This is Lombard calling. Recently someone called in SPEAK OUT saying teachers don’t make more than the average worker and all you have to do is look in the parking lot at the high school and they’re all rust buckets. Well, Sam Walton, multibillionaire, drove an old Chevy pickup truck that was a rust bucket. Perhaps this person should go look at the salaries at Glenbard East High School. Yes, the average teacher makes quite a bit more than the average worker does. The median income in the United States is $47,000 a year. We have guys teaching kids how to play basketball who make $125,000 a year. The average teacher’s pension is 60 percent higher than the private sector, so yes, these teachers make a boatload-more money than people in the private sector and as far as substituting for one day, no problem. That is a piece of cake. Why don’t you try being a road worker when it’s 100 degrees out, shoveling dirt on the side of the road and see what tough work is? Substitute teaching for a day? Give me a break.

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I would like to congratulate Village President Bill Mueller and trustees Giagnorio and Breen for having a good discussion at the last village board meeting when a very important issue related to funding of the Lombard Town Centre was on the agenda. Mueller, Giagnorio and Breen each brought forth some great points about the issue. We need to see more open discussion about key issues and it was refreshing to see those three representatives of our village put politics aside and engage in a good discussion last week.

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I know the village won’t respond to SPEAK OUT calls, and there have been a number of calls about the Westin debacle and other topics that likely contain some degree of misinformation on the callers’ part. I would hope that the village would not let that misinformation fester but instead would at least write a letter to the editor or otherwise rebut what people are saying if it is incorrect; in other words, set the record straight and defend themselves. We can’t rely on callers to always get it right, so if their opinion is based on not getting the facts right, the village should let us know.

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I am growing wearisome of trustee Zachary Wilson’s antics at board meetings. At the last meeting Trustee Wilson made comments about wasteful spending and pensions; however Wilson himself must have a pension from his time with the state police. He also collects a small salary for his “volunteer job” as a Lombard trustee. He is on the ballot for a seat on the county board. If elected he can become eligible for another taxpayer- funded pension. Mr Wilson does not practice what he preaches. I can see right through him.

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I, too, disagree with the caller who said Cruise Nights are the blame for the demise of Bona Pizza. I have, or had, been a steady customer of theirs for over 10 years, since I moved here. I live in the Park Avenue Condos, so I simply walk to their place to pick up my pizza, except when it's too cold out, then I drive. I bet a lot of their business was walk-ins like me. Plus people get pizza delivered too. In fact I would bet Bona did a good business during Cruise Nights, selling pizza by the slice. Anyway I will miss Bona Pizza greatly.

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Lombard calling. Does anybody on this board really think the Village of Lombard citizens will vote to let them negotiate with Commonwealth Edison? We let them negotiate with Waste Management and the Westin Hotel. Is that a negotiation, how they want us to allow them to set our electric rates? Very good idea.

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The village meetings are very short at times; the longer meetings seem to go on forever. The long meetings seem to be Trustee Ware giving his narrative of what the TV viewers already see going on. If the board has an award for the most time saying the least, Trustee Ware will win hands down. You have to agree with his own cliché: “When will it end? Enough is enough.”

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After reading articles in the Lombard Pride about the Westin, it makes one wonder why Mr. Hulseberg and his staff had to hire an advisory service to take an independent and fresh look at the Westin deal. There didn’t seem to be that much information to the public when he pushed the project through in the first place. While sifting through ways to cut the budget down, it would do well for Mr. Hulseberg to start with his own department.

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During the recent Friday storm, I saw the best and worst in people. While driving north on 53, two lanes of cars let me make a left turn at a stop light past North Avenue—of course they were pretty much stuck there anyway. Likewise, when I needed to turn right at the same light to get back onto 53, someone let me in. However, I was stuck in the far right lane and needed to get in the middle. I tried to find a gap in traffic and put on my turn signal, hoping the person would let me in. That didn’t happen. The man didn’t even slow down—just kept going. I made it past North Avenue and someone did let me merge into the left lane. I, in turn, let someone merge in front of me when the street turned into one lane. I guess you just can’t figure some people. I think it’s important to help each other in situations like this.

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Hello, Lombard. Anyone who works in the public or private sector, union or non-union, should be paid for the time they put in. I imagine elected officials who can’t be bothered to show up for the board meetings and work less than they were elected to do, will no doubt collect their salary.

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School districts throughout Illinois and the country continue to cut or freeze teachers’ salaries or benefits because of the decrease in tax dollars. Teacher lay-offs are increasing in record numbers, causing by necessity larger class sizes. Emphasis is being placed on consolidating school districts into unit districts to save administrative costs. Elmhurst’s unit district has been recognized as one of the top 50 school districts throughout Illinois because of its achievement scores on the state test. No other school districts in DuPage County were listed. Parent groups are taking school board members to court on malpractice charges for lack of fiduciary responsibility in their oversight of school district expenditures.

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This is how I know this country is finished; it’s going down the tubes. The amount of bashing we put forth toward our educational system and our teachers is mind-boggling. People like Paul Ryan and Mitt Romney have us bashing teachers and firemen and cutting back on essential services while we’re all sitting here arguing about how much a teacher makes? These rich 1-percenters are carving into your Medicare, your Medicaid; basically all of the government systems that have worked for the last 50 years, 100 years, whatever, they’re carving them up. We’re not paying attention because we’re worried about Susie’s school teacher getting three weeks off? It’s ridiculous.

