Shop Lombard local. Keep jobs in Lombard. What about hiring Andy Frain to replace local crossing guards to save $800? It doesn’t sound local to me. Sure, our local parents and grandparents who have these jobs could go through the rigmarole to see if they could get hired by Andy Frain to work in their own neighborhood, but I bet Andy Frain already has their own people to take care of the crossing spots. Is this our village manager and his large staff at work again, all for saving $800? You can also bet they spent more than $800 of their time and our tax dollars to come up with this plan. It’s called job security.

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As I was walking through the Lilac Time home tour I ran into a wonderful friend of mine, Paula, whom I haven’t seen since she retired. I was so happy to see her. She was one of the guides through one of the houses and did a fantastic job. I just want you to know she did a great job and I still miss her, but it was sure nice to run into her and I think she was very happy to see some of her friends also. Just wanted to share that with you. It was a beautiful day and extra special to see her once again.

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The teachers, let’s say they work 12 hours a day, if you divide that out over a year—let’s say they work 300 days a year—that’s a little over 30 hours a week. I don’t know about you, but I work 45-50 hours a week and I don’t have summers off. So, let’ talk about teacher salaries.

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Hi, this is Lombard calling pertaining to the stretch of sidewalks on Parkside and Main Street, east of the tracks. I don’t know if the village cares or the railroad cares, this is quite overgrown with foliage and bushes. On June 18 I saw a woman in an electric wheelchair—she had to use the sidewalk—and there was no room. She was quite pushed into the street. I’m just wondering if someone can trim that back; it is a health hazard, people are walking in the streets and it’s not safe.

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When are they going to dredge out Terrace View slough so we can get rid of the green algae? You can’t just lower the pond for flood water—you need to dig it deeper. Fifteen to 20 feet of water can support more aquatic life and stay cooler to prevent the floating green. Find a place to put the dirt and make a toboggan hill or sell the algae as fertilizer.

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Hi, I live in Butterfield East, the unincorporated part of Lombard. Isn’t there some law that they can’t park a boat on the street all summer long? I’d appreciate an answer.

According to a winter newsletter published by the Butterfield Homeowners Association, one of the ordinances states that boats are not supposed to be parked on the street—or on the lawn or driveway. The homeowners association has a Web site, www.mybhoa.com, and the DuPage non-emergency police number is 630-682-7256.—JAC

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My name is John Q Public and I live in Lombard and Greg Gron is my trustee. Greg, I have a question for you. Are you going to have the intestinal fortitude to actually answer questions from people, even when they call in SPEAK OUT? You are our elected official, sir. Are you going to allow Dave Hulseberg and Bill Mueller to do this? Because if you are, you need to be gone. So, Greg, how about calling SPEAK OUT and saying, I’ll answer anybody’s questions, I’m not afraid of them. If not, I sure hope that Monty runs again.

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OK, even though it has been publicized that the village won’t answer questions from anonymous callers, people are still calling SPEAK  OUT anyway with questions about the village. I don’t see much point to it, because you are not going to get an answer. You ask if anyone out there, so to speak, has an answer to your question, and all that will happen is that people will likely call in thinking they know the answer, when that may not be the case. And we know now the village won’t verify anything. So, while I think it’s good that people call in to express how they feel about the situation, why not just e-mail your trustee to ask a question? What are you afraid of?

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There’s a lot of talk about cursive writing being taught in schools. But a subject to go along with that is the threat of a human life, being treated by a doctor. If the doctor can’t write clearly, where you can’t tell if it’s the proper medication or not, then the doctor should not be given a license. If he can spend years and years of training to treat you, operate on you and give you medicine, then the doctor should be forced to write nice and clearly. If you people feel like I do, speak out. If you don’t, I’d like to hear your argument defending the horrible writing that doctors use on prescriptions.

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My mother used to say, if someone asked you a question and you knew the answer, you answered it, whether you knew the person’s name or not. If you didn’t answer the question it was because you were hiding something, so I say kudos to Bonnie MacKay for her column in the paper. Keep it up and everybody keep calling.

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I was on the park district Web site and saw photos of the various ponds in town. Boy, I wonder when that photo of the Terrace View Pond was taken, because it looks so pristine and smooth and I remember when it really looked like that. I had seen on TV how hotels, resorts, spas, etc. show you their best side through pictures when advertising, only to have travelers see otherwise when they arrive. I think the park district needs to update its photo so people know what the pond really looks like before deciding to take the time to stop by there for a stroll or to fish.

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This is in response to the SPEAK OUT about the Willowbrook graduation that turned into a fiasco. I am also a Willowbrook graduate and when I graduated from Willowbrook, it was announced at the beginning that if there was any ruckus from the spectators or the graduates, the ceremony would be stopped immediately—and the graduate would receive their diploma in the cafeteria. My question is, why didn’t someone who was up there on the stage, from the board of education, somebody, stop the graduation until the ruckus stopped, and announce that if people don’t learn to behave that the graduation would not continue? Why did they let it go on? It’s the officials’ problem, not really the public’s problem, because the public was left to do it. Officials did not stop the ruckus. It should have been stopped; immediately. Somebody’s got to have some guts to stand up and take the initiative.

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Hurray, hurray for Bonnie MacKay, speaking out on Mr. Hulseberg’s ridiculous policy about leaving your name when you call in SPEAK OUT. I will continue to call in SPEAK OUT just as I hope everyone else does with the millions of questions that plague me about the village and what goes on. Everyone keep calling in; hurray, Bonnie MacKay, you said it like a real trooper.

