Hi, I hope you’ll publish this. We have a question about the old Dominick's location on Roosevelt Road in Oakbrook Terrace, or Villa Park. Can anyone tell us what is planned for that corner? We’ve heard rumors that there’s going to be a Meijer’s and would love confirmation of what’s planned for that entire area.

According to Irene Kallas and Karen Debok of the Oakbrook Terrace Building and Zoning Department, a Pete’s Fresh Market is slated to go where the former Dominick’s grocery store was located. Debok said the plan is for the store to open in spring 2012. She also indicated that a developer is submitting plans for renovation of the shopping plaza, and the city is looking for businesses to lease other storefronts.—JAC

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Hi, Lombard calling. I was reading the Lombardian on the gas sharing program drive with Nicor by the Salvation Army. I do like the program that LIHEAP and the Salvation Army have. However, I was a little disappointed to see that the first line of who is eligible for this type of program is a single mother supporting her children. Nowadays, there are many fathers out there who have custody and are supporting their children on a single income or on unemployment, with the way economic times are. I don’t believe that Nicor with the LIHEAP actually defines that as a single mother versus a single parent and I really think that it’s biased and I’m really offended that you would put it in the paper that way because there are many single fathers who are supporting their children, especially in these tough times.

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This is Lombard calling. I don’t know why dog owners think it’s OK for their dogs to be off the leash in front of their house. I witnessed two dogs fighting terribly, bloodily so, because one woman was walking her dog with the leash and the other person’s dog was just out and about. That’s not the law in Lombard. If there’s liability, it’s certainly on the woman who leaves her dog loose.

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Please explain why it is when you see a person walking with a walker or cane, you hurry up to get by, so you can get in whatever place you are heading, before the person with the walker or cane does. It’s great if you do so in order to hold the door open, but most times, you go through and continue on your way. Some day you may find yourself with a walker or cane and you’ll understand when people do to you as you do to those now.

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Lombard calling. I just want to comment on Jane Charmelo’s wonderful article. I always enjoy her articles, but especially the one about the mystery home that was between the houses. My children and I, even when they were younger, used to always try to find out about the house and never heard anything, It was just a wonderful article, so interesting and a beautiful, beautiful home. Thanks, Jane. Continue, please, on the wonderful reporting that you always do, too.

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Congratulations need to go out to a former Lombard teacher and resident, Sean Ryan, who has been nominated for the prestigious Golden Apple Award. Good job, Mr. Ryan. Thanks for your efforts.

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I’d just like to say that in a recent SPEAK OUT, there were very few “good complaints.” You know, the people of Lombard are not trying hard enough to come up with some decent complaints. Years ago we had a whole thing going back and forth between people drinking beer on the Prairie Path and people being able to see people drinking beer in their back yards from the Prairie Path. We need to get back to something fun like that. We see all these complaints about traffic and potholes and the police arresting people for DUIs. It’s just a little bit boring. I wish you people would really come up with something good to complain about, and everybody needs to pitch in and come up with some decent complaints to make SPEAK OUT fun again.

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Lombard calling. To the person who called out Trustee Gron and Bill Mueller in the Dec. 29 SPEAK OUT about their negative position on term limits, thank you, thank you, thank you. Residents who are sick and tired of the entrenched, self-serving management that has become the village board need to speak out as you and others have. The board seems to believe in not having term limits, but if they don’t begin doing something to turn around the downtown, their terms will end at the next election.

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This is from Lombard. I dropped a change purse with keys in the Jewel parking lot on Main Street. Someone was nice enough to pick it up and turn it in. A big thank you to that person and also there was a gentleman who told me I dropped it, so thank you. Also, please, Mr. Mueller, will you please retire? You’re a good man, a nice person, but we need some new blood.

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This is Lombard calling in response to the Jan. 12 SPEAK OUT regarding chicken coops, chickens and ponies. Yes, that was fine in 1952, but this is 2011. The population has drastically increased; there are more homes; lots are smaller; there are more diseases and more infections. Everybody has cars, the stores are closer and people need jobs at the stores to sell products.

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Hi, Lombard calling. Most of the vacancies in downtown happened on the watch of this board. The village forefathers may have let all the shopping expand down Main Street, but Bill Mueller let the rest of it go to Yorktown. Instead of building condos, perhaps inviting a big anchor store to build where the feed store used to be would have been a better decision. How are you expected to bring foot traffic downtown when you build condos and try and fill them with people, but then they have nothing to do, because the retail spaces are filled with businesses that aren’t truly retail? A real estate office? What is that? In other words, there was nothing down here that would increase foot traffic, so it becomes a vicious circle. St. Charles Road is too short; the business district is from Elizabeth to Grace. That’s a little less than a mile, and you can’t do anything with that or you don’t want to, because there isn’t a hotel with an available ballroom with your name on it? Well, at least the Lombard Village Board can blame the state income tax increase on the decision of businesses not to come here, as opposed to acknowledging their culpability in it to begin with.

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Thank you Gov. Quinn; thank you for raising my taxes. Thank you for the people of Illinois who voted for you—a person who said he was going to raise taxes. Thank you, Gov. Quinn, for saying you’d veto any type of legislation that was more than 1 percent of a tax increase. Thank you, Gov. Quinn, for chasing businesses out of the state of Illinois. Thank you, Gov. Quinn. I hope you get voted out in four years but I don’t know if we can wait that long.

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As to the caller of Jan. 12, who wrote in defense of Sarah Palin, go back and read your words. You think she was, you believe she had, you’re not sure. You are about as clueless as Sarah Palin and you have been taken in like so many other people, but wake up, because like so many other mean-spirited talk radio hosts, the time has come. The American people are waking up to the fact that people have nothing to say or do for the unity of America.