Does anybody know who the postmaster is? Late mail, long lines and no accountability. Who is this person? Lombard calling.

The postmaster’s name is Narbi Miulli.—JAC

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Every year I plan I to call about this but I forget by the time I get home. It's about the Santa Clauses in the front yard on Main Street. Every time I pass them I smile. I’m happy all those probably discarded Santas have found a home. That’s what Christmas is all about. Kudos and thanks to whomever did all that hard work.

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This is Lombard calling. I’d like to thank Warren, who wrote the letter to the editor in the Dec. 8 issue regarding the board wasting time and money on the chicken proposal. Definitely. I was involved in this and it certainly took a lot of my time for a very teeny minority of Lombard. And a big thank you to the trustees who did see what the overall population and constituents wanted, and we thank them.

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Hello, SPEAK OUT. This is in regard to the people who wanted to have chicken coops in Lombard. I’ve been in Lombard all my life and here these people want to put chickens in coops in residential areas. I don’t know what is going through their minds. I can tell you right now, people who haven’t lived in Lombard long enough; remember, this is Lombard, Ill., this is not a henhouse.

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Villa Park calling. Congressman Roskam in his last guest column contends that tax cuts for the rich should be extended. What has that done for us in the last 10 years that these tax cuts have been in place? How many jobs have been created? What has it done to our deficit?

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Hi, this is Lombard calling. I just wanted to say how much our family enjoys the retired Santa display on North Main Street, and appreciate all the hard work involved in setting it up. We look forward to seeing it every year.

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A holiday thanks to the wonderful volunteers and museum staff who give great tours and fun programs at our two historical museums. The children I know really enjoy visiting and learning about Lombard and doing the fun Junior Historian projects that the museum staff create. This is a treasure in our community.

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This is Lombard. First I’d like to express my gratitude to the Lombard police and paramedics for their quick response a couple of weeks ago when the girl I was walking my dogs with got hit by a car. Secondly, I would like to say how disappointed I am that nothing was mentioned in the Lombardian about how important it is that drivers need to be aware of pedestrians. Just because it’s cold and it gets dark at 4:30 in the afternoon does not mean people are not outside walking. I urge people to pay attention not only to the roads but to the sidewalks as well.

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I’m calling about a situation at Ardmore School. There is a sidewalk across the street and I have called four different people at the village, and I keep getting the runaround, that the sidewalk needs to be salted. It’s almost like my responsibility to stay on hold, contact an officer or the village president is not in, or he won’t be in, so why are we paying these high taxes if we can’t get a simple thing like salting the sidewalk so the children don’t fall and break their leg when they’re crossing to go home? Myself and an older woman fell one day, and this is what we have to do when we pay $6,000 a year in taxes.

Perhaps a call to School District 45 would be another direction in which to turn for help, if you haven’t done so already.—JAC

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Villa Park calling. I just saw in the paper that you’re raising property taxes again. When is the village board going to figure it out? We the citizens are done authorizing tax increases, either sales tax or property taxes. All companies are cutting expenses across the board and that is from a baseline budget, not any increases from existing budgets. Your target for 2011 should be to reduce your current year budget by 10 percent. The state of New Jersey can do it; so can Villa Park do it. Also, I don’t want to hear you say that you’re cut to the bare bones. If you ran Villa Park like a business, you’d have a surplus.

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Hi, Lombard calling. In response to the person asking about our flags shown at half mast, the last month or so we have had several soldiers in our armed forces who were killed. Unfortunately, several of those soldiers were from Illinois; most of them from the Chicagoland area. Illinois flies the flag at half mast to honor those young men and women who died for our country. So, as much as I appreciate your wanting to know about this, please do fly it half mast for that same reason.

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This is in regard to the person who called about the flag being in St. Pius Church. The American flag should be flown in every church and every public building everywhere because people should not be ashamed to show the flag. The flag is in the church because it’s proud to be an American church in the great land of the United States of America. It has nothing to do with a political issue or being a Democrat or Republican. So, fly your flags proudly wherever you are. God bless America.

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If it were unseasonably warm right now, some of the global warming zealots out there would be pointing to the weather as an example of the presence of global warming, climate change,, or whatever they want to call it. But it isn’t warm. It’s Dec. 12. It’s bitterly cold right now, and there is a winter storm warning in effect. Of course, the global warming crowd would say that the brutally cold weather is an anomaly. You can’t have it both ways.

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Hi, SPEAK OUT, this is Villa Park calling. I just wanted to comment on the “Capture My Chicago” coffee table book that came out in late November, that CBS Channel 2 helped sponsor. Not only is it a cool book, but the best part of all is that out of the 52,000 submitted photos, it was a Villa Park resident who won the book cover photo. Congratulations Ken Steele—good job. We need to share more of the positive things that go on in our village, too.

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I am glad that the village manager pushed for the pension reform referendum, made several trips to Springfield to guide our legislators and now the bill awaits the governor's signature. Be careful what you ask for; you might get it.  Now, the reform only affects new hires, which there won’t be any, because of the hiring freeze, and the village will have to fund its share as calculated by an actuary. In five years the state will pull money from the village to fund the pensions, if the village continues to underfund the pensions. At the board meeting it was stated, “The village has always funded the correct amount.” Then why is the village short now if you always funded the right amount? 

