Readers will notice that questions pertaining to the Village of Lombard all have the same response. According to a memorandum on village board policy, which is to be voted upon tomorrow, May 19, “It is against this village policy to acknowledge or respond to any item that is from an anonymous source.” While the village board did vote on a village board policy on Thursday, May 5, it apparently was not this policy. A village memo from Dave Hulseberg reads, “Attached is a copy of the Communications Response Policy. The incorrect policy was inadvertently attached and passed at the May 5, 2011, village board meeting. We are asking for the village board to adopt this policy.” Trustees actually are scheduled to vote on the policy Thursday night. According to a memorandum for the upcoming vote, the purpose of the policy is to provide consistent and accurate responses to questions from the public, media and other individuals regarding village matters. As for procedures and guidelines, the memo states, “All Village of Lombard employees or representatives will only respond to questions, statements, accusations or other written information that are signed and identified by the author. It is against this village policy to acknowledge or respond to any item that is from an anonymous source.” All questions regarding the matters of the village may be addressed to the village manager’s office at: Village of Lombard, Village Manager’s Office, 255 E. Wilson, Lombard, IL 60148; or e-mailed to hulsebergd@villageoflombard.org.—blm

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I’m from Lombard and I’m wondering, as we try to rebuild and enhance our downtown area, why we come across as so unfriendly in terms of letting people park in the train parking spot. My friend, who’s from Winfield and takes the train every day from there, wanted to park in Lombard so she could pick me up after she got off the train at the end of the day and take me somewhere, since I’ve had surgery, and there were huge signs saying Lombard parking only. So, she was afraid, and went to Elmhurst, whose downtown is obviously more highly developed. If somebody could get an answer to this, that would be great. I think it’s a sad thing to discourage people from parking daily in our town.

SPEAK OUT received the following response from Joelyn Kott, communications coordinator for the Village of Lombard: “Anyone with questions regarding the village should contact the village hall at 630-620-5700 for assistance. It is against village policy to acknowledge or respond to any item that is from an anonymous source, as was approved by the board of trustees at its May 5 meeting.”—JAC

Today is May 5. I wanted to know if anyone else saw what happened in the intersection of Main and St. Charles when the unmarked police car almost caused several accidents, went against traffic, weaving in and out, then did a routine traffic stop. There was no reason for this. He could have killed someone. It was a routine traffic stop.

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Hello. This is in response to SPEAK OUT about Dan Cronin not addressing fiscal policy. Well, listen to this. Where has he started? He has started on the workers of DuPage County—not the union, because the union has received increases all along—but those who do the daily work for the county, dealing with PADS, nonprofits, the homeless. Their salaries had been frozen for two years. Not a single increase for two years. So, who does he start with first? The county workers, not those who belong to a union—they get theirs—and not the county board. They get health benefits, they get a pension and they have had increases in their wages. Only two board members have denied the increases and haven’t taken them. So, make sure you know what you’re talking about when you call.

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You know, there are a lot of police departments in suburban areas complaining that we don’t get the grants from Washington, D.C., like we used to, to run our different departments. What they don’t understand is, grants are just another way to say, We don’t get the tax dollars. There’s nothing free in this country; somebody has to work for it, somebody has to pay for it and it has to come out of somebody’s paycheck. The police departments are just as guilty as people who come into this country who think they can get everything for free, when they don’t get the grants. Pay attention to what’s going on or this country’s going to go bankrupt and you will lose everything you have.

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Lombard calling. I’d like to have the Lombard Police Department explain to me how a guy from Westmont can get arrested for DUI, driving with a suspended license, speeding, no insurance and use of unsafe tires; and arrested on an outstanding warrant in Lombard at 2 a.m. How does a guy get arrested like this and charged, and then merely released? I’d like to have the police department explain this to me.

Anyone with questions regarding the village should contact the village hall at 630-620-5700 for assistance. It is against village policy to acknowledge or respond to any item that is from an anonymous source, as was approved by the board of trustees at its May 5 meeting.—JAC

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As I was driving down St. Charles Road toward downtown Lombard, I saw that the Walgreens was advertising theater candy for sale; how funny, since there isn’t the theater in downtown Lombard anymore. Our village founders, our village leaders, in their ultimate wisdom, decided to put all of their eggs into the convention center basket, which is now losing money at a terribly fast rate. How soon before it starts costing the taxpayers millions upon millions of dollars?

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Driving past the village hall I see there is a portable electronic message board telling us to buckle up. What a great use of money in this tough economy. Glad the village is cutting back. How much did that toy cost us taxpayers?

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To all the volunteer coaches who take the time and energy to coach park district sports programs—I commend you. It is a thankless job, but one that my family has appreciated throughout my children’s youth. And to the coaches who take it way too seriously—the screamers—and only want to win, coach travel sports.

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Now that the rebonding of the Westin hotel bonds did not go through, what happens next? No spin, no stories, straight up, can you get an answer? And who is ultimately going to be held accountable?

Anyone with questions regarding the village should contact the village hall at 630-620-5700 for assistance. It is against village policy to acknowledge or respond to any item that is from an anonymous source, as was approved by the board of trustees at its May 5 meeting.—JAC

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Please give more people more information on the recall committee. Also, citizens have to get more involved in the continual tax increases. Local leadership must be made to represent us and respond.

