Lombard calling. How often do you let the same people collect at corners with their buckets at Roosevelt and Main, and wherever? There is one particular group here that it is their full-time situation. They’re always on that corner every time I go by there. If it’s the Lion’s Club once a year, or the Rotary once a year, the Knights of Columbus once a year, yeah. But this religious organization is there every week. It’s very dangerous to be out there.

Business administrator Denise Kalke responded: “No, there is no one group that is out there continuously. We do have about three different outreach ministries that apply for licenses.  Usually they are asking for two to three consecutive days to solicit.  According to state law we cannot limit the amount of licenses that are approved for charitable organizations.”—JAC

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To the person who called global warming deniers ignorant, well, I’m one of those ignorant people. It snowed on Christmas for the first time in 126 years in Atlanta and yes, you have to count that. As far as NASA declaring 2010 the warmest year ever, NASA decided this year to omit all of the monitoring stations in Antarctica. As a matter of fact, they did away with hundreds of stations in cold parts of the world and added hundreds in hotter parts of the world. So, yes, this is a ginned up number so perhaps this person who thinks I’m ignorant might want to do something besides listen to Al Gore and actually read; maybe go online and research stuff. This is common public knowledge.

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In response to the caller about the sales tax in Lombard, I agree. I go to other communities often where the sales tax is less because it all adds up. I believe in shopping locally, true, but I also have to find ways to keep more of my own money in my pocket. And the response citing how there are some parts of Yorktown being taxed more to offset development costs, that sounds like taxpayers are helping subsidize construction and other costs of doing business. Maybe that’s an incentive for them to develop here, but at the same time, building something or selling something is a gamble. It’s what the market will bear so they can make a profit. I get no such incentive for shopping or eating here in Lombard; in fact, it’s just the opposite. I get a lighter wallet.

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My gripes are about parking lots; to me, one of the most accident-prone locations in general. While the person backing out is at fault if there’s a fender bender, first of all, it’s hard to see around the larger vehicles, so I always inch out slowly. However, all to often I see motorists going too fast down the aisles, and that’s an accident waiting to happen. These people aren’t paying attention to the fact that people are going to be backing out with limited vision. Also, I almost got run over walking in the aisle. The person just kept backing out without paying attention. I was lucky that I was. Please, let’s have some more courtesy and awareness in parking lots. Our safety—and insurance rates—depend on it.

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Every time we have a major snowstorm the right wing conservatives scream “Global warming, what global warming?” You left wing liberals come out and say, “Well, Greenland is unusually warm, and it’s pushing the warm air up to Chicago and that’s why we’re having a weird winter.” Global warming, shwarming. Go play with Al Gore on his private jet that uses more carbon deposits and maybe you can fly to his home that uses more carbon deposits than anything. If you global warming people had noticed, the people who are for global warming are the biggest abusers.

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Villa Park calling. President Cullerton, you were clueless. Your constituents have spoken. No more new taxes. You talk about spending money in Villa Park to support the village, yet you want to raise sales tax. You can’t have it both ways. I would fix your budget problem in a heartbeat; line up the police, the fire department, public works and then your administration staff. Have them count out one through five, and get rid of all the number threes. We wouldn’t miss a heartbeat in the village by doing this. If you can’t do it, resign and let someone else in who can make the tough decisions. Oh, by the way; here’s a savings thought; discontinue this Our Village Matters magazine and terminate the person who prepares it. Talk about a waste of money.

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Anyone know what happened to Clancy’s Butcher Shoppe? And, if they’re ever coming back? There were only two reasons that brought us to visit your downtown. The first was the Saturday night Cruise Night, and the second was Clancy’s. Looks like we’re down to maybe one reason now.

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I think the election of Obama in 2008, and the Republican party’s success in the mid-term elections of 2010 just reveal that Americans are fed up with our political leaders. I won’t be surprised if Democrats do well again in 2012, and it would also prove my point. I propose new legislation that will weigh a citizen’s vote according to how much tax he pays. After all, why should the vote of a non-working welfare recipient who pays little or no tax count as much as the vote of a hard-working, higher tax- paying citizen? With a graduated vote value, politicians of both parties would need to cater to the more productive class to win elections. That would really level the playing field and actually lead to more job creation by giving creative, entrepreneurial people more opportunity to get things done. Oh, and term limits for all politicians would help, too.

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This is Lombard calling. I watched the rerun of the village board meeting where they talked about term limits. I found it amazing the incredible, the arrogant and elitist comments, one of which is that we might not get someone qualified to run. As far as Trustee Gron’s comments that you’ll hear about it from the constituency if you don’t do a good job, Trustee Gron, I live in the downtown district and the downtown district is in terrible shape—business after business empty; yeah, we need term limits. I couldn’t believe that Trustee Gron had a hard time supporting the concept of term limits. Once again, elitist and arrogant; and yet, you guys are doing a great job. Just look at our town.

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My husband and I were driving down St. Charles Road one afternoon at 2 p.m. and all the street lights were on. Why can’t Lombard show some fiscal responsibility by turning off the lights during the day? It would be more ecologically correct, too. While they’re at it, why not have Lombard take a plan to all local businesses to have unnecessary lights off. This would be both fiscally responsible and go green at the same time.

