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

Being the editor of a newspaper in a small community, I often find myself conflicted about whether to get involved on a personal level with community causes.

I don’t think it’s a problem to show support for local businesses or events, but it’s a general rule of thumb for me to avoid being in news articles myself. If I support a cause, I typically like to do so behind the scenes or on a lesser scale.

Having said that, you can imagine the turmoil I felt in July when I found out that residents on Frank Hall Drive had petitioned the Albert Lea City Council to add a three-way stop sign at the intersection of Frank Hall Drive and Eighth Street, where my daughter, Sophie’s, fatal crash had taken place earlier that month.

After hearing about that council meeting, I let several weeks pass and debated about whether my husband and I should join the efforts to bring changes to that neighborhood.

All the while, we made several trips over to what will forever for us be known as “the crash site.” On several occasions, when we stopped our cars and walked to the corner to check on the flowers or other items left behind, we were shocked by the cars that sped by — even as we stood on the side of the road because there were no sidewalks.

After thinking about it more, we decided that for us this was going to be more than just about Sophie. We, ourselves, know at least a handful of children who live in that area, and we knew that those children are only a fraction of all the children who live there. We pass children in our vehicles every single time we are in that neighborhood — and we have been in that neighborhood a lot this summer.

We reached out to the man who brought the petition to the council, and what we found was that he had brought up concerns in the neighborhood even before Sophie’s crash.

It has been a busy couple of weeks since we made that connection.

We have met with city leaders who completed a study into the Frank Hall Drive corridor and who are conducting additional research at our request before bringing the results back to the City Council for review and a possible vote.

We have started a Facebook page called Make our Neighborhood SAFE, where we are attempting to reach out to residents about additional concerns they have for their own streets in the neighborhood.

We have gone door to door inviting people to participate in the dialogue, and what we are finding are many people with many concerns — and these concerns span decades.

The reason I write this column this week as opposed to any other is because the City Council is slated to hear the results of the engineering study and possibly make a decision about changes to the street signs at its upcoming council meeting on Sept. 26. Regardless of your opinion on the stop signs at the intersection of Eighth Street and Frank Hall Drive, I would ask that if you live or drive on Frank Hall Drive — and you have safety concerns — that you consider coming to the council meeting to voice them. If you would rather vocalize your opinions in writing, please email or mail your opinions to City Manager Chad Adams or 6th Ward Councilor Al Brooks this week. Adams can be reached by email at cadams@ci.albertlea.mn.us and Brooks can be reached at abrooks@ci.albertlea.mn.us. The street address to City Hall is 221 E. Clark St.

Please educate our council on how these concerns impact your life so they can make an informed decision and city staff can best work to resolve these concerns.