I’m calling from Villa Park. I work for the U.S. Postal Service and with regard to the people who don’t like letter carriers crossing their grass, they only have to call the postmaster of their post office and tell them they would like the carrier to not cross the grass. That’s all there is to it. Whether it’s a problem or not is, of course, up to the individual, but that’s all they have to do is call their postmaster.

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I did not intend to purchase a vehicle sticker because the concept itself is ridiculous; a sticker defacing my car window that does not serve any purpose. But now that the sticker is the likeness of a church, I am definitely not going to buy one. What happened to the separation of church and state?

The church in question, the Maple Street Chapel, is celebrating its 140th anniversary as a historic building in Lombard, and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The building served as a town hall for meetings and housed the village’s first library. The steeple bell summoned the fire department and the chapel showed silent movies after the turn of the century. It would be safe to say, then, that the Maple Street Chapel was chosen for the village sticker due to its historic significance.—JAC

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OK, folks, I’ve heard it all. Now Obama’s trying to cram down our throats his Obamacare and once again we heard that illegal aliens wouldn’t be able to get this health care for free. No, but they will be able to buy it. Why would any illegal alien be able to buy anything in this country? I’m disgusted. Remember when Alec Baldwin said he was going to leave and move to France? Well, apparently he didn’t move and maybe it’s time to move to Texas and join the movement to secede from the United States.

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This is Villa Park here. Marvelous, $500 an hour from a firm that’s based in Chicago. Whatever happened to Shop DuPage? We’ve got plenty of lawyers who would charge less than that for doing paperwork and filing. It’s ridiculous; and where’s the cost going? To the taxpayers after the whole water commission shebang happened originally. Marvelous.

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It’s amazing how careless people are getting with their cars and their driving. When was the last time you consciously thought of using your turn signal? When was the last time you checked to see if your headlights were working? When’s the last time you checked to see that your brake lights were working? It’s incredible how many cars in Lombard are missing either the third brake light up on the top or they’re missing that and both regular brake lights. This sloppiness and laziness that we have when we are operating our car, which is very important to us, and very dangerous at times, it’s amazing. We really need to clean up our act.

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I used to be a resident of Lombard. So they’re going to build a new skate park at Madison Meadow for the skateboarders. Once again, the minority, the .000005 percent of people who want a skateboard park get what they want because Lombard will cave in to anybody. Once again, a waste of Lombard’s taxpayer money.

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Apparently, per this administration, we’re not going to be checking people going on planes for potential terrorists, that is, due to their nationality. We’re going to be looking at them on the basis of intelligence. Well, excuse me. We had a lot of great intelligence in the Fort Hood massacre; great job, guys. They’re more worried about being politically correct than they are protecting the United States of America. And, yes, that’s what it’s called. He’s the same president who said America’s no more exceptional than Germany, France or England. Unbelievable. And what a sad day it was when we passed the health care bill; we can be just like Canada where people can wait on a list; and Medicare cuts, loss of freedom and more government bureaucracy? They did a really good job with the postal service and the war on poverty.

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I’m very glad that the Taste of Lombard will be going on but I’m a little dismayed that there will be a $2 entrance fee for all those 13 and over each night, but if that’s the way it has to be, that’s the way it has to be. I have a way the village could recoup some of their investment in the Taste—why don’t you put a quarter slot on each one of the porta-potties and just make them porta-pay-toilets?

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Hello, SPEAK OUT, these are the neighbors on South Ahrens Avenue. We just wanted to thank the village and everyone for approving the Taste of Lombard. We were so saddened they were not going to have it. We love it; we enjoy it. Our friends, our family, we even have people who come in from Arizona for the Taste of Lombard. Thank you, thank you, thank you; you’ve made our Fourth of July.

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Good grief. Why are we spending money for new light poles on Main Street when we’ve got a lot of other things we should be spending money on? Oh, yeah, that’s right, I forgot—it’s a grant, just like the money for the bridge to nowhere and the Taste of Lombard.