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A word of wisdom from Mark Twain, and I quote, “In the first place, God made idiots, and that was for practice. Then he made politicians.”

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Hi, this is Lombard calling and I’d just like to say I appreciate the job the Lombard police have done but after reading the Sunday Tribune a couple of weekends ago—where they were talking about speeding tickets are down in the whole area and when talking to the police chief of Lombard he said it’s because they lost officers—I don’t know. I don’t think that’s true. I’d like to see them radar more on Main Street, especially. People drive way too fast and I’ve lived in this town almost all my life. I’m 58 years old and I remember when they’d pull you over for the slightest thing—no turn signal, speeding. It seems like now, you drive by the police station and all you see is the cars there all the time. You don’t see that many police on the road anymore and I really think that’s why the people are driving badly in this town. It’s not safe.

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The oil pipeline—Krauthammer said it was the most studied proposal we had and the state department signed off on this twice already. The pipeline has had three years of study. The studies found the oil line could be ecologically sound with no harmful effects. The fact is, there are 35,000 miles of pipe there now; so much for pristine, Mr. President. Ridiculous. Obama seems to make false excuses because he needs the vote of the environmentally kooky base. And when are you the people, and the media, going to see and expose all the untruths?

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Hey, Villa Park, why don’t you get Addison to clean the streets? They seem to know how to do it. I forgot; you guys are under the Obama regime. Well, you’ve got an excuse.

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I’m calling in response to the person who was asking people to take down our Christmas decorations. Why are we so concerned with what other people are doing? They pay to live in their house; they should be able to enjoy their decorations as long as they like. We should have no say in how long they have their Christmas decorations up. If they want to enjoy the views of the holidays, let them enjoy the views. They pay for their houses and so do you, so stop worrying about what they do.

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To the person who thinks it takes 25 years as a teacher to make $100,000, there are teachers at Glenbard East in their early 40s making more than $100,000. I’m not a mathematician, but that’s not 25 years. Of course, I’m not a teacher either.

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This is Lombard calling in regard to all the SPEAK OUT messages on Wednesday, Jan. 18, about Cruise Nights being blamed for Bona Pizza’s closing. It is not true. First of all, the Village of Lombard and Cruise Nights did everything to be able to have available parking in front of their place and other things to be able to assist them. Number one, they had the opportunity for years at Cruise Nights having a booth selling hamburgers, hot dogs and everything else on Park Boulevard where the bands and DJ were. Number two, when Bona was closing on Saturday nights in the front saying it was Cruise Night’s fault, they were still making pizzas and delivering from the back without anybody knowing about it. I just want to make this clear that Cruise Nights was not the reason for Bona Pizza closing.

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Bravo, Bonnie MacKay. Thank you so much for shedding light on the budget hearing that the village is involved in, and you’re right. For some reason or other they don’t want to televise that. They don’t want transparency; they just want to talk about it. Probably not even 100 people in town other than the elected officials who know this is even going on. Thanks for bringing it out. I hope we can get them to put this thing on TV.

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Regarding the Jan. 18 editorial cartoon relating to recess appointments by the Executive Branch of the federal government, I am not sure who is meant to be depicted, but if it is Obama, then let’s set the record straight. He has the constitutional right to make such appointments, when Congress is in recess, which appears to happen more and more frequently. This Constitution is the exact document these Tea Party activists feel should dictate our president’s actions. Bush made considerably more appointments in that same time period. If Congress is offended then they need to get back to Washington and earn their considerable paychecks so they, as our representatives in Washington, can express their opinions. I for one, feel my tax dollars going to their paychecks is like money down the toilet. Want to fix the deficit? Maybe we should look at what these people are really worth and make some cuts in their paychecks. At an 11 percent approval rating, maybe Congress should be paying us.

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This is Lombard calling. By now we’ve all seen the president singing and it’s funny how the media is swooning all over him singing. In three years he’s played 90 rounds of golf. He’s gone on vacation in three years more than any other president in the history of the United States. This means living like a king when the actual unemployment rate in the United States is almost 17 percent. Folks, I don’t get this guy. He tells us that he wants to empower the middle class; how about we empower all people in the United States? Let’s drop the class warfare. We want to empower people; 43 percent of the people in the United States pay no income tax. Let’s empower them and start making them pay income tax. That way they’re not jut feeding off the trough for free; they could be part of the process. That’s called empowerment. I do agree we need fairness in taxes in this country. Time for the 43 percent to step up and join the rest of the club. I am a middle class person who works his tail off and I am tired of supporting 43 percent of the people in this country.

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I’ve heard it all now, I really have. This is to the person who said we should keep Barack Obama in office because George Bush lost 750,000 jobs the last month he was in office. Are you kidding? Are you truly kidding? George Bush may not have been the greatest president in the world, I’ll give you that, but my gosh, you’d rather keep someone in office who’s kept unemployment above 8 percent, who’s spent more money than any other president in this world, who just asked for $1.6 trillion more to raise the debt ceiling, who says the pipeline can’t be built that would create over 20,000 jobs? Are you serious?