Carl Goldsmith, director of public works, related: “Based upon available information, the village was having maintenance performed on the lighting system that caused the lights to be illuminated. The system has been restored to proper operation.”—JAC

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The Republicans now are going after state employees and state employee unions and trying to take away pensions. The pensions they’re targeting are probably from $1,000 to $2,000 a month, $12,000 to $24,000 a year. If you want to talk about reducing costs, what about politicians’ pensions, that are $60,000, $80,000, $100,000 a year? Here in Illinois, politicians double and triple dip in pensions. The Republicans talk like they want to help everyone but who they want to help is corporations and the ultra-rich. They don’t want to help regular people. That’s my impression, anyway. I just get it by reading the news.

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With the politicians in Springfield raising my state tax now to almost 6 percent, I will not vote for any of them, and in that vein, I know our trustees have voted in a 2-1/2- to 3-percent property tax increase. At this time, when all of us are under a recessionary pressure, how could they raise our property tax? I, for one, will not vote for anybody who voted to raise my taxes. There are three of you trustees up and I hope three of you are out.

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Hello, Lombard. I agree with trustees Wilson and Ware regarding term limits and I think we should do everything possible to ensure that this is their only term and they are voted out of office.

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My question is about the Lombard Park District lagoon. I was wondering why the test results for the allegedly contaminated rocks at the lagoon were never released publicly, because they are taking the rocks out and said there is no contamination to them. I want to know why the test results are not being released if there is no contamination of the rocks.

You are off track a bit, as although someone raised questions citing environmental concerns over some black stones along the shoreline of Lombard Park District’s Lombard Lagoon, the results were printed in the Dec. 15, 2010, Lombardian. According to an e-mail from Paul Friedrichs, executive director, “The Lombard Park District was recently made aware of possible environmental concerns expressed by a park district visitor regarding dark gravel stones present in a limited area along the bank of the Lombard Lagoon, located at the southeast corner of East North Avenue and North Grace Street on the north side of Lombard. The park district promptly commenced a review of these concerns with the assistance of qualified professionals and an investigation of the facts relating to the matter. Samples of the material were taken and analyzed by an independent testing laboratory and the test results were reviewed by our legal counsel with the assistance of its environmental consultants. The district was informed that the material does not contain petroleum and is not hazardous waste. Rather, it is construction debris that, while aesthetically unattractive, does not require any special handling. The district will be disposing of the material.” Hope this answers your question.—blm

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Lombard, calling about the mail system and the postal service. I put a letter in the mail on Dec. 31 and it was only going across town, from St. Charles Road to Roosevelt Road in Lombard. It did not arrive until Jan. 10. Even with the holiday, that is way too long. What is that, that it takes a week to go 2 miles? A week. That’s ridiculous and the system needs to be improved.

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When I grew up, I wondered why we needed a constitution, and then I learned that you need one because you have to organize people so they’re more productive, and can take advantage of resources and economies of scale. However, in Illinois, we’re over-governed. For all those people who voted for Gov. Quinn, enjoy paying the higher taxes they just passed.

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This is Lombard calling. We had this terrible tragedy in Arizona, and Obama decided the best thing to do was hold a pep rally for himself, complete with T-shirts set on the chairs, that have an old campaign slogan for him written on it. Is anyone else shaking their head and wondering why would you decide it’s a good time to hold a pep rally because of this terrible tragedy? This seems like really poor judgment.

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I was surprised to learn Lombard is a sanctuary town. Our chief of police was recently quoted as saying his staff does not check for illegal aliens or terrorists when a traffic stop or other police activity is in progress. He stated it was the duty of the federal government. This is the same police force that cannot see parked cars on driveways blocking sidewalks so pedestrians must walk in the street; trash bins out 24 hours before pick-up time; left turns after traffic lights have changed to red; overnight parking on streets where banned or after 2 inches of snowfall. Are our trustees and village president in agreement with this see no evil, hear no evil, say no evil enforcement policy? The usual police response is if you see something, report it. If I can see it, why can’t they?

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I was disappointed that after the Village of Lombard lost a 37-year employee to cancer that our village board could not recognize her or have a moment of silence to honor her life and years of service. Nice work, President Mueller.   

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Lombard calling. I would like to respond to a couple of SPEAK OUTs recently written regarding downtown Lombard.  The first is blasting Trustee Gron for the current demise of downtown. Downtown Lombard has been semi-vacant and in disarray long before Trustee Gron was elected into office. Trustee Gron is the first trustee who has not only been an advocate for downtown but has actually been working tirelessly to improve it. He worked hard with the consultants and has met with many potential businesses trying to convince them to come to downtown Lombard and continues to look for opportunities for downtown. There is a ton going on behind the scenes and Trustee Gron is in the thick of it. The second speak out that I would like to address is the person who wrote in saying that downtown Lombard was too small to be an Elmhurst or Wheaton. Nobody ever said downtown Lombard wanted to be the next Elmhurst or Wheaton.  We just want to be the best downtown Lombard that we can possibly be. And we are not too small.  We have a ton of unutilized and underutilized real estate.