This is in response to the SPEAK OUT of July 24 where the woman was so disappointed because she had to pay to get in to get her daughter a pretzel. Number one, if she was allowed in without paying, so should everybody else. If I can’t pay, I simply don’t go. She could have asked somebody else to get the pretzel and bring it to her, or she could go to a store and buy a pretzel. Her issues are so ridiculous. I can’t believe she had the nerve to call in to the paper. We also don’t need her to ever go to the Taste again. She obviously expects everything to be handed to her free. Thank you.

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I’m addressing Villa Park, I’m a Lombard resident and I have a student who will be going to Willowbrook in the fall, and she will be walking along that awful little path that is along the edge of the soccer field/archery field. I walked that same awful path about 20 years ago and every time it rains, it floods. Twenty years later and it’s still flooded, they have not repaired it, and I went by Willowbrook the other day and see they put in new speed bumps. They have remodeled and fixed up Willowbrook, but what happened to that pathway that students need to walk to school on? They are expected to walk through the flood to get to their high school? Is there no way they could repair that little sidewalk and make it nice, and make it like a bike path and a walkway? Thank you for hearing me out. Please, Villa Park, can you do something about this? Thank you.

Scott Helton, Ed.D., DuPage HIgh School District 88 superintendent, responded: “Thank you for your [call]. At DuPage High School District 88, the safety and health of our students and staff is our No. 1 priority, and we want to assure you we are aware of the path you are referring to and plan to make repairs in the near future. As you mentioned, we recently completed updates to Willowbrook and its sister school, Addison Trail. Students, staff and community members gave their input to prioritize those updates, and the top items were those that would improve the learning environment and infrastructure for students. Through feedback from our stakeholders, it was determined we would make improvements from the inside out, meaning the buildings and learning environment would be updated first, and the remaining items would form the district’s five-year plan. The path at Willowbrook is part of that five-year plan, and the district plans to allocate resources to improve that area within that timeframe. With regard to flooding near that path, a detention area was added to mitigate flooding, and we will continue to work with the Village of Villa Park and DuPage County to control the water levels. We appreciate your feedback and will maintain our focus on ensuring the well-being of our students and staff to achieve our mission of working for the continuous improvement of student achievement. We’re thrilled to have your daughter join District 88 as a Willowbrook Warrior. Please feel free to call me at 630-530-3980 at any time to further discuss this concern. I also would be happy to take you on a tour of Willowbrook to share with you the great things happening at District 88. Thanks again, and we look forward to continuing to work with you and all of our stakeholders to create a school district of which our communities can be proud.”—JAC

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Lisa Madigan has stated that it would not be fair for her to be the governor of Illinois and her father to be the speaker of the Illinois House at the same time. Villa Park state Sen. Tom Cullerton was elected to the Illinois Senate run by his cousin, president of the Senate, John Cullerton. Has state Sen. Tom Cullerton ever commented publicly about serving under and with his cousin, the state Senate president? If there isn’t any public record available on this issues, would the Villa Park Review ask him to comment on the fairness and morality of what appears to be very bad government? It just seems that it’s hard to understand political morality.

A request for comment from Sen. Cullerton yielded the following response: “Thank you for the question and opportunity to answer. I was elected to represent the 23rd Senate district. Period. That’s what I’ve done. You can look at my voting record. It’s a very independent voting record. There are times when I might vote the same, but there are many times when I do not. Many times I may vote the same way as Sen. Kirk Dillard and Sen. Christine Radogno, and I don’t think anyone would claim I work for them. And let me be clear, I do not work under the Senate president. I work for the people of the 23rd District. If you take the time to look past my last name, you’ll find a reform-driven agenda of independence and bipartisanship that reflects the interests of the great people who elected me. Again, this is another topic that my opponent made very public and negatively tried to use against me. I was completely open about being a third cousin to the Senate president and it was spelled out in every newspaper article written about the election. I did not run on my name as others may have, I ran on my own record of service. As always, please feel free to contact me for questions: www.Senatortomcullerton.com, 630-903-6662 or stop in my office at 338 S. Ardmore Ave., Villa Park, IL 60181. Thank you.”—JAC

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Hi, this is the person calling who stopped on Grace Street who let the bikers pass. I’m from Chicago. In the City of Chicago, people do that. They are nicer than the people in Lombard. The people in Lombard, because they have a car, think they can go ahead and just drive over anything. It’s not called suicide if you hit that person. Check with your insurance company. I’m guessing that you’ll be sued. Whether it’s your fault or their fault, you’re going too fast to not be able to control your car and stop. So, go ahead and run me over next time and we’ll see you in court. Have a great day.

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Hi, this is Lombard calling. I’m calling about several calls about the fire pits. I totally agree. It is 12:45 on a Sunday afternoon and we had this person or persons with their fires going. Yesterday it was a nice day out. The fires were going in the afternoon. Every day that there’s a nice day the rest of the people in the whole area have to be housebound or go out of the neighborhood if they want to enjoy fresh air. It’s just a shame, and I know it isn’t completely the people’s fault; people will do what they can get away with. I do blame the village and I blame the EPA, but I just ask for all the elderly people in the area and the children who have respiratory problems. I guess it’s more important to poke around in a fire than be concerned about your neighbor’s house.

