As a resident of South Lombard I’d ask Ms. Kott to send a copy of the Lombard Pride brochure to Waste Management regarding putting our waste bins in the street after pick-up. I called Waste Management a few weeks ago to let our drivers know they should put the bins back in our driveway where they are set up, instead of in the street uncovered about a foot from the curb, filled with snow or rain. Our pick-up day is Wednesday, and many empty bins are uncovered and totally sitting in the street in the Foxworth subdivision. Also, code enforcement officers should let homeowners know again that you printed a notice about not having the bins outside in view other than on pick-up days. Not a pretty sight.

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Can you believe Sarah Palin criticized President Obama for reading off a Teleprompter, shortly after that criticism she was seen reading her scribbled palm like a fifth-grader, and this is the future of the Republican Party?

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To the person who does not want mail carriers to walk on your lawn in the summer. Are you serious? Consider this—unless you have a levitating lawn mower, you cut your grass and walk and push a mower all over it. Doesn't that seem a bit more abusive to your lawn than a mail carrier crossing it once a day for you? I'm not even a mail carrier, but your comment seemed so absurd I just had to let you know. Your problem must be deeper than the mail carrier on your lawn. Your anger at the mail carrier is just you deflecting your own issues and projecting it onto another. Perhaps some therapy is in order. Have a nice day. And go yell at that snow for landing on your lawn.

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Hello, Lombard. I’m calling because I am frustrated and I am angry. There have been 12 break-ins around the Madison Meadow area. They finally caught the child and his friends who had been doing it, but had to let them go because the child is a minor. Frustrating; he’s back out on the streets. Now, there’s someone following Oberweis delivery trucks. After the milkman makes the deliveries, he goes in and steals whatever’s been delivered. Watch your house, watch your neighbors’ houses and keep your eyes peeled. Take care of yourselves and protect yourselves, because there’s a lot of bad stuff going on in Lombard. It’s getting really, really sad.

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This is a resident of North Michigan Avenue in Villa Park. I want to respond to the person who called in about the people on the 100 block of Wisconsin Avenue. He said we are going to be crying because of the parking that’s going on here. If we have anybody parking wrongfully there or doing something, we’re going to call the police or go through the channels of what we need to have done to eliminate the problem. We’re not crying over here as it was stated. We’re just abiding by the law; we don’t want a parking restriction on our whole street. We just made it right. We’re just going through our constitutional rights as a majority to fix the situation. So, there is no crying done over here.

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This is Lombard calling. After reading in the paper a couple of weeks ago about the meeting our village had on our apparent “budget shortfall,” I was struck by a couple of things. I would like to suggest to all of them that we do not have a budget shortfall; we have a problem with spending too much. There’s quite the difference and as we regular people out here in Lombard are struggling to keep a job or we don’t have jobs, remember, folks, it’s not a budget shortfall. You’re just spending too much. How about you just spend what you take in now? Come on, let’s be real.

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Hey, folks, Lombard calling. It really is time to leave this state. Six uninterrupted years of one party rule by the Democrats and we are last in the nation in everything, the most corrupt state in the nation, the laughingstock of the nation, and then the Democrats vote for Scott Lee Cohen as their lieutenant governor candidate? All I can say to the Democrats is that you guys have got to be really, really proud. And, you know what? When most of us Republicans leave the state, there’s not going to be much money left for you guys.

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A caller called in to complain about the mail carrier crossing the lawn. If the person really has a problem with this all he or she has to do is call the post office and talk to one of the delivery supervisors about it. The reason postal carriers cross lawns is because they can deliver the mail more efficiently, rather than going down the sidewalk and up and down.

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Hi, I just read the article in the Lombardian about the Great Western Trail. Obviously the people who want to do this aren’t on the Prairie Path or the Great Western Trail. I’m there about every day in the summer and even sometimes in the winter. It’s not like the Prairie Path is overused. It’s usually vacant; even on weekends and nice summer days there’s more than enough room—it’s not overcrowded. Here in hard economic times we’re going to spend millions on the Great Western Trail? First of all, we don’t need it; the Prairie Path is more than enough. And, why? Couldn’t the money go somewhere better? The Prairie Path is so close and it’s not overused. Is it just because Lombard has too much money? We must—it seems like we do a lot of frivolous stuff and then they talk about not having the Taste of Lombard, which is something that is used, but the Great Western Trail isn’t used.

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This is Lombard calling. The election’s over and there are still signs everywhere. I read in SPEAK OUT that putting signs on public property is prohibited, and then on one Butterfield ramp I saw about a half dozen IDOT workers and four vehicles, picking up candidates’ signs. Who pays for this? I think we should bill it back to the campaign of those candidates whose signs are still there. Whether they put them there or not, those are their signs and they should be held responsible for the cost involved for cleaning up their mess. It’s ridiculous. Something must be done.

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Three cheers for the person who addressed the issue of the stop light at Roosevelt and Fairfield. I concur. For those new to this chat, we're referring to the strange designation of the three lanes to exit the shopping center. People mess that up all the time. I’m sure there’s some code that says you have to have two left turn lanes for some reason, but how about using the center lane for left turns and for going straight? Then make the right lane for right turns only. Solved.

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I would like to suggest we keep the SPEAK OUT column to local news only. This is a local paper; we should be talking about what’s going on in our neighborhood. I’m sick and tired of reading one individual’s “listen closely folks” rhetoric that the person learned from Rush Limbaugh that day, and to put it on printed paper is a waste of time.

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Great job, Mr. President. Very stately of you still blaming the Bush Administration. Well guess what, you’re spending money faster than any president in history—way faster. And you keep bringing up Bush and the wars; now you’re also trying to talk like a Republican because you know you’re very unpopular, kind of the way Clinton did when they were trying to sell the social health care deal back in the 1990s. You know what? Even the Republicans had the right plan at the time and he turned into a pseudo-Republican, pushing welfare reform, trying to steal that issue from the Republicans. Kind of sounds familiar with what this guy’s doing. Trying to mimic Republicans, putting his finger to the wind, rams through his socialist agenda, whether you like it or not; and he’s mad that people aren’t going along with his highness. Unbelievable.

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Congratulations to the two kids on your cover for calling 9-1-1. It was a good job.