Would someone please fix the traffic lights at St. Charles Road and Elizabeth? The light for traffic going south on Elizabeth remains red for an unusually long length of time, not even allowing traffic to at least turn left onto St. Charles Road. By correcting this, it would allow traffic to continue through the downtown Lombard business area, which just may help increase a bit more interest in this shopping area. As the trustee in District 1 lives in the near vicinity, surely he should be aware of this issue; yet nothing has been done, which seems to be the norm in this district—or do we have to wait until April for a change in leadership?

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This is Lombard calling with some food for thought. If you have two yappy dogs that bark non-stop you leave outside because they annoy you with their barking when they’re inside, don’t buy a third dog. Be a responsible owner and train your dogs or get rid of them.

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Hi, this is a Lombard resident calling. I read on Page 3 of the Oct. 31 issue of the Lombardian that this Veterans Day ceremony has been changed from Veterans Day to Nov. 12. Veterans Day is on Nov. 11 every year, even when that day’s a Sunday. As a Vietnam-era veteran, it’s an offense to me and other vets to make a change for convenience’ sake, or is there another reason? What other special occasion day should be changed? Should we make Thanksgiving the fourth Monday? Christmas? Yeah, make it on a Monday. Let’s honor our military personnel on Veterans Day, Nov. 11, and not on Nov. 12.

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This is Villa Park calling. To the person or persons who destroyed my Mitt Romney signs at my home last night, it won’t change my support for Mitt Romney and you are a coward to come in the night to do this. There are many ways to support President Obama, but this is not one of them. By the way, I’m a lifelong Democrat and we need a change in this country.

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Hi, this is Villa Park calling. For several months now, the trains around lunchtime in Villa Park have been there for 15 minutes and this is not an exaggeration. Aren’t there any laws or anything the politicians can do? There are no viaducts in Villa Park and it’s really cumbersome on people trying to make a time limit.

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Let’s have the Democrats Joe Biden and Barack Obama tell us how many millions they have and how much in taxes they paid. If you’re going to insist that the Republicans do that, then Democrats, you do the same thing. Tell us how much money, Joe, you and Barack Obama made,huh? Tell us how much you paid in taxes and also tell us how much you give to the poor. Let us see what your picture looks like.

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I wanted to find out about the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009 that President Obama signed into place. Does anybody know that this act doesn’t guarantee fair wages? All this act does, and I quote, "raise the statute of limitations for filing an equal pay lawsuit regarding pay discrimination and resets with each paycheck affected by this act." So, it doesn’t guarantee anybody fair pay unless they’re filing a lawsuit. So how is that making it fair pay? Then I did a little research and one network does not pay its female reporters the same as the male reporters. Why doesn’t the Lilly Ledbetter Act make them pay more? Because it doesn’t. It’s a lawsuit act. It doesn’t make anybody pay more.

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Hi, live on Finley Road and must park on Edson during the road construction. Yesterday my car was hit. I don’t know who did it or when it happened. Why, oh, why is everyone in such a hurry going down Finley Road during construction hours and going the wrong way? I’m told Edson is now an Indianapolis 500 speedway. Cars are not stopping to cross over Wilson, not letting residents out of their driveway and going over the speed limit. Be a little courteous. My car has some damage, but if this continues, there could be a major accident and someone could get hurt.

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Hi, Lombard calling. The other day there was a strange occurrence. There was a vehicle, a strange-looking little car, with yellow and green and a Google insignia on the side and strange-looking apparatuses extending perhaps 7 feet over the roof. It contained a helmet and a mobile camera apparently for the purpose of taking pictures for Google Map in our neighborhood. On our wonderful block of North Glenview I don’t really appreciate people coming and taking pictures of our private property and intruding in our lives, especially when they’re from Google and secondarily from California. I’m not too fond of people intruding into our lives. We’ve got President Obama and the rest of his liberal Congress to do that.

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I just want to thank Lombard for turning Flowerfield subdivision into a speedway. I live on Shady Lane, just off of Edgewood. Since they’ve closed Finley and left it open at Edgewood, all of the traffic that used to go down Finley has now been funneled through Flowerfield and people are driving like mad to get through here. What used to be one car an hour down Shady Lane is now maybe 15 cars every 10 minutes or more. It’s ridiculous what you’ve done, and unfortunate. What you’ve done was created another route for all the travelers to avoid Finley for the future and come through our neighborhood. Again, it’s a cut-through. It’s a mess. Our kids can’t walk on, or ride their bikes, in the streets, and it’s awful what you’ve done.

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At a Romney rally there were some protesters. One of the women kept yelling,"Obama gave me a free cell phone," so I did a little investigating. In 2011, we spent $1.6 billion on free cell phones; 250 minutes, long distance, international calling, text messaging, call forwarding and call waiting—$1.6 billion. Now I understand that people who may not be able to afford a a cell phone should be able to have access to one. However, having a cell phone is not a right. If you can’t pay for it, why am I paying for it?

