To the approval of a contract with a Wisconsin-based company for the first phase of the Fountain Lake dredging.

It was a big day for the community Thursday as the Shell Rock River Watershed District board of managers approved the contract for the first phase of the Fountain Lake dredging.

As watershed manager Gary Pestorious said, it was “a long time coming,” but we hope it will only go smoothly from here.

The nearly $5.1 million contract is with LaCrosse, Wisconsin-based J.F. Brennan Co. Inc. The company is expected to possibly complete initial survey and staging work in May, with dredging to begin in June. The first phase, which is expected to remove up to 617,000 cubic yards of sediment from the bottom of Edgewater Bay, is slated to last until the end of 2019.

The company will use its pipeline and dredge for the work, along with the district’s pumps.

We look forward to seeing the dredge in the water.

To Albert Lea Teacher of the Year Kristen Seeger.

Congratulations to Kristen Seeger, the media specialist at Sibley and Lakeview elementary schools, who was named the Albert Lea Teacher of the Year on Wednesday afternoon at Albert Lea High School.

Seeger was one of seven finalists for the award out of a list of 67 nominations.

Seeger is a member of the Minnesota Coding in the Classroom Leadership Advisory Council, a Building Technology Integration coach at Sibley and a Gobble Wobble planning committee member. She was named the Rochester Area Math Science Partnership Outstanding Educator in 2017.

We thank Seeger for her dedication to our community’s students and for all of the other teachers who motivate and inspire our youth.

To an estimated increase in population in Freeborn County in the last year.

It may have been slight, but we were excited to see the U.S. Census Bureau’s estimate this week that Freeborn County’s population increased by nearly 100 people last year.

The county’s population estimate reportedly increased from 30,446 in July 2016 to 30,535 in July 2017.

This is in line with estimates from the Minnesota Demographer’s Office, which also showed an estimated increase in Albert Lea’s population last year.

Though it is too soon to tell, we hope these estimates are indicative of a successful census in 2020.

The Albert Lea population estimates are expected to be released later this year.

To ongoing labor disputes between the Service Employees International Union and Mayo Clinic Health System.

It is unfortunate disputes are still continuing between the Service Employees International Union and Mayo Clinic Health System.

Earlier this week, the union announced the National Labor Relations Board found merit to charges by the union that Mayo illegally blocked out Albert Lea hospital workers over Christmas.

The two sides will now go before an administrative law judge in July to present their cases and hopefully bring some resolution to this issue. We look forward to having this issue resolved.