All you people who call in and criticize our post office because you don’t get your mail on time, this has been the worst winter we’ve had in 50 years. Many people have been injured on the job, they’ve had to do double shifts. My mother used to say, “Unless you walk in someone else’s shoes and do their job, try and be a little charitable until you understand.” And if you really think it’s so bad, why don’t you go out there and try and help them, instead of constantly berating and picking on them? Where is your humaneness toward the post office?

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Hi, Lombard calling regarding North Grace Street. I called the village a couple of weeks ago and was told that the street is programmed for design in 2015-16 with construction starting in 2017. However, because of the obvious conditions there, they’re going to reevaluate the scope of the project because it’s not only the roadway that’s in trouble. They’re starting the budgeting process; they’re also going to look for alternative funding for this so they can move forward. So, basically, they don’t know when it will be done. My question is this: Why did it take so long? That road has been crumbling for years; at least five years it’s been really bad, constant water main breaks and a gateway road into the village. It not only puts drivers at risk because of the poor roadway, it also leaves a very poor impression of the village. Where has Peter Breen been? He’s our trustee and I don’t see that he has actually done a thing. Thanks so much, bye.

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I live on North Lombard Avenue. It is now springtime. Please pick up after your dog. We have children in our yard and in our neighborhood and we do not want to let them play in the grass and step on your dog’s poop because you cannot clean it up. Please carry a bag with you. If you will not be carrying a bag with you and the dog goes in our yard and we catch you, we will take a picture of you and send it to the police department. This is not fair to us, to people who are not dog owners. Thank you.

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It’s that time again when we get to see the bikers in their pointed helmets, fluorescent shirts and bicycle shorts flying through all the stop signs and terrifying us. Maybe a book on how to ride a bike should have come with the outfit.

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The Medicaid enrollment in Illinois, that we the people will pay for, that’s 410,000 people on this program with more to come. President Obama promised illegals to sign up and they will not be deported. A Chicago paper reports 210,000 already enrolled but there’s a backlog of 200,000 to go, yet the citizens will pay for “you all come, now.” We don’t have jobs so you’ll have to feed and house them, too. Wow. What a deal.

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Hi, Lombard here. Kudos to the new management at Main Stop drive through. Their food is good, especially the Philly steak sandwiches and management is wonderful. Great people I encourage you to go there. Thanks, Lombard. Bye now.

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Could you find out what’s going on with the old Mr. Z’s location? We certainly miss having a grocery store in the heart of Lombard and are hoping we’ll soon have another grocery store in that location. Any information you guys get would be great to find out. Thanks.

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Congratulations to Willowbrook’s hardworking theater cast and crew. “God of Carnage” earned second place at the IHSA regional theater contest and now heads to the IHSA state competition in Springfield. Break a leg.

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Villa Park calling. I’m calling about the waste of time and money that the village just spent on putting out letters for people to take down their Christmas decorations. Considering we had 70 inches of snow this year, it was hard to get decorations down after the snow, but to waste man hours, village money and village paper and putting out fliers, going door-to-door knocking on our doors telling us to get our decorations down, what a waste of money. Why don’t you fix our streets and maybe the decorations we have in town, instead of wasting your money. Goodbye.

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This is Lombard calling. I read in last week’s Lombardian about a downtown restaurant called Capone’s. My wife and I went there for a pizza and it was delicious. One of the best pizzas we ever had. The atmosphere is nice, the service is great; it’s just a nice place to eat. I just hope the people of Lombard patronize this place because we’d like to see Lombard’s downtown area built up and this is one of the nicest places around here.

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This is concerning Michelle Obama’s focus on reducing childhood obesity by encouraging families to make more home-cooked meals. I agree that home cooking can be healthier, because fats, salt, sugar and other additives can be more closely controlled. But, home cooking takes time and effort. When was the last time that Michelle Obama went grocery shopping, prepped and cooked the food by herself, served a dinner and washed the dishes afterward? Home cooking is better than take-out or restaurant dining, but not everyone has the time for it.

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Lombard calling. The end of warming and it’s snowing out. To all my global warming/climate change/the sun came up because a rooster crowed friends, you can’t keep hiding your head in the snowdrift. You can’t have your cake and eat it too. You can’t tell me that global warming is causing it to be colder out and there could be more snow. Think about it. It’s like saying, "It depends on what your definition of ‘is’ is." So once again, I ask you to stop hiding your heads in the snowdrifts. Folks, there’s no global warming. Come on.

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I don’t understand why anybody would want to belong to a party that in all the Republican states is making it almost impossible for the middle class or lower to vote, changing voting laws so they can’t have early voting, no voting on Sundays like they have for many years. Because they do it is the only reason they can win, because they change the voting laws in their states. It’s just deplorable, Then, they’re so against women in every way, shape and form. They don’t want us to have equal pay, they don’t want us to have medical facilities to have mammograms and yearly check-ups. I think you need to think about a party that has to change their voting in their states so they have a shot to win.

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I hope you are in agreement with me. The president of the United States says there should be more overtime and pay more money to the employees. But I have a solution that works better: If the government stops giving the money away, stop subsidizing, stop with the foreign aid, stop with the spending, we would have more money in our pockets and we wouldn’t have to keep raising the taxes. That’s why the taxes keep increasing. This is why we have less money to spend. This is why things are so expensive. This is why things are over-regulated. We don’t need all that stuff. Let’s get rid of half of the politicians and reduce our deficit overnight. Goodbye.