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This is Lombard calling. In regard to the firewood ordinance, there are a lot of people falling on tough times for many years here and we are some of those people and we use firewood to help heat our home to help keep our heating costs down because we can’t afford high heating bills. If the Village of Lombard has concerns about rodents, then go after those people who have unsightly piles of firewood that have been laying there for two, three, four, five years. I’ve seen them myself. Go after those people. Our firewood is stacked nice and neat and we have no rodents. We have a no-kill cage if there’s anything that comes around and we capture them and let them go in a forest somewhere away from our home. We have no problems, our neighbors have never complained about it and I think there are more important things for the village board to be worrying about than nice, neat piles of firewood that people need to heat their homes. So, once again, repeal this ordinance, get rid of it, and start enforcing the rules you have on the books now, OK?

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Villa Park calling. To the person who called in to complain about non-stop dog barking, on the north end of town, to police, thank you. As you know, many have suffered this ignorance and the more complaints the better. It is nice to have a good neighbor like you out there in town.

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Villa Park. I just want to commend Cheryl and Daniel of Ultra Foods. I was in there to send a Western Union money transfer. This has to be done on a special phone with Western Union. I have a bad hearing problem and couldn’t hear on that phone, even though there was a volume control. Cheryl and Daniel came to my aid and Daniel made the transaction for me. I just can’t thank them enough for their kindness to me. I’d also like to commend Loretta in the deli for all the kindness she has shown me on the occasions I’ve been there and she has waited on me.

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What a joy it was when they blocked off the intersection of Grace and the railroad tracks there in downtown Lombard. To go through that intersection now, with just a simple stop sign. There’s no inordinate waits. I used to avoid that intersection and when it was blocked off across the tracks, it was like a shortcut. It’s great. Why don’t they fix that intersection once and for all?

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Lombard calling here. I would like to comment on the Nov. 24 critique of village president Mueller and his apparent lack of knowledge regarding the downtown Lombard plan. I fully agree with that speaker regarding Mueller’s negative attitude without any alternatives on his part to improve downtown Lombard. It is time Mr. Mueller moves his emphasis for Lombard north of Roosevelt Road for once, and spend his time in downtown Lombard as opposed to his numerous photo ops in various newspapers. His face is in more newspapers than many high-profile entertainment celebrities. Mr. Mueller is a living, breathing example of why this village needs term limits, of which his was used up years ago. Either perform your duties as chief executive of this village or step aside and let someone else come in and put an emphasis on improving downtown Lombard to resemble Elmhurst, Glen Ellyn and Wheaton.

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Lombard calling about the Christmas tree lighting. First, let me say I thought the Lombard Town Centre, the clues were excellent and every one of the participating businesses was so incredibly friendly. It was a lot of fun. As for the tree lighting, while it was disappointing that only a third of the tree lit up, I found it amusingly emblematic of the situation with our downtown. Only one third of it is lit up, too.

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This is Lombard calling. I just want to let some of you parents know there are wonderful and great parents out there. I just had the parents of the son who delivers my Lombardian pull into my driveway in her vehicle, deliver the paper by hand. I asked where her boy was and she said he was really sick and she was filling in for him. They were right there people; that’s what more people should be doing, is helping their kids and just following along with them. This woman follows her son every Wednesday, follows him by foot while he delivers the Lombardian. Now that’s dedication and that’s a great mom.

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This is Lombard calling. It was a Saturday morning at the Lombard train station during the first major snowstorm of the season, the train was coming, the bells were ringing, the lights were flashing. At that moment a man dressed as Santa Claus decided it was the right time to cross the railroad tracks in violation of the law. What if Santa Claus had slipped on the snow and ice on the tracks and gotten hit by the train? If so, the 20 or so children that were watching Santa cross the tracks illegally probably would have been traumatized for life. Santa Claus, you should be setting an example for the children, not breaking the law and jeopardizing your own safety, don’t you think?

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Greetings, SPEAK OUT, Lombard calling, working hard and trying to make ends meet in today’s economy. I have to walk to work; not a problem except for the fact that earlier tonight I almost busted my face walking on unseen ice because Lombardians neglect their residential duties. Just wondering how truly lazy one has to be that it becomes impossible to shovel one’s front sidewalk. I realize some residents are homebound and not able to get the job done, but seriously, the majority of Lombard’s residents are completely capable of getting snow off the sidewalk. When laziness overcomes you to the point that you don’t shovel, people then continuously tread on these snow-filled sidewalks; well guess what? It turns into ice. Shoveling could be done during a commercial break or late at night if it’s a real problem to fit it into the daily schedule. Just get it done. It’s good for you and the community.

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Greetings, SPEAK OUT. I like the suggestion of the person who called in to have Freedom as our sister city. I’m a retired, disabled veteran, and I believe this is the right direction. I love my family and I love to speak English. My family came from Europe and they had to learn how to speak English.