Just wondering why the Village of Lombard is going to install a bunch of new street lights on North Main when there’s already a bunch of working streets there now. It seems like a ridiculous waste of taxpayer money. I’d like to have some sort of reply from the village, please.

Carl Goldsmith, director of public works, gave the following explanation: “The Village of Lombard establishes a 10-year Capital Improvement Plan (CIP) to determine what and when major capital projects will be funded by the village board. The CIP is developed with input from village staff, the Public Works Committee, Finance Committee and the village board of trustees. The various parties look at safety, maintenance, cost and consistency with village policies. The FY 2011-FY 2020 CIP provides the funding for the North Main Street lighting project. The village board of trustees adopted Board Policy No. 03-1, titled “Street Light Policy,” in October 2003. The purpose of the policy was to establish specifications for village street lighting based upon roadway classification (i.e. residential, downtown, arterial). The classification of the roadway determines the design of the pole and luminaire’s specification. As North Main Street is classified as an arterial street, the current lighting does not meet the village standard. It is the village policy that all streets be lighted with village standard lighting.  Relative to the North Main Street project, the Public Works Committee recommended the use of LED luminaires for both the roadway and coach lighting. The use of the LED technology will greatly reduce energy consumption (by approximately 75 percent), as well as material and labor to relamp the fixtures and maintain given the longer life of LEDs. The recommendation to use LEDs was accepted by the village board as a means to control costs relative to roadway lighting.”—JAC

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To the caller who advised people not to walk down the center aisle in a parking lot, I want to be seen by the drivers who are backing out of a parking space, and if I am walking alongside the cars, I might be in a blind spot. At least in the center of the aisle the driver should be able to spot me if he or she is looking correctly. If not, I have room to get out of the way in time and not get hit or worse, pinned by a vehicle backing up. I myself have nearly hit a few people who were making their way alongside the rear ends of cars. I didn’t see them from my rear-view or side mirrors until I started backing out. Also, if I am in the middle of the aisle, I want to have room to get out of the way of a car coming around the corner that is going too fast. Maybe you are one of those people and just don’t want to have to slow down.

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Villa Park calling. I recently scanned the York Township reassessment listings for 2009 published on March 24. I would like an explanation why 2009 assessments remain the same as 2008 for the majority of homeowners. For the last three years the Chicago Tribune has reported steadily decreasing property values for our town. Check it out at chicagotribune.com/pricepulse. In fact, the latest figures show Villa Park with sales values of $205,000, which is similar to 2003 property values. Yet my own assessment has not decreased one dollar in that time period.

If you look at information sent with the tax bill from the county treasurer, Gwen Henry, she states that figures used were taken from previous years, 2006-08, in making the equalized assessed valuations, or EAVs. She also notes that the changes during the last year were essentially “flat.”—JAC

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Lombard calling to speak out about Elmhurst College’s practice of issuing admission tickets for attending graduation exercises. Our grandson will be graduating May 30 and they issued passes to the immediate family of three, which is fine, but wouldn’t they be able to issue two extra passes for the grandparents, so one from each side of the family could attend? Yes, I know there’s a space problem, but my husband is 90, I’m 82 and we were really looking forward to attending graduation exercises for our grandson. I bet there are a lot of other grandparents who are disappointed.

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At long last the Village of Lombard finally realized that tax dollars are decreasing at a rapid pace. Many neighboring villages saw the handwriting in their financial ledgers and cut staff promptly years ago. Once again, the lack of leadership, planning, organization and resourcefulness throughout the present administration is out there for all to see. Just as an example of the aforementioned, a tree-trimming or pruning crew was on Fairfield between Roosevelt Road and Central between 3-4 p.m. in the afternoon. Of course, they had their truck and chipper parked on the street. While the state and county have crews out filling potholes, of which Lombard has miles of, we are stuck in a traffic jam on Fairfield because of a tree-trimming crew. Adding to the problem were other cars parked on Fairfield. Obviously, no one from the traffic and safety committee has seen fit to restrict parking on both sides of Fairfield from Roosevelt Road to Wilson.