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To the person who said the Obama administration is hiring all these 16,000 IRS agents and building all these new buildings and doing all these things, you need to do a little fact checking and find out this is not true. And for you to say vote for we the people Republican, if you vote Republican, do you realize what you’re losing? I would think twice about doing that. You’ll be given vouchers for your Medicare. They’re trying to take away your Social Security. Go ahead and vote Republican and I want to see what you call in to SPEAK OUT when you have a Republican president and you don’t have Medicare. The Republicans do not care anything about people.

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I’m not going to go into Fast and Furious, the IRS, spying, Benghazi, etc. Obama shut down car businesses, picking and choosing who went out of business. Now he’s telling businesses what they should pay for overtime. He’s acting like Putin. It doesn’t matter what people want and they don’t want Obamacare, but they’re going to have it. The only way to stop him is impeachment. When you and when we the people start demanding impeachment, maybe Boehner will stop huffing and puffing and start removing this dictator from office. He’s changing laws, he’s changing rules and you’d better start e-mailing, calling and writing, folks, because it is up to you.

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To the caller who suggested using the Internet to pay bills, what if someone doesn’t have a computer or for some reason does not wish to use the Internet to receive and pay bills, like me? I don’t think that was a very good suggestion. Besides, I am not looking to put the post office out of business since online correspondence has put a dent in their operations.

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I noticed that on one of my bills the return envelope has a line at the bottom, after the name and address to put my account number. There is no way, in this age of identity theft, that I would even consider it. Not only that, I read a tip once to just put the return address and not the name, since identity thieves can use that information to begin wreaking havoc. Also, for those business envelopes without a plastic strip covering the send-to address, I tape that up so no one can lift up the slot and see any of my information. I don’t want to be a victim of identity theft.

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For the person asking about a place to get salaries of public employees, such as College of DuPage administrators, go to www.openthebooks.com.They have all federal, state and local salaries, anyone getting paid by tax dollars. You will be surprised.

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I’ve been cleaning house since my husband passed away a couple of years ago. I found that I have a lot of records, a lot of 8-tracks, a lot of CDs. I’ve got a stereo that plays records and I just wondered if there’s someplace I can donate them. I hate to throw them in the garbage, so if there’s some place that someone would take them as a donation, please let me know so that I could help out other people. Thank you.

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Lombard President Giagnorio, in the Lombard Pride recently, wanted to know what citizens think could be done to make things more clear with the village. I think the village ought to put some information on the public hearing signs that are posted out by the buildings as to what the hearing’s for, or at least post it on the village Web site. Thank you.

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Hi, it’s Saturday afternoon and I’m calling from South Lewis. There are kids playing in the street again as they do often. This time, the parents put up signs that say "Slow, children playing" and the parents are standing in the streets with the kids. When the cars come they tell the kids to move out of the away. Often the kids play in the street without the parents even standing there and watching. They think that by putting up a sign it makes it acceptable and I think it’s irresponsible parenting there. It is never OK to have children playing in the street. The streets are for cars. Sidewalks are for the kids and there is a park a half-block away. Please, parents; it’s an accident waiting to happen. Don’t let your kids play in the street.

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I just received Lombard’s municipal newsletter and in it, it says that the village requires a license for residential security alarm and charges a fee for that. Why would they do that? Are they trying to discourage people having alarms? Are they going to cover it if they don’t? Thank you.

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My question is to Villa Park. Lombard is getting all kinds of streets done this summer through the federal government. Why does Villa Park need a referendum in order to get our streets done? Where are our taxpayer dollars going?

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Hi, this is Lombard calling. I want to tell you that everybody calls and complains about the pot holes in our roads, but being an Illinois newspaper, you haven’t seen pot holes until you’ve been in Ottawa. We’re up here at Starved Rock and I’m telling you the pot holes are so big, you could be swallowed up and not found for three weeks. So, be thankful you’re in Lombard and be thankful they fill the pot holes. If anybody from Ottawa is reading this, please, tell your officials to fix the roads. Thank you very much.

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You know, recently a lot of Democrats have been calling SPEAK OUT and talking about the mean, crazy Republicans. You know what? I must be one of those mean, crazy Republicans. Remember when Mitt Romney caught a lot of flak because he said, I believe, like 49 percent of the people want to sit in the wagon and they want everyone else to pay for them. Guess what? Just watching the breakdown of federal spending in the president’s new budget, 71 percent of every single dollar that President Obama wants to spend in this new budget goes to individual citizens. For you Democrats, that means 71 cents of every dollar. Mitt Romney was right, we have a lot of people in this country who want me, yes me, to pay for all of their stuff. You know what, it’s not Republicans who are crazy; we’re not mean. I’m just tired of paying for everybody’s stuff.

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Affordable Care Act? Ha. Tried to apply, and what a nightmare. An hour into it the site went down, and even after being prompted to save what I had done so far, it didn’t all get saved. Finally got up and running and the site said it couldn’t verify my identity. More hoops to jump through. And by the way, it should not be called the Affordable Care Act—maybe Affordable Premium Act if you qualify for a tax credit—unless you can afford the top tier, which covers more. I was totally shocked at how high the deductibles and office visits are even at the silver level. But, they passed it to see what was in it, right?

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Hi. I hope you print this. Today I had a problem with my dog; I have an electronic fence, and the wonderful officers in Lombard spent time and consideration bringing my dog back to me. I was out looking for him and couldn’t find him, but thanks to the officers in town, I have my dog. I appreciate it.