Please, please, please Rick Soderstrom. I heard you were considering running for village trustee again. Please announce that it is true. Lombard needs you back. If I have to listen to Bill Ware stammer and mumble at any more board meetings I think I will die. I would rather burn the roof of my mouth eating a hot slice of Gianorio’s Pizza than to have to endure another meeting with Bill Ware as a trustee. Please, Rick. come back.

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Hi again. In Lombard when it snows a lot, like recently, the snow plows on St. Charles and Main Street always form a nice snowy median strip in the middle of the road. What makes this bad is that at a corner where there is a left turn lane (such as Maple Street at Main) the left turn lane is packed with snow from the plowing. So if anyone wants to turn left there, the other drivers in the left lane have to wait for the turner. This causes heavy congestion on Main, where if the plows would completely plow the streets, it would be fine. I wish the plows would stop creating this snow-covered median strip on the main roads, and plow the whole road so traffic wouldn’t be so snarled.

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My wife is a teacher and I am a cubicle jockey working in the mines of corporate America. I make close to what my wife does and granted, she has about four months off a year and very good benefits. So, the debate rages in my household. The class warfare that has ignited between the working class private and public sector employees is ridiculous if you think about it. It pits underpaid and overworked private sector employees against public sector employees. The disparity in public sector worker salaries—that have kept pace with inflation over time—and the private sector creates an argument that the public sector employees should receive less. To me that sounds like a race to the bottom. Maybe the focus should not be middle class versus middle class; maybe the anger is focused in the wrong direction. Maybe we need less golden parachutes in the private sector and better pay for private sector employees, better distribution of wealth through a better tax code and better treatment of the middle class private sector employees.

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Trustee Bullwinkel seems to feel the need to comment on nearly every single issue. Of course, as an elected official she has a right to comment, as do the other members of the village board. But you don’t hear the other board members constantly chime in to reiterate some words of congratulations or condolence that have already been offered. It’s quite annoying.

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Hi, this is a Lombard resident calling to thank the good neighbors that I have. I had two young neighbors from across the street, younger than I, shovel my driveway, shovel my whole sidewalk. Another man, a different guy, has been picking up my Sunday paper because I can’t manage to grab it with two hands anymore, and putting it on my front stoop. I guess they know who there are. It’s no complaint; I’m just very grateful to all three of them.

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Hello, I just drove by the log cabin at Four Seasons Park and I was wondering why the volleyball net is still up in the winter. Does anyone play winter volleyball? It would make sense to me that maybe someone in the park district would put it away for the season and then put it back out in the summer.

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Recently in SPEAK OUT a teacher called in and wanted to defend teachers, stating that if it takes a teacher 25 years to make $100,000, good for them because in the private sector that’s only one promotion away. This person is out of touch with reality. Under Barack Obama, the median income in the United States is $46,000. These are numbers you can look up; they are not thrown out willy nilly like this person would like to say. If you make $107,000 a year you are in the top 5 percent of earners in the country. If this person thinks everybody who makes $100,000 in the private sector is only one promotion away, he or she is a teacher and that person is delusional. Folks, 95 percent of the people in this country will never make $100,000, even if they work 100 years. And yes, the teachers and their exorbitant pensions are what is bankrupting this state, period.

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Republican Ron Sandack was selected by his party to fill the remaining term of Sen. Dan Cronin, now president of the DuPage County Board. Mr. Sandack’s letter in the Lombardian regarding the fiscal health in the state of Illinois implies that the Democratic Party is responsible for the enormous indebtedness in the state. One of his fellow Republican senators, Kirk Dillard, states in his campaign literature that he has never voted for a major tax increase as a senator. You will recall that during the Republican governor Jim Edgar’s term of office, Dillard was his chief of staff. Edgar was also Illinois secretary of state, which enabled him to enjoy two state pensions at a yearly cost to the taxpayers of $300,000. Likewise he will enjoy two state pensions at a cost of several hundred thousand dollars of taxpayers’ money for life. And it goes on and on.

