There has been a communitywide push to remind residents of this city that business interests are watching our community. A poorly chosen comment by a clerk, a nurse, a secretary or any other person who meets people from out of town can give the outsiders a bad impression.

By the same token, so can a poorly run City Council meeting. Our council has made gains and is fairly orderly, but we have two suggestions.

Suggestion No. 1: When addressing the Albert Lea City Council, people should approach the podium, kindly speak into the microphone and state their name and address. Speaking from the audience is disorderly. It doesn&8217;t happen often, and for the most part this has been avoided in the past few months.

Suggestion No. 2: The council should avoid arguments with people who make comments during the public forum at the end of the meeting. Roger Bok approaches every week, and almost every week there ensues an argument. Once a city official or council member speaks up to retort Bok&8217;s comments, he has what he wants, a fight.

The solution is to move the final comments for city manager, mayor and council members to after the public comments. (Right now, they come immediately before.)

Allow Bok and others to share their comments for the standard five minutes per person without interruption, interference or disagreement. Even though there are TV viewers, there is no need to rebut statements made during public comments immediately as they are said.

Politely tell Bok and others thank you when they are done.

Then during the comments by the mayor, city manager and council members, if Bok or other members of the public said something worth addressing, then address it. This way, you avoid a fight and look orderly to outsiders.