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Lombard calling. While reading a competitive paper, there were a couple of articles in there that were quite interesting. One was about the old bowling alley on Roosevelt Road. The village is now chomping at the bit to get development going there, but right after those guys tore down the bowling alley, Lombard put a moratorium on Roosevelt Road development and held it there long enough that the developers reportedly lost the property. Now Lombard would like to have a development program like what was proposed to them years ago. The second thing is, I find it interesting that District 44 has changed its criteria for grading and will no longer count homework or class participation in the grades; merely tests. It’s like another way for teachers to put in less work for more money. Why would they not count the homework? If the homework doesn’t count, the teacher doesn’t have to grade it.

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This is Lombard calling in answer to everybody complaining that the village is not answering their questions in SPEAK OUT. Why doesn’t everyone simply call the right department—the village hall, public works, water, billing, whatever it is? And if the village is deluged with phone calls, perhaps they will go back to the good way of giving answers in SPEAK OUT.

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Hi, Lombard calling in response to the person who called in about the temporary stop signs on Wilson. First off, they were put up by the village—they go up every summer—because Madison Meadow park is a very popular spot in the summer, with hundreds of baseball games, people playing frisbee tennis, there’s the new skate park and there is no stop sign on Wilson for quite a while once you get past Fairfield, I think it is. I live on Wilson and cars go flying down Wilson; the speed limit’s 30 mph and they going way over 30. I live by the park and there have been numerous accidents by the park because people don’t slow down. There might not be a whole lot of foot traffic, but for the people who are trying to cross with kids, but it is very necessary to have there.

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I’d like to send a great big bravo out to Jesse White and also to the utility superintendent, John Beckwith, who still think it’s important that the public’s questions be answered by the government, not these alleged demagogues who are running the Village of Lombard and have entrenched themselves and been here way too long. An additional shout out to the person unknown who provided the information about the Westin Hotel in the June 15 newspaper. I find that report to be very interesting and I suppose that’s one of the reasons the powers that be in the village don’t want to answer questions. It seems they made this horrible mistake and we’re stuck with it. Thank you, Mr. Mueller; glad you got your name on a ball room.

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Hi, Lombard calling. It was nice to read all the stories in the police blotter about the duckling rescues. It was nice because it was a refreshing departure from the usual stories of burglary, defacement and stupidity. Thanks for sharing.

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Lombard calling. I know Mr. Hulseberg doesn’t want us to know, but does anyone have any information what the cameras are for at Main Street and Maple? They’re up on the light poles facing each direction; one facing north, one facing south. I never noticed them before. They don’t appear to be left-turn cameras. Just wondering, and like I said, you won’t get an answer from the village.

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Hi, America here. I just thought we should say, We’ve got to get Obama out of the White House He wants to turn us into a Communist nation. It’s his dream—remember, born radical, you die radical. That’s all.

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This is Lombard calling. I’d like to know why people are allowed to have free-standing basketball hoops only about 3 feet from the sidewalk. The kids are playing basketball in my driveway. Why is the basketball hoop allowed to be put in a place where they have to play in the neighbor’s driveway, in the neighbor’s yard? They play basketball, baseball, football I have expensive landscaping and they have no regard for it. What kind of rules are there?

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Hi, this is Lombard calling in response to someone calling about an evening walk and a dog attacking him or her. I’m sorry that happened if you got attacked. As a dog owner, I know sometimes my dog gets out and it’s really embarrassing because he doesn’t listen. However, he doesn’t attack but I certainly hope that if someone has an attack dog, the person would have a muzzle on it or actually not own a dangerous dog in the first place. When my dog gets out, he likes to run around and greet people, but I know I would never have a dangerous dog. Again, I’m sorry you got attacked by a dog when you were on your walk, but just remember, dogs get out sometimes and you can’t help it. Keep walking.

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Hello, SPEAK OUT, this is Lombard calling. I’m driving on Main Street and there are so many semis on Main Street now. It appears that many trucks bypass Route 53 and 83 and use Main Street in Lombard as a north/south route. I don’t believe Main Street was designed for semi traffic or the weight of the semis and that’s why the potholes keep coming up and cost so much money to keep fixing those. Maybe a couple hundred bucks spent on some signs that say no trucks on Main Street would save us thousands of dollars on street repairs.

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This is a call from Lombard. I have seen every Lilac Parade for the last 26 years and having been in it at one capacity or another for the last 20 years, I have watched in on the replays on cable TV and I must say that this year’s broadcast of the Lilac Parade was one of the worst editing jobs I have ever seen of the parade. Units were skipped, units were mentioned and half-shown; it was just terrible. Usually it’s a very fine production and good job, but this year the editing was just terrible, I’m sad to say. Hopefully next year it will be done better.

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Hi, this is Lombard calling, driving past the Terrace View Pond and again the sprinklers aren’t on; $18,000 of the taxpayers’ money to put these sprinklers in that don’t work and don’t get turned on; but if you call the village they tell you they’re going to turn them on. Eventually Lombard’s going to run out of money and when jobs get cut, everyone knows what’s going to happen to the money—$18,000 sitting at the bottom of this pond, not to mention the mosuitoes at the bottom of this pond. I’m embarrassed to live in Lombard.

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Lombard calling. As a reply to the authors of “At This Stage” in the Lombardian, I must say whether people have something nice or bad to say, you can’t please everyone. I think a lot of people enjoy your common-sense approach to everyday life and your comments stir people’s thoughts. Unfortunately, a lot of people don’t want to think past their own little personal space. It takes a lot of effort to make a deadline commitment. Keep it going forward.

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Good morning, Lombard. I just wanted to say again, Finley Road, north of Roosevelt, up to the gas company, is just horrible. You need to resurface it. You also need to get rid of the bump on Grace Street right at North Avenue. And, fix the area right past the church north of North Avenue. Please, Lombard.