To speeding around town.

Spring does serve up some lousy weather, but when spring is nice, it is really nice. Roll down the window, relax and take it easy. We don’t see the need to speed around town in any season, but we especially cannot understand the desire on a nice spring day. It seems some motorists treat Lakeview Drive around Fountain Lake like a race track. What happens when drivers act like that is ducks get flattened. Slow down, watch for ducks and enjoy the warm temperatures. Be a responsible and safe licensed driver.

 

To ice fishermen.

It’s almost surreal to see the ice off of Fountain Lake this year, because our city lake had been covered with ice for so many months. The Tribune did receive reports of ice fishermen leaving litter on the ice and even the bottom of their ice houses. All that stuff just fell in the lake when the ice melted away. This is irresponsible outdoors behavior and shows a lack of respect for the city’s cherished body of water. We hope the fishermen find a way to police themselves in coming months. Perhaps the Freeborn County Sheriff’s Office, which has jurisdiction on the lake, might find the need to issue citations in the winter as it does in the summer. As a community, people will expect a cleaner act from ice fishermen next spring.

 

To the Friends of the Albert Lea Public Library.

We support the idea of expanding library hours to include Friday. We hope the petition does well. The city library’s hours were reduced during the lean years of state support in the form of local government aid — which is really a form of local sales taxes returning to the community. Now that LGA, though not ideal, has greater long-term stability, it is prudent to revisit the issue of library hours for 2015. If nothing else, the issue is worth a communitywide discussion now, rather than merely a quickie hearing during a drawn-out city budget meeting in the fall. As a result, any decisions made during budget would include a greater number of suggestions from community members. And public officials, at least the good ones, generally like that.