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Lombard calling regarding the teachers union issues. I agree with a previous caller. Fire them all. Nothing against unions 70 years ago. I’m out of work because of a union and waiting on a list that awards jobs according to number instead of talent. It kills the contractor and it kills the worker and forces them on unemployment. The teachers union and Obama are two things that make me want to gag. And for the lady who’s looking at three-legged butterflies in her yard, get a life. It’s probably not due to man’s influence. This happens in nature all the time. Why don’t you pick up a science book and read a little.

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I was just reading some interesting stuff from the Department of Education. In 1970, we had one teacher for every 22.3 students. Now we have one teacher for every 15.2 students. Reading scores, math scores, any other tests that you can look at, any other way of judging the quality of education a child gets in this country, have remained the same. So much for smaller classroom sizes being better for kids. It just hasn’t proven true; 75 percent of the kids graduate high school now, just like they did in 1970. Again, another stat—no change but we keep hearing from our president, 100,000 more teachers and the United States of America is saved and that’s all we need. In that same time, the pay that a teacher got went up about 11 percent. Wouldn’t it be interesting if we would have hired less of those teachers and actually paid the teachers we have more money?

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Lombard calling. In relation to Ken Loch golf course, not only should all the residents of Lombard contact their village trustee, but we should contact the DuPage County Board and the forest preserve district. In previous years the county has enacted eminent domain to take property to keep as green space as part of the forest preserve. I remember a number of years ago there was property on Highridge over by Willowbrook they did that to. They could easily do that with this property at Ken Loch if they wanted to keep green space. I know the village trustees would like to develop it to get more tax revenue for the Village of Lombard. That would most likely cause increased traffic and water run-off problems. So, contact your appropriate trustee.

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Hi, I just want to give thanks to Mrs. Wolcott and Willowbrook High School for an outstanding choir performance on Oct. 30. The choir consisted of all the choir students from Willowbrook and choir students from Jackson and Jefferson middle schools. It was an awesome experience attending that concert. We are very fortunate in our community to have such a wonderful program.

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I was disappointed to read about the top five performing schools in this area. Neither Glenbard East nor schools in District 44 were among them. So where are our high property tax dollars going? In fact, it seemed like schools in smaller communities fared very well, so I would be interested to know what they spend per student and how their property tax revenues compare with Lombard’s. How disappointing and even embarrassing.

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I was reading in the Tribune where they quoted the county chairman in Lake County or somewhere that political signs in the public right-of-way are against the law. Why is nobody upholding this law? Is this another law like driving in the left lane that police don’t uphold? If it’s a yard sale sign, they take it out. What’s wrong with these political signs and how long after the election do you suppose they’re going to stay up? Will they be there in the spring? Come on, do your job, Lombard. You’ve got three people in the code enforcement department. What are they doing?

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Hello, this is Lombard calling. I understand that Ken Loch is for sale. I would like to see it remain a golf course but if that is not possible, I’d like to see a community of ranch-style duplexes or townhouses developed. This type of housing is great for empty nesters, couples or families with one child and would not increase Lombard’s school enrollment.

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Hi. Every day I walk my dog through Madison Meadow park. I love it until fall comes and the geese show up. Every day when I walk my dog I pick up my dog’s little droppings. Unfortunately, after I come home, I have to clean my dog’s paws and my shoes because of all the geese droppings. What can the village do about this? I heard you could rent swans to keep the geese away and I just feel sorry for all those football moms out there who have to wash their kids’ uniforms.

Back in July, another caller also asked how Lombard could deal with the goose population at the park, which is under the jurisdiction of the Lombard Park District. Park district Executive Director Paul Friedrichs provided this answer: “Canada Geese are protected under the Federal Migratory Bird Act of 1918. In a 1998 publication by the University of Wisconsin and the Wildlife Society, it concluded that ‘a single, quick-fix solution is unlikely to reduce goose problems. An integrated approach using several techniques is much more likely to succeed.’ This past spring, the park district asked for, and received, a permit from the state of Illinois, and employed the services of an outside company to help deal with the goose population at the lagoon, Madison Meadow, Four Seasons and Sunset Knoll. The firm uses several techniques including dogs to chase/harass the geese and egg depredation to attempt to alleviate the problem. Egg depredation keeps geese from having a successful nesting season. This is one of the humane ways of controlling the Canada Geese population that is endorsed by the Humane Society of the United States.”—JAC

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Lombard, you need to do something about the northbound light at Roosevelt and Main Street. It’s 3 p.m. on a Friday, traffic’s backed up to 14th Street, the light just turned green and three buses got through and that’s it. I’ve been sitting here for three lights and there are four buses ahead of me and I don’t know how many, about 25 cars. This is about a 15-second light. This is a busy corner. You need to figure something out. You’ve got two schools and a park down here, plus Yorktown. Somebody needs to come out and time it.