I thought I would take a few minutes in my column this week to answer some questions about things going on in the paper lately.

We have received multiple calls about these issues, so I hope this helps anyone who may still have questions.

 

Convictions

As you may have noticed, the newspaper in the last few weeks has had many pages of Freeborn County District Court convictions. For several months, the Tribune was behind on printing the convictions, which are supplied by court administration each day after court proceedings.

We are now attempting to get caught back up on these and hope to soon keep current on them, printing them a maximum of one month after the court date or preferably even quicker.

Several years ago the Tribune established a rule for printing convictions. If the conviction resulted in jail time or more than $125 in fines, it is printed in the newspaper.

That applies to everyone — even our own staff have been in there for speeding from time to time. You may ask why is it necessary to print the convictions, even when they are a few months behind. We believe this is a vital public document that not only edcuates readers about what any of us can be ticketed for but can give us some insight into what things are going on in our neighborhoods so that we can protect ourselves and our families.

In some cases, people arrested of a crime have even had their charges dismissed. The public also deserves to know this.

Lastly, we hope this service can be a way to keep people motivated to obey the law.

 

School news

The Tribune has begun a new weekly page in the paper to feature student-submitted work, whether artwork, poetry or essays.

Last week, the page was devoted to students at Albert Lea High School, and this week, the page is devoted to Southwest Middle School.

We will rotate through all of the different schools within Albert Lea Area Schools, along with St. Theodore Catholic School and Hollandale Christian School.

I would like to thank the teachers at each school who are helping to organize and get the student-submitted work ready for publication.

We hope this can be a way to showcase the talent at our schools.

 

Movie theater listing

Through no choice of our own, the Cinema 7 movie theater is no longer printing its movie listings daily in the print edition of the Tribune.

The theater now has a small advertisement on the Tribune’s website that people can click on if they would like to know about movie listings. The link takes people directly to the theater’s website.

To make up for the absence of the listing in the print edition, we will now include new movies coming out each week in the Weekend Planner, which is published each Thursday.

As always, if you have any concerns, please feel free to call me at 379-3433 or email me at sarah.stultz@albertleatribune.com.

 

Sarah Stultz is the managing editor of the Tribune. Her column appears each Tuesday.