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February 10, 2010

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I was just informed that the Lombard village trustees may not fund the Taste of Lombard this year. I am shocked and upset that they would even think about not funding the Taste. I have been in this town only a few years and always enjoy going to the Taste with my children. I hope they all come to their senses and have the event.


In response to your comment, Lombard Village Manager Dave Hulseberg explained: “The village board did not indicate that it would not fund the Taste of Lombard.  Rather, the village board requested that the Lombard Jaycees submit a grant application for consideration to the village.”—blm


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To the 20-year Lombard resident outraged at the possible elimination of the Taste of Lombard, I’m not sure how this is worth outrage. I’ve been a Lombard resident for over 30 years and this seems like a reasonable decision to me. Other cities and towns are doing the same thing. Not everything is about rah-rah; besides, make your own fun.


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I received a post card saying that we had an outstanding opportunity to elect Dan Cronin as our DuPage County board chairman. It’s endorsed by Laura Fitzpatrick, Keith Giagnorio, Gregory Gron, Bill Ware and Zach Wilson. I thought that our form of representatives and trustees was non-partisan and I thought it was not legal for them to endorse a specific party. I may be wrong, but could you answer this? It’s very tacky, anyway.


Joelyn Kott, communications and marketing coordinator for the Village of Lombard, responded: “Elections for the Lombard Board of Trustees are non-partisan, meaning that anyone running for office for a village board position does so without reference to their political parties. However, this does not prevent anyone, whether an elected official or not, from backing any candidate, regardless of party affiliation.”—JAC

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I would like to address the individual who made a claim in Speak Out last week regarding the Obama Administration, Rahm Emanuel and Luis Gutierrez supposedly making plans to change Social Security rules as it applies to the cost-of-living allowance. There will not be an increase this year and it is the first time since the program came into effect 38 years ago. However, it is not due to Obama or the current Congress. The reason is simply because the official measure of the cost-of-living has gone down, not up. Cost-of-living is determined by the Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers (CPI-W), which is tabulated by the career professionals at the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. It was President Nixon, a Republican, who signed this into law in 1972 and determined how the cost-of-living adjustments to Social Security benefits would be made. Regarding your claim that the current administration is also planning on giving illegal immigrants Social Security benefits, this has been an accusation going on for several years and is completely false. No benefits can legally be paid to illegal immigrants and there was never a proposal to change it. Illegal immigrants are not eligible to receive any benefits from government programs, with the following exceptions:  emergency medical care; emergency disaster relief; limited immunizations and testing, and treatment of symptoms of communicable diseases; certain community programs, such as soup kitchens or crisis counseling, as specified by the attorney general; limited housing or community development assistance to those already receiving it in 1996. Please feel free to access a copy of these codes through the U.S. Federal Government Web site or your local library if you have further questions. Fox News is not a reliable fact source, and neither are blogs on the Internet. Please make sure that when you go to vote, you are correctly informed on the issues that are important to you.


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This is for the Wednesday, Jan. 27, item regarding Catholic Church money spent, Driscoll school closing, etc. First of all the Catholic Church is never so short on money; they always need money because they give a lot of money away. Driscoll was closed for economical reasons and the new commercials that are now on TV to bring Catholics home, the money was all donated by a person anonymously. It started in Arizona a year ago and that particular person has paid for all this, and this is what the person wanted to be done. The Catholic Church needs money to run its facilities like every other church needs money, but no money from parishioners was used for that. This has nothing to do with Driscoll High School closing.


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Please stop honking at me and cutting me off at the stoplight exiting the Ultra Foods shopping center at Roosevelt and Fairfield. The lanes are marked on the pavement. The two lanes on the left are for left turns only to enter westbound onto Roosevelt. The right lane is for right turns onto eastbound Roosevelt and also to go straight onto northbound Fairfield. Every time I am at the red light waiting to go straight onto Fairfield which would place me in the right-most lane, people honk at me because they think I am in the right turn only lane.  Then after the light turns green and I proceed to go straight, it never fails that the person to my left which is the left-turn-only lane proceeds to cut me off and go straight onto Fairfield. I have seen dozens of fender benders at this intersection due to people's ignorance of the lane markings. I am just trying to get the word out so people will stop honking and cutting me off and anyone else with enough common sense to look at the lane markings off. I have also looked into who would be responsible for putting up a sign to indicate which lane is which, and it seems the village is responsible for signage at a controlled intersection. A sign would be a huge help. I could point at it when people behind me at a red light are honking for me to turn right when I am going straight.


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This is Villa Park. Do you think it’s really necessary to hand out to every household the parks and recreation guide when you can just drop some off at the library and the schools, and people who are interested could take one, instead of every household. It sure seems like a waste of money when it goes in the garbage at a lot of households of people who don’t participate in recreation activities in Villa Park.


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This is for our village board in Villa Park. How about permit parking only for the 100 of North Wisconsin? Only the 100 block. Issue each house two or three permit passes and any car that’s parked on the street gets a ticket. But only do it for the 100 block of North Wisconsin.


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Fellow Lombardians, if your elected officials are not doing their job, I hope you voted them out and flexed your political muscle. We’re the ones suffering, not them. They have a job; some of us do not. Don’t be fooled by the titles of Democrat or Republican. Waste is a fact of life in our political system. Find it, eliminate it then lower taxes.


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Lombard calling. It’s been a couple of years since I read anything in the paper about it—wondering how our convention center’s doing. Is it profitable? Is it breaking even? Does anybody ever get a report on it? Why isn’t anything about it in the paper?


According to Finance Director Tim Sexton, “The convention center is not directly owned by the Village of Lombard, but rather by the Lombard Public Facilities Corporation (LPFC), which is an entity that was established by the village. As with most hotels and restaurants, there has been a significant decline in business for the convention center over the past year. However, when the bonds were issued by the LPFC for the project, there were precautions taken to delay the repayment of principal until 2012 and have adequate reserves on hand to assist during the first several years of startup for the convention center. Therefore, as part of the 2010 budget for the conference center, all debt payments are still being made as scheduled by the LPFC.”—blm

 

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