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This is Lombard calling. There are neighbors nearby who leave their dogs out and they just bark and bark and bark all day long, and even in the evening. All the neighbors in the area are getting sick of it. Please stop; bring your dogs in. We don’t need to listen to them bark.

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This message is for the Village of Lombard and the Lombard Jaycees. You are wrong to charge a $2 entrance fee to see the Taste of Lombard and the fireworks. Anybody who is 13 is not going to pay $2 and a couple of years from now it will be $4 and pretty soon everyone will quit going to the Taste of Lombard and it will die and wither on the vine like anything else. This needs to be funded by the village without having anybody charged an entrance fee. That is wrong to charge an entrance fee. How would it possibly be policed?

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This is Lombard calling. It was a good point made in a recent SPEAK OUT about people wandering off the Prairie Path and in front of cars. Now that we’re getting more people out we need to remind them that the cars do not stop on Main Street for the people. The people stop for the cars. And while we’re at it, when you’re walking in a parking lot down an aisle, please walk along with the cars; don’t wander down the center of the aisle like a cow in a field.

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This is to the person telling Bob Niemann how to do his job with the budget. What you need to realize is that taking 10 percent out of the budget and cutting taxes isn’t going to help. The village is already strapped for cash as it is. We’re down police officers, we’re down firefighters, down public works and cutting it anymore isn’t going to help. You want to cut the budget? Fine, but you’re going to have to expect a lesser care of service and deal with the consequences. But when you take more taxes—and sure it hurts—it’s going to make the quality of life better. You have to decide. Money or quality of life. You can’t have both.

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One of the top stories recently, probably the second story aside from the Polish president’s plane crashing, was how Tiger Woods did at Augusta. Give me a break. How far this country has fallen when everyone’s lives supposedly hinge on how he does at Augusta. Our country is doomed.

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I’m a 22-year resident of Lombard and recently my wife took my car and it was making a clanging noise that was driving us crazy for weeks. She pulled into Bill’s Auto Center on Main Street and he was a real gentleman. He checked it out and found what the problem was and she asked him how much she owed him and he said, It was his pleasure. There are not many people left in this world who I can say are not worried about the almighty dollar. This is a real class operation on Main Street.

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Two lanes were blocked off on Roosevelt going west, two lanes blocked off on North Avenue going west, two lanes in I-355, 17 miles of the Eisenhower with two lanes blocked off. Are you telling me they have that many construction crews that they can do all that work at the same time? I don’t see a single worker anywhere. I have yet to see a construction worker. All I see are lanes blocked off and traffic everywhere. This is Obama at work again.

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Hi, SPEAK OUT. Is this a funny joke—I just received my tax bill. I live in the downtown area, in fairly new construction. The tax factors cannot be the same throughout Lombard. My taxes have gone up again. In this economy, homes has decreased substantially in value and my taxes have gone up again in Lombard. You folks will see more foreclosures due to the tax bills. We need some auditors to check the books in this town, this is ridiculous. It is so unfair we have to take the brunt for poor development and leadership in the downtown. I don't understand how Elmhurst can put another parking garage in the last couple of months and we have vacancy signs lining the street.  Something just does not seem right here. does it? I will be contesting;  increasing tax bills will only decrease real estate sales, increase foreclosure and ultimately the growth of the downtown.

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This is Lombard calling. First of all, all the talk of the bridge over the trail; the money is a grant. A grant is provided for only that purpose. If we lose the grant money it’ll go to some other town to put in for a grant. This has also been planned for years and has been budgeted. Second, we don’t want to cancel any events of Lilac Time because that brings a camaraderie, that brings the people to Lombard and our beautiful Lilacia Park. That’s what makes Lombard what it is. We could reduce the days of the Taste and save some money that way. Thirdly, the Christmas dinner dance, the annual thank you for the volunteers, is also for the members of the village who are retiring. This money was well spent.