The city of Albert Lea has won the lottery, or at least the City Council and mayor think we have. We have money going for the purchase of buildings on South Broadway, and then we have even more money going for the demolition or gutting of the buildings to make a new city hall. Then we have a new fire hall, which will cost millions of dollars and then they have a new city garage, which will cost millions of dollars to buy land and build.

They’re spending money like they’ve won the lottery. If we have all this money to spend on new buildings and purchasing old buildings, why aren’t we spending money on the infrastructure of this community?

They want to raise taxes for road repair and they will be fixing the area of Fifth Street and Virginia Place next year, which is long past needing repair, but they have no plans on spending any of that “lottery” money on the flooding problem in that area. What kind of nonsense is that? Yes, the streets need to be repaired, but if you’re going to have the streets torn apart anyway and you have a flooding problem that can be corrected, then let’s correct it.

Where is the idea of all these projects coming from that they want to do all these extravagant things, some unnecessary, like a new city hall? People are often contending with having to live life without the things they want or may even need because they cannot afford it, but it seems the City Council and mayor don’t think they have to worry. If they want something for ‘the city,” they go out and get it — the heck with the budget.

It’s time to stop this nonsense. We do not need the buildings on South Broadway to add to our collection of buildings owned by the city. We do not need to either demolish or gut those same buildings for a new city hall. City hall does not need to be near the courthouse. I think the decision of a new city garage belongs to the people who are working in that garage and whether it’s in good shape and can be used for a few more years. Maybe a new fire hall is needed and that should be looked at and voted on by the public.

We have other things in this town that need to be looked at in the spending behavior of the council and mayor, the most important of which are the raises in pay for some of our top government officials.

The city employees in this town receive anywhere from 2 to 4 percent raises per year, while, for example, the city manager started out at $90,000 and now is up to over $120,000 per year. That’s what I call equality in pay, ladies and gentlemen. Plus he also has an assistant to help perform his job.

Who’s getting the short end of the stick here? If you haven’t figured it out yet, it’s the citizens of this community. We have city councilmen who do not listen to their constituents. At the last council meeting, Councilman Brooks brought up the fact that his constituents don’t want all the spending and that they need to start listening more. We are a small community; we do NOT have the money for these projects.

Talk to your councilman and let them know how you feel about these millions of dollars they want to spend and the millions of dollars they could be spending on saving people’s homes and which is more important.

 

Kathy Diaz

Albert Lea