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This is Villa Park calling. I just want to make people aware that if they get a phone call from Jamaica saying they’ve won a sweepstakes, that this is a scam of some sort. Go to your computer and look at complaintboard.com or call the Federal Trade Commission. They are investigating this kind of thing. We got a call saying we won $2.5 million and when we investigated, we found out it was a scam. So, beware, people.

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I would just like to know if there is anybody else out there who is going through problems with the Comcast digital boxes. I can’t even get to watch Channel 5 or Channel 9 to catch the news and they just keep telling me to unplug them and plug them back in. I’d like to know what Comcast is going to do about this problem.

Rich Ruggiero, Comcast regional vice president for communications and public affairs, commented: “We have successfully deployed literally hundreds of thousands of digital adapters throughout Illinois over the past nine months and have not experienced any widespread issues whatsoever. Customers can contact us 24 hours a day at 1-866-594-1234 with any questions about their Comcast service.”—JAC

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Hey, Lombard. What’s with the village, that has budget problems, which require layoffs and forced retirements, now purchasing a new $500,000 fire engine to replace one that is all of 11 years old? Many of the citizens of Lombard still drive cars older than that. Surely a fire engine in Lombard doesn’t deteriorate that much in 11 years. And I can’t imagine this new one is that much more sophisticated than the one it replaced, at least for the needs in Lombard. I doubt that this one new engine would affect Lombard’s insurance fire rating to any great degree either. In these tough economic times, our village board should be able to spend more wisely than this. But then there they go again, not thinking, and the village president is the best example and expert on that. I’m only surprised they haven’t decided to add on to that castle they call a village hall, sitting where no other village has its administration buildings, smack in a residential area, instead of the downtown business area, where it belongs, as other West suburban towns do.

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This is a Lombard resident here. I missed my train by an hour on a Saturday and was waiting for the train, and went to Lilacia Park to walk around. I noticed by the pond there were empty flower boxes just strewn about. It was prom day and there had been picture taking in the park, but it was very displeasing to see that people would just leave all that litter around Lilacia Park. Please clean up after yourselves.

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I have read so many comments about the litter in this town. The vIllage needs to turn their hearing aids up. Can you put up signs regarding the littering and fines attached? There are piles of cigarette butts at every corner and trash just thrown out around the downtown area. It’s enjoyable walking over beer cans and women’s underwear on my stroll to the train.

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I think the police department is wasting time downtown giving out seat belt violations, while vandalism occurs at our park district playgrounds. If they can have five policemen stand for hours at St. Charles Road and Park Avenue, surely they can station a policeman to stand and watch our playgrounds to keep our children safe.

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Villa Park here. Can’t wait until all those expensive condominiums are all built on that block so the owners can have a nice sight like a park next door with bums sleeping on the benches and drinking out of a paper bag, and the drug dealers hanging around and the noisy skateboarders playing in the parking lot. They claim if they build it, they will come, but maybe they won’t come that quickly.

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Once again the higher powers of the art fair messed up the layout of the booths. They should have put the booths down the center of the street so local businesses could benefit from the foot traffic, but I guess they aren’t interested in helping out the downtown businesses. That was quite evident.

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Lombard calling. Just want to say thank you, thank you to all of the people who worked on the cemetery on Main Street. It looks so pretty. The jonquils, daffodils, the new fence, the signs, what a pleasure to drive past it and remember our ancestors. Thank you to all who have made it so beautiful.

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Villa Park calling. Villa Park train shelters are a disgrace; broken and dirty windows, and nearby we are going to have a park to accommodate those who reportedly helped cause this condition. Where are our village officials and what are they doing to clean up this situation? I’m a Villa Park taxpayer.

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Be sure to stop into Lilac Bakery. I know from personal experience the professional and pleasing staff is ready to deliver whatever your bakery needs are, whether it’s customized school or club mascot cookies, special occasion cakes, holiday goodies, etc. Delicious and affordable. Support this wonderful Lombard business. You’ll be glad you did.