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In AARP classes that teach safer driving to seniors, we point out that when there are signs, at the sides of lanes of traffic, with diagonal stripes—black and white or black and orange in construction zones—a driver should always drive on the side of the sign where the stripes point down. If everyone did that on Main Street in Lombard you’d have a wild zig zag party and about 50 head-on collisions an hour. And I’ve seen it on other Lombard streets before.

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I’ve got to chime in on the whole stopping for these people on the Prairie Path and Great Western Trail. You know what? Everyone who says the cars have the right of way, man you could not be more wrong. In this litigious society of ours, look at what our village has done. They put up these nasty, ugly little yellow signs that are just such an eyesore in the middle of the road to yield to pedestrians. They put in special bump-outs now for pedestrians. In the middle of Main Street they put a little spot for the pedestrians to stand. Folks, our government and our police department not only in this town, but in this whole state, have perpetuated it to the point where a walker, a runner and, in particular, the bicyclists, they think they have the right of way. That is once again the fault of our police department and everyone who runs this village, and you think that you’ve got the right of way in a car? You go ahead and hit somebody and see who has the right of way.

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Hello, Lombard Village Board. I see that you’re having your own Metra moment with the village manager and his golden parachute. And by the way, what kind of consulting is he going to do? Whatever he says, we’ll do the opposite? Maybe that’ll help us out of the mess we’re in. Bye bye.

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This is Villa Park calling. I have been monitoring the SPEAK OUT column for the last few months and I am quite sure the complaints about the Villa Park Police Department are being lodged by the same person or persons who feel that they or possibly a family member may have been wronged by the police. There is no doubt in my mind that the police department has an overwhelming approval rate from its citizens. That being said, I know and feel that the Villa Park Police Department’s doing a great job from the police chief on down. So keep your heads up, guys, and keep doing what you are doing by keeping the bad guys off the street. Great job. Thank you, bye.

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Hi, Lombard calling. I hope you print this. I attended the Cruise Nights when the 7DEEZ band was there and I think Lombard should have them back in the future years because I think it’s a nice trade-off of a difference of music. I liked the funk sound of the 7DEEZ band, so please return them. Bye.

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SPEAK OUT, I just want to know what happened to the Lombardian online. I can’t find it there anymore. Thanks. Bye. Just calling this number because I don’t know who to get a hold of. Thank you.

Unfortunately, we were experiencing technical difficulties for our Web site for a number of months, which were beyond our control. Apparently, AT&T, which hosts the Web site, was making upgrades to the system with a new server and they were working to restore access to many Web sites, caused by a glitch in the system. We were essentially locked out of the site, but the good news is we can now access the Web site and our online edition is up and running again. Thanks for all your patience and your continued attempts to visit our Web site.—blm

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I was at Ultra today, which is Aug. 16, and I thought I had money to buy my groceries and I didn’t, so I told the cashier to forget about it and a nice young lady in back of me paid for my groceries. If she reads the Lombardian, I want to thank her again very much for paying my grocery bill. I never realized there were people out there who would do things like that. I thank you again and I hope everything goes well with you. Bye bye.

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Did you know that the Lombard Police Department officers are not required to be residents of the Village of Lombard? They should be required to live here and see what the village really thinks.

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Hi, this is Lombard calling. After going to Aug. 10’s Cruise Nights, I was very impressed with the group 7DEEZ and I think it would be a good idea if Lombard had them perform once or twice at Cruise Nights in the future. They were a nice enhancement and a nice change for Lombard. Thank you.

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Prairie Path issue. Drive down Wilson and you will see signs that say to stop for pedestrians in the crosswalk there. Remember there used to be those signs at the Prairie Path crossing on Main Street, too? Remember how they were removed because of the confusion—to stop or not to stop? That’s because vehicles are not supposed to stop. The pedestrians must first yield before crossing. They are the ones with stop signs.

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Hi. Just calling about Meadow where it meets Route 53. Is there anybody or any town or municipal district that can repair those pot holes? Whether you’re going east or coming out west and making a turn, those pot holes are horrible. Could somebody please look into that and fix it?

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I just listened to Trustee Fitzpatrick’s comments at the village board meeting with great interest. While it is true that many of her fellow board members have college degrees, I would not consider a police officer such as Trustee Foltyniewicz to be a white collar worker. I am proud to consider myself a blue collar worker and feel that if Trustee Fitzpatrick thinks that the board doesn’t reflect us, maybe we should elect someone who actually works as District 5 trustee in the next election. I live in her district and I know that I would vote for a blue collar worker over her. I am personally offended that the trustee apparently does not feel that being blue collar is a good thing. This country would fall apart without the hard work many people do every day. The average home in Lombard is not worth as much as those in Elmhurst and Wheaton, and the median household income is lower, too. Just check the U.S. Census. To say otherwise shows that the trustee does not know her district or constituents.

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I’m wondering when Lombard changed the state law against stop signs and bicyclists coming through stop signs. I’m a retired person and I drive around Lombard a lot and I can tell you one out of every five persons doesn’t hardly stop for a stop sign and as far as the bicyclists with the fancy outfits and the fancy bikes, they never seem to stop for stop signs. I think the police should do something about this. I could sit on the corner of Madison and Grace for 10 minutes and three people will run the stop signs. That’s all I’ve got say. I’m just wondering when they changed the law. Bye.