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September 9, 2009

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Hi, Lombard. I’m wondering why it’s legal in Lombard for a bar to have a kids play room. The Moose is a pure and simple bar with just such a room. How nice for parents to be able to sit at a bar where there’s no children playing near by. One question? Who drives the family home, and why do the village and police allow this? You have to just call your establishment a lodge and you can have your kids sit there and drink with you? Who cares about how the kids get home at night?


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Lombard calling. Can someone tell me how a bar in Lombard can have a kids’ playroom? The Moose Lodge’s bar on Roosevelt Road has one, and I don’t understand how, by law, they can have a kids’ playroom. Any insight would be great.


I checked with Lombard Police Sgt. Dave Kundrot, who conducted the department’s Basset (Beverage Alcohol Servers Sellers Educational Training) program for 13 years. Kundrot said there is no age limit restriction in the Lombard ordinances that would prohibit children from entering this establishment. “Just because they have a liquor license doesn’t mean you have to be 21,” the sergeant said, adding that many businesses have liquor licenses and serve food. In fact, there are only three “taverns” in Lombard, Kundrot said. All other liquor licenses require some type of food service and the Moose falls in this category.—blm


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Willowbrook High School has over hundreds of acres of land and spent a million dollars on artificial turf field. They’ve been unable to host a home track meet for 10 years because of such a poor running track and there are no plans in the referendum to build a new track. That’s your tax dollars at work. Who’s making these decisions?


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I’m a resident on the north side of Villa Park and we have neighbors who have two dogs locked in cages morning, noon and night.


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This is Lombard calling. I was reading a very interesting article from the Aug. 12 “In the District” with Rep. Roskam, talking about somebody named José Perez scamming $56 million by defrauding Medicare. There is no way a private citizen can defraud Medicare. Medicare bills go directly from the provider—the doctor—to the Medicare agency, the federal government, to be paid. It is not up to the patient to seek reimbursement.


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Hello ladies and gentlemen. Like many families across the country, my own family is struggling to make ends meet. Now, however, President Obama wants to tax us even more in order to pay for abortions under the guise of health care. Whether one is pro-life is irrelevant; abortion is not health care. Why not use the money to help families who are struggling or help the elderly who can’t afford medical treatment? Or, how about helping the veterans out who have served this country? It’s time we stand up and call our congress persons and tell them to vote no to any bill in which Americans pay for abortions under the guise of health care.


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In paying the second installment of our property tax bill, I question the comments recently made by village president Mueller that the Village of Lombard has a low tax rate. He seems to overlook the high pension rate benefit that benefits our village employees. My employer deducts my pension costs each month from my salary and I am on a limited work schedule. My wife is on unemployment compensation. Village employees likewise should be paying into their own pension funds. Also, our village president conveniently overlooks all the additional taxes we pay on natural gas, electric, water, land, cell phones, vehicle stickers, brown bags and refuse stickers. For 2008, I tallied up over $600 in additional taxes. Then we have Ms. Wilkins, our tax assessor, who increases our property taxes by $700 when property values are in free fall. Go figure.


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I’m calling to say that I got a ticket in Lombard at one of the red lights. I did make a complete stop; I know I did. I had to simply move up a little bit to see if there was more traffic coming and I think this is why I got the ticket. I can’t take time off work to contest this, so I am stuck with the $100 ticket. I think Lombard just seems to want to be making money off of us.


According to Lombard Police Chief Ray Byrne, you really do not have to take a day off work to contest your ticket as there are several options out there for you. You can contest the ticket by mail or online. In addition, you can contest the ticket in person at an administrative adjudication hearing, which is held at the Lombard Village Hall. The chief said the hearings are held twice a month, once in the evening and once on a Saturday.—blm

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I am calling in response to the caller on Route 53 surfacing and why we should widen it. Obviously the caller does not live on 53 and does not realize there are more than a dozen people who do live on the street. Originally, the widening of 53 was to take care of the traffic. Traffic counts have been taken since the opening of the toll road on I-355, and the counts are way down. Widening 53 would have created too much land taken away from people in front of their houses and it would end up looking like North Avenue just east of 53.


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Lombard calling. To the person who has been taking my daily newspapers, are you that cheap that you cannot buy your own paper, and take an 80-year-old senior’s paper? Also, it took Bush eight years to cause all this trouble; you cannot expect Obama to fix this problem in eight months. He is not God, where he can snap his fingers and make everything better.


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This is Lombard calling. On Highland Avenue between St. Charles and Maple, I appreciate every day how the Village of Lombard has cops pull over cars turning left off of St. Charles and onto Highland Avenue between 4-8 p.m. What I don’t appreciate is the fact that we have cars come down the street that speed where kids play in their front yards every day. Besides the hours of 4 and 8 p.m., our street is not patrolled. It would be nice if the cops decided to patrol all the streets, not just the major streets.


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I’m calling about the Aug. 19 SPEAK OUT concerning the Lombard Metra station. The Lombard Metra station has been completely renovated; we have a new roof, there’s a coffee shop, there’s new seating, we’re talking about air conditioning. It is no longer a run-down station. It is a beautiful station. They boast a 42-inch plasma TV for the commuters; whoever called, come by and check out the new Metra station. Come by and have a cup of coffee with me.


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This is Lombard calling. I would like to thank Sen. Durbin for holding some town hall meetings on the health care issue that he seems to think is the most important thing in the world right now. Oh, that’s right—the senator didn’t hold any.


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Hello, Lombard. I am shocked, completely shocked; Nancy Pelosi has gone over the edge, saying that people are going to town hall meetings and carrying swastikas. Oh, my gosh, what has happened to this great country? What has happened to the Democrat Party? What has happened? You mean to tell me we can no longer criticize our politicians, that we must take all of their nonsense and accept it? What is wrong with us asking questions about health care, and what is wrong with Democrats asking questions about health care? Why is it that when we approach our Democrat leaders, they buckle? Same with the Republicans. Both parties are guilty of this. This health care plan will cost us trillions of dollars; of course the American people are going to ask questions. Of course we demand answers—and we should get them. Why have they not read the bill?


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This is Lombard calling. We really need to talk about this—the third largest employment in the world is England’s health care workers. Small little England; what would the United States of 300 million people need? You think if we ever put this health care plan in we could ever get rid of it? England can’t.

 

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