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To the Albert Lea High School Robotics Team, The Broken Zip Ties.

Good luck to the students and coaches for the Albert Lea robotics team that will be traveling to the world championship in Dallas, Texas.

The community is invited to help send off the team on Sunday on their way to the championship.

The team will depart from Riverland Community College at 9 a.m. Sunday headed towards Interstate 35 south.

People are encouraged to honk and cheer on the students as they go to compete against teams from around the world.

We wish them the best in their competition.

To avoiding the worst of the storm this week.

Residents in the Albert Lea area let out a collective sigh this week after the storm that had the potential to bring tornadoes to the area on Monday did not turn out as bad as it was projected.

The skies looked like there could have easily been some devastation ahead, but thankfully we avoided the problems this time.

While we hope that will always be the case, we know that the chances are high in this area that more bad storms will come through. We’ve witnessed that in the past, and unfortunately it is commonplace with where we live.

We hope you used the storm earlier this week as a chance to freshen up your emergency plans and that your families are better prepared in the event of a worse weather event.

City staff who worked to bring the price down for the new downtown bathrooms.

The Albert Lea City Council on Monday approved the contract for the new bathrooms that will be constructed this summer near the splash pad downtown.

Through a collaboration with the city and other contractors, the cost was approved at $178,000, down from the budgeted $250,000. The structure will be built with a combination of city staff and contractors.

This facility has the ability to be a major asset to the downtown, and we hope the community will remain vigilant in reporting suspicious activity near the bathrooms once they are built so the facilities can be used vandalism-free for years to come.