Hi, I’m from Villa Park and I was wondering why Villa Park is the only community that gets a separate bill after the water bill, the Salt Creek Sanitary District, and what do we get for it? Thank you.

Mamie Yee, economic development director for the Village of Villa Park, explained: “The Village of Villa Park supplies water to our residents and invoices them accordingly. The sanitary sewer flows to the Salt Creek Sanitary District where it is treated and they invoice accordingly. Two separate entities; two separate invoices.”—JAC

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Hi, Lombard, calling. I also want to know how much money we are paying the math and science coordinators in District 44 because we are certainly not wasting our money and our tax dollars. I cannot say enough great things about our math department, science department, our physical education department, our reading and English department, all of them in District 44. We attend one of the six schools and I work inside the school volunteering. I see what all of those teachers do. Anybody who’s complaining about it who is saying how little they have to work, I invite you to follow a teacher around, even for just one week. I guarantee you by Tuesday, you’ll be changing your tune. Thank you all those great teachers in District 44; and District 45. You deserve a shout out, too. You are doing an outstanding job.

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I watched our president give a campaign speech at a plant that makes energy-efficient trucks. Every time our president goes to one of these “green” companies, and he gives a speech, it seems those companies go out of business, like Solyndra. That cost the taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars. You could see the faces of some of those poor workers at the plant where they make those trucks just knowing, “We’re doomed.”

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This is Lombard calling. I was just wondering if the “Bloom-O-Meter” will be returning to the Lombard Web site? It always got me excited about Lilac Time.

You can keep track of the lilacs’ progress, and see a list of Lilac Time festivities, at the Lombard Park District Web site, www.lombardparks.org. As of Monday, March 26, it said “beginning to bud.”—JAC

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The village manager still refuses to answer questions; maybe the village board could help him out? How much money did he spend on the circus called a department head search process to come up empty-handed? Now he is going to wait three months and save up some money to do it again? Where is the accountability? And this way he apparently keeps us distracted from the next payment due on the Westin.

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Are there nominations for the most ridiculous statements ever published in Speak Out? If so, I’d like to nominate the March 21 comment claiming “Illinois has the nation’s 13th largest economy, but ranks 42nd in state spending.” What a crock. Illinois is the nation’s fifth most-populous state, with nearly 13 million residents. Illinois also has the fifth-largest economy of our nation’s 50 states, with a gross domestic product of more than $600 billion. As for being 42nd in state spending, get serious. Is the commenter aware that the state has a multi-billion dollar annual deficit? Is the commenter aware the state has billions of dollars in unpaid bills? Is the commenter aware that Moody’s Investor Service has downgraded Illinois’s credit rating to the lowest of any state in the country? Those are the facts.

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Hi, this is Lombard calling in regard to the union and teacher union bashing that’s been going on lately. It only makes sense that everyone else has pay for their own pensions, put into their own pensions, pay for their own health care. The free ride is over. Look at the economy. I am a union worker myself and I pay my fair share into my own health care and my own pension. When money was good, there were no questions or answers needed, but now money is tight. It’s tight at these unions; our public works and our teachers. Get with the program like the rest of America and regular citizens who work in the private sector. The good days are gone. It’s our money that is spent on you. It should be our say-so. Give in already. It’s time you stepped up and paid your fair share. You make enough money. It’s time to step up and pay your fair share for health care and pensions yourself.

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To the person who thinks Rick Santorum can pull state funding, you must be a teacher. Let me tell you something; he can’t pull state funding. That’s controlled by the state. Federal funding—maybe that would be a good idea. Maybe you teachers would start teaching. You’re a union person who just wants to live off the crisp, high salary and only work nine months out of the year and have more vacation than any person on Earth. You must be a Democrat. Get to work on educating our children and quit complaining that our kids are bratty. I deal with the public on a daily basis. Get a grip. I hope Rick Santorum wins because then you’re right; we won’t have federal funding for teachers and you may have to actually work.

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You’ve got about five or six months before you really get serious about this presidential election and don’t believe the apparent propaganda that is being put out by this administration; oh, the economy’s getting better, the employment picture’s getting better, manufacturing’s getting better. I don’t think they are getting better; I think they are fudging the figures any way they can to distort the truth to the people. Things are not getting better. Things are going to get worse and I want to tell you people—mark my words. I have lived through the Depression in the 1920s and I can see what’s going on and don’t believe all these seeming lies that things are getting better. Do not put the same man back in office.

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Hello, Lombard. I walk my kids to school daily and I am tired of seeing dog waste all over the sidewalks. One day, it was even on the playground at school. I think pet owners need to be responsible for cleaning up after their own pets. Feces on the sidewalk is a health concern and can spread roundworms, hookworms and other zoonotic parasites. That means your kids could get worms. I think the whole community should be on the lookout for people leaving waste on the sidewalk, and please don’t hesitate to call 9-1-1 to your community service officer to report these violations so that the pet owners can be held accountable for their actions. Thank you.