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Villa Park calling. Don’t know who is on the committee to pick the best fire hydrant decorations, but it sure wasn’t a good call. Some really good ones were left out and some really poor ones were added. Sorry about that.

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Hello, Villa Park and Lombard. I’d like to challenge all the residents who call SPEAK OUT to go ahead and post something positive for once. Everyone has something positive to say, either to be thankful or to be happy about something. Please post positively. I’m tired of all the negativity.

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I would like to thank the village board for voting to fund the Lombard Town Centre. It’s been a slow process but within the last year or so, we’ve seen a lot of improvements happening, and that doesn’t just happen overnight. It takes a lot of cultivating, relationship-building and partnering with a lot of people in order to get those vacant buildings filled. With regard to speaking toward the survey, I don’t think that’s a great way to judge your decisions. That was a cop-out and if you were looking to the survey for your answer, I think that was the wrong way to go about it.

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Hello, I am just wanting to suggest something if they’re looking for a new road to fix for this coming year. There’s a big suggestion to fix the road, I believe it’s High Ridge, the one that’s right by Willowbrook. There are a lot of potholes and holes in that road. It’s not too safe by Willowbrook and the Muslim School. We’d really appreciate it if they got work done.

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Lombard calling. It is ironic that we have the greatest country in the world. Other countries desire to have a democracy but we are willing to have a president who wants to lead us into socialism or communism. Go figure.

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Hey, Lombard. I did some research on the teacher thing that keeps going back and forth and I’m not sure if it’s 100 percent accurate but let’s just lay out some facts that I’ve found. Teachers in the state of Illinois average around $50,000 a year. Not great, not bad. However, what I did find is once you make tenure, your salary could go $100,000, to $125,000. So, this sad argument that teachers just don’t make any money just isn’t true. I give you that teachers probably don’t make a lot of money the first couple of years they get out of college and are teaching. However, that is made up for later on over the years and let’s be honest. Teachers, because of the teachers union, get a 4, 5 percent in their union contract every year. I don’t know about you, the last time I got a 5 percent increase in salary was a long time ago.

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This is a message for SPEAK OUT. The people of Lombard need to take back control of their village. We’re mad about poor management, decisions made day after day. Enough is enough. When will it end, as the saying goes? Lombardians need to call their elected officials and tell them to be more responsible for the people they hire to run things, the trustees, the village president. Promise to keep things and do things in the best interest of the people. Let us hold them to it now. Next is the next election. Beware. Meet the people.

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Repeat. The Lombard village manager and his staff prefer to use the gag rule and not respond to forums exposed to the public at large. They seem to have run out of answers and do not want to be held accountable. Most of the comments in SPEAK OUT don’t seem to have much misinformation and are straightforward. Many of us taxpayers wonder how much Mr. Hulseberg and the village finance director spent for the outside consultant to run interference and soften the bad news of the Westin hotel decisions. John Q Public seems to be getting smarter.

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Hello, ladies and gentlemen. I wonder if some of you people have been wondering what I have been wondering: All these dictators around the world are being held to task and then they are removed, and many are being asked to go. Why is nothing ever mentioned about Fidel Castro and his brother to liberate Cuba? This is right in our own hemisphere. Something’s wrong somewhere. Why is nothing being mentioned about the wrongs Fidel Castro and his brother have done to the Cubans? Maybe some of you people have an answer. I’d like to read it.

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The last time I went to a store to buy some super glue, I had to show identification. I thought that was unusual, but it didn’t bother me too much. Now I hear some people saying it’s racist to have to present an ID when you show up to vote. Let me get this straight. I have to show an ID when I buy super glue, but I shouldn’t have to show ID when I vote. Ridiculous.

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Hi, this is Villa Park. I’ve got to tell you something about President Obama’s so-called idea of back to work. He’s gotten a lot of people back to work but it’s only part-time positions. That’s why everybody’s working and we’ve got about a 1-percent increase in people going to work.