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The SPEAK OUT comments on May 11 are ridiculous. In response to the P.E. teacher hater, I’m only going to explain this to you one more time. Those P.E. teachers who make $125,000 a year don’t work seven hours a day, nine months a year. They coach several sports and put in 12-14-hour days. They coach summer leagues and camps in the summer and that is added to their total salary. That’s added to their total salary; that’s your $125,000. If you love your job, I’m happy. Learn the facts and leave us alone. We teachers are not asking you to give us more. We just want what we were promised and what we paid into. To the person who challenges us to deal with 25 customers, we have to keep many people happy too, or we will lose our job. We have loads of curriculum to teach, parents breathing down our necks—especially parents who aren’t doing their parenting at home—administrators throwing new things at us and the school board to deal with, not to mention you, the misinformed public, spewing out opinions and lies about us. To the employer in town, we’re not getting uppity. Let me reiterate. We just want our investment the state of Illinois mismanaged.

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I’m a Lombard resident and I just wanted to say that I was very disappointed in the pictures for the Lilac Queen. I know color pictures are rather expensive, but I think in fairness to her, in all the other years we’ve had color pictures, at least for the dance, or for when she was picked as queen. I don’t understand why there was no color picture. I think that was very unfair to our new queen, so I am disappointed in your coverage of the queen. Please rectify the problem for next year, because I think the queen is being cheated out of her color pictures.

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Lombard calling. If Mr. Roskam would do his homework, he would discover that the spike in gas prices is caused by speculation from giant financial houses on Wall Street. such as Goldman Sachs. These people are not our buddies, unless, of course, you are a Republican congressman.

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Hi, Lombard calling. I’d like to know from the police department, there is a car with an expired temporary license plate, and I know the police usually check around to see if they have the Lombard sticker. It expired on October 2010. It’s in a parking lot and has a car jack and something wrong with the tire. I’m wondering what the police can do about that to get rid of that car.

Anyone with questions regarding the village should contact the village hall at 630-620-5700 for assistance. It is against village policy to acknowledge or respond to any item that is from an anonymous source, as was approved by the board of trustees at its May 5 meeting.—JAC

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Hi, this is Villa Park calling. I was just reading the article about all the problems that residents of Villa Park are having with South Villa Avenue and I am a resident who lives north of the tracks in the Plymouth/Ardmore area. Our bridge was closed in 2008; that’s a main vein into the village. They’re expecting to get bids in August 2011. Where was all the uproar about that? We also have all of Plymouth and all of Vermont under construction right now and the fire department around the block, they’ve gone somewhere else. So, I’m not sure why the uproar and indignation wasn’t around or sounded for that bridge that’s a main vein for Villa Park for their commerce, and where the uproar is now. Sorry about the hardships for the people on South Villa Avenue, but it’s a little bit ridiculous to me.

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This is Lombard calling and I was just reviewing my tax bill. I’d like to know how it’s possible that the school districts, both 44 and 87, were allowed to raise the tax rate by over 5 percent. School District 44 raised their basic rate by 11 1/2 percent from last year. Regardless of the tax assessment of the house, which is a joke in itself, please explain to me how School District 44 was able to raise the tax rate by 11 1/2 percent over last year and School District 87 was allowed to raise the rate by 9 1/2 percent. My understanding was they couldn’t raise it more than 5 percent, so can someone explain this to me, because I’d like to have that kind of raise, too.

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This is about the recently received bill for our real estate taxes. It seems to me that the senior freeze is melting. Take the prior year tax bill and compare with this year. The assessed value went down—oh sure, times have changed a lot and your house value decreases—but they took the difference out of the senior freeze to make up for it. And then that new tax rate. My tax bill is $528.18 higher than last year. I am a 70-year-old lady—widow—and live on Social Security, which hasn’t increased in two years. I think this is ridiculous.

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Lombard calling. Just wanted to do a reminder; if you have WiFi at your home, make sure you have it locked down. I especially noticed this—various parts all over Lombard are hosting various athletic events and there are a lot of spectators who use Smart Phones and their Smart Phone detects your WiFi, and a lot of times, if you don't have it locked down, the person can tap into your computer system. I encourage everybody in Lombard to lock your WiFi.

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Hi, Lombard calling. I noticed that several people are responding to the high property tax increase. I noticed it on my tax bill also. What I also noticed is that it went to our schools, which are some of the best in DuPage County, which my children attend. One thing we thought of is that we live in a great neighborhood; when our children are done using the school we’re thinking we’re going to downsize and move away. Let another family come in and take advantage of these schools that are wonderful. Also, the library, a couple of people mentioned that it is antiquated. Well, guess what? We need some money to bring it into this century and they’re doing a great job over there. I’d be happy to pay for it. Yes, it’s about $200 on my tax bill; why don’t you go check out 10 books a year? Guess what? That will pay for it, because books are about that price if you want to go buy them. Do yourself a favor. Take advantage of some of these great things our property taxes are paying for, including that wonderful pool. A pool pass is not that expensive because of our property taxes.

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I’m just calling to enlighten your reader about teachers’ pensions. First think most people aren’t aware that teachers cannot collect Social Security; even if we paid into it with other jobs, we don’t get it. And we cannot collect on spousal Social Security either. When I became a teacher, I had to give 8 percent of my salary to the retirement system. I was not given the option to choose an amount—it was automatic. I did not have a choice how my money was invested. It is not my fault that the state mismanaged my money, I would be happy to get all my money back and invest it on my own. So if you want to take away my pension, give me my money back. If you cannot give it back, you cannot take it away.