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Lombard calling. Gron, Mueller and Hulseberg get a lot of bad rap. I, for one, think it’s wonderful; as a resident of the old downtown area, by the old train station, it’s great what all of these men have done. We tore down buildings and put in more parking for the commuter trains. That’s more parking for people from Wheaton and Glen Ellyn to use. That’s awesome; they figured out how to bring in tax dollars from other towns. Under their fine leadership, our downtown is vacant. It is a ghost town. Our opportunities are endless because of that. We can have all kinds of businesses move in because we have vacant buildings. Look at Wheaton’s and Elmhurst’s downtowns. They don’t have those vacant buildings. They have businesses in them so their opportunities for new businesses are slim and none. I think it’s great what they did. Hey guys, thumbs up.

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To the person who complained about the news coverage of Rod Blagojevich going off to prison, of course there’s other news going on in the world. But this is big news here. You sound like the caller who also complains about the weather people on TV who are telling us what the weather is going to be. I have an idea; quit watching the news and you won’t get so upset.

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Some of the campaign literature I saw and read criticized the Obamacare health program. The politicians who were distributing the aforementioned campaign literature seem to conveniently forget that their medical costs are paid for by—you guessed it—the taxpayers. Case in point involves two members of Congress, i.e. the legislator from Arizona who was shot several times and required 24/7 medical attention and subsequent therapy. All paid for by the taxpayers. Another legislator from Illinois experienced a stroke resulting in partial paralysis. All of his 24/7 treatment and therapies, once again, all paid for by the taxpayers. In both instances, the treatments will be ongoing indefinitely and the costs will be paid for by the taxpayers.

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I’m a longtime Lombardian and I read the weekly calls that people call in, back and forth on the teachers, their salaries, the local agendas people seem to have regarding the president, Republicans and Democrats; however, what I’m calling about today is all that’s basically a bunch of nonsense. However, when I came into Lombard from the east side on Roosevelt and on the north side there were all these local signs, all these politicians—vote for this one, vote for that one—literally hundreds of signs, it was embarrassing to be a Lombardian. It looked like a third-world country. I travel a lot in the area and there is no village or township that has signage that is so tacky as when you come into Lombard. All I’m going to say is to the village officials and all these people, if you want to do something, get out there and pull all these signs out of the ground and clean up Lombard. It’s an embarrassment to our village.

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Could someone please explain to me why, why, why on the voting ballots there was Spanish? For the life of me, I just can’t understand this. We live in DuPage County; we seemed to for decades escape the left-wing-California way of thinking that we have to kowtow to every single foreigner who comes here, even though they can’t apparently read English—which makes me wonder how much of an informed vote they could possibly cast. Now we have to put it in another language on the ballot. This is the nonsense. This is why we’re paying almost $5 a gallon for gas. This is why we’re hated around the world. We just don’t have the fortitude to say enough is enough. I used to love DuPage County. Now it’s time for me and my feet to bail on this county. Spanish on the ballot. Unbelievable.

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Good job, Lombard. The company you hired to prune the trees is absolutely excellent. They aren’t butchering the trees; they’re also cleaning up after themselves. Very efficient. I’m very impressed. Thank you.

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My family came over on the boat, as the expression goes. I would go shopping with my grandfather; he wanted to know what people were saying. I was the interpreter. At home we spoke our language. Outside the home, English—only English. If we start printing things in Spanish, then do it German, Polish and whatever other nationality comes up. Stop. Please stop. This is America.

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To all of you people who constantly bash school teachers, I’d like to see one of you trade jobs with a teacher for a whole school year and see if you have the same opinion you have now. Until you’ve walked in someone else’s shoes, you really have no right to criticize what a teacher does. In Sweden, teachers are regarded the same as doctors and lawyers. They’re treated with respect, unlike people in the United States who, for some reason, think of them with disdain. They are shaping your children’s futures just as much as you are. Walk in their footsteps.

SPEAKING OUT FOR 25 YEARS

The following comments are reprinted from the March 28, 1990, SPEAK OUT column in celebration of SPEAK OUT’s 25th year.

You know what makes me crazy? People who still have up all their Christmas decorations and here it is March. Why don’t all of you people take down you reindeer, your candy canes, your weathered wreaths and put them away and put up your spring decorations?

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I’m taking the opportunity in the SPEAK OUT column to thank these three gentlemen and the wife and family of one of them in assisting me when my car stalled Sunday morning on the south end of the Main Street viaduct on my way to church. The men pushed my car out of the way of traffic and the wife and family did an errand for me. I thank each of you for your help and concern. May God bless you.

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You are hearing a lot about landfills filling up lately and I’ve got what I think is a rather good idea. Since a lot of people don’t recycle, someone has to do it for them. I think there should be a huge landfill recycling plant and all the garbage would go through the plant first on conveyor belts and the paper, plastic, glass, aluminum, metal, etc. would be separated by machines or by employees and I think this would reduce a lot of the landfill problems and also create jobs and help with the recycling. Thank you. Bye, bye.

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I notice the village and park district have combined taxpayers’ money to spend $40,000 for a showmobile so the politicians have a good seat for the parade and so forth. Strange, we have $40,000 to blow on something we don’t need, but we cannot fix up our own Prairie Path that is used constantly by adults and children. Why can’t we have a Prairie Path like Villa Park which is actually a park? Thank you very much.

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Yes, I’d just like to say to the lady who is complaining about the teachers’ wages that they’re the ones who are putting your kids through school, getting them into colleges, starting their career. What would you do without teachers? They are the future for everybody. Thank you.