’t believe that should be a concern. Let the downtown business community have their chance. We all want the best for each other. It must be hard for businesses downtown to advertise with only black and white cardboard signs in their windows.

I don’t believe there isn’t anything that this community couldn’t achieve.

Let’s work for the continued strength of Albert Lea and greatness — the tough part. We should not negotiate for less — progress is what we’re taught in this county.

When the county commissioners took the big step and built the new government center, combining law enforcement of the city and county together, it made the great landmark of this county for the future. In that building, we have every document that a person’s life has attained from birth certificate to death certificate, good and bad records of a person’s life.

Our future generations, our sons and daughters, are following us. If your young people are like mine, they want the latest and new. We have taught them, only by hard work and energy, that you can attain almost anything if you obey the laws and dream with ambition.

Albert Lea residents are people who are ambitious with strong work ethics and foresight for the future.

Gloria Hall

Glenville