A big thank you to the Ortiz family and to the Lombard Public Works Department for helping us with driveway snow removal in our subdivision’s streets.

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I am totally baffled as to why Hammerschmidt School seems to have so much difficulty following the cold weather policy for our district. According to a letter sent home earlier this year, we were informed that if the temperature, wind chill included, was 10 or below, the children would be going in. However, Hammerschmidt does not seem to follow this guideline: The children are out when it is cold and because the parents do follow the guidelines, the children do not have snow pants on because we thought they’d be going in. It would sure help if we could all be on the same page.

Your comment was forwarded to Hammerschmidt School, which provided the following response: “The weather is checked daily prior to school and prior to lunch on weatherbug.com (Temperature location: Glenbard East High School). Per our school district policy, if it is 10 degrees or below, students remain inside. It might be helpful to send your students prepared for the cold as temperatures may change throughout the day. You can find weatherbug.com located on Hammerschmidt School’s Web site homepage under links.”—JAC

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Why do the young ladies applying for Lilac Queen have to declare if their parents work for the village? Will they have to declare if their mom belongs to one of the women’s clubs? Will the girls be eliminated or just shortchanged? Thank you.

Your question was forwarded to the Village of Lombard, which provided the following response: “This year, the Lilac Princess program is being partly funded through the Village of Lombard. The village maintains a grant policy that precludes elected officials, village employees or their immediate family members from receiving grants funded by the village. This policy extends to preclude any entity from knowingly disbursing grant funds or awards to the same group. This applies to the Lilac Princess program which will be awarding grant money from the village to fund their scholarships.”

Your concerns also were forwarded to Nancy Spartz and Sue Horner, co-chairs of the Lilac Queen contest, as well as Sue Bielenda, past chair. According to Spartz, a candidate, who is a family member of a village employee, will not be eliminated. As it turned out, none of this year’s Lilac princesses are daughters of a village employee. If one of the princesses had been a daughter of a village employee, the Lombard Junior Women’s Club would have awarded the scholarship from LJWC philanthropy funds for this princess. Spartz said the question was asked so the group could anticipate how the funds may have been needed to be appropriated and how it would affect the club’s philanthropy funds. “Any concern regarding a LJWC’s daughter being a candidate is long past, as presently all Lombard Junior daughters are all grown adults,” Spartz added. “Lombard Juniors feel [the princess program] is an important part of the tradition of Lombard and are doing everything we can to maintain an equally fair and quality program that represents some of the best young women Lombard has to offer,” said Bielenda, adding that it is LJWC policy that all judges come from outside of Lombard, and applicants are only known to the judges as a number or their first name.—blm

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Good morning. Lombard calling here. Hey, we’ve got a great little newspaper and in it the politicians are waxing on about the proposed state budget, but no one seems to be emphasizing that if it goes through, both Lombard and Villa Park will lose hundreds of thousands of dollars of revenue through operating funds. The budget is actually proposing cutting in half the share of state income tax dollars returned to the different municipalities. Can we get some numbers on this? Thank you.

SPEAK OUT reported on figures from Lombard in the March 4, edition, and the following is taken from an article by Chris Fox in the March 4 edition of the Villa Park Review. The Village of Villa Park reports that Gov. Rauner’s proposal to reduce municipal Local Government Distributive Funding (LGDF) would reduce its take by $1.1 million during the upcoming fiscal year, May 2015 through April 2016. Lombard’s figure was $2.1 million.—JAC

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A big salute to my neighbors, who shoveled their sidewalks every time it snowed, and to those informed citizens who finally said that enough was enough and then pressured Coca-Cola, Ebay, Facebook, Kraft, Microsoft, Google, Pepsi and Yahoo into withdrawing their financial support of the American Legislative Exchange Council. 

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Afternoon Lombard. A few quick comments on last week’s column.  One: no voting for old people because they don’t keep up on current events? Is that compared to the younger generation who can’t find Minnesota on a map, know next to nothing of U.S. history because schools barely teach it and perverts what they do teach? The same people who voted for Obama? The same younger generations who voted for Obama, but avoid his Obamacare, opting to pay the “not me” penalty (whoops, tax)? The same generation who supports illegals coming in by the droves and treating them like legitimate citizens? Two: contain the by-products of combustion, the process that generates most of our electricity? If you burn a ton of coal, do you realize almost 3 tons of carbon dioxide is produced? Natural gas is somewhat better, based on the BTUs produced.  How much of the power generated is needed to manufacture a storage vessel to contain it and how much more is used to compress the gases and where do you store it? Where would you put said vessel? I hope you’re not voting. 

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I’m just calling to see if any paper readers out there know where I can get that new “Rules of the Road” book? The one that says it’s OK to blow the stop signs, not stop at stop lights and when the light turns yellow and you’re a half a mile back, you can still keep going? I like the one where, when you do stop at the stop sign, the back of your car is past the stop sign. That seems to be the new rules of the road. Anybody know where I can get that book? I want to study that. Thank you.

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Good morning, Lombard calling. $2.1 million. Sometimes governments, even local governments, speak in shorthand. However, Lombard will lose $2.1 in revenue if the governor gets his way and his proposed budget is actually passed. Thank you.

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By my count, last week’s Lombardian had five articles and three pictures of Peter Breen. Why there is so much information about this ultra-conservative politician in our local newspaper is beyond me. I don’t believe his views are shared by a majority of the citizens of this town. It’s amazing that he got elected in the first place. Maybe you should just change the name of the newspaper to the Breen Chronicles.

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To the know-it-all who thinks the elderly are all uninformed and senile, watch “Watters’ World” on O’Reilly and see how smart the younger generation is. One didn’t even know who the president is. Who are the intellects who voted in Obama and those before him, because we all know how great everything is in America and nothing’s being done about it. Open borders, entitlements for everyone, you don’t even have to work or pay taxes, gangs in every city, etc. Evidently we voted in people who worked for Americans. I grew up in a different America than we have now. I never heard of shootings, kidnappings, gangs, murders in Elmhurst. I also don’t telephone or text in my car or while walking or in a store. Evidently that makes me a little smarter and more polite than most. I’m 80 years old and I wonder if you know any elderly.

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Hi. I’m calling in regard to the March 4 edition of the Lombardian. This has to be one of the most informative news issues I’ve read in a very long time. I’m hoping to register some concern among our fellow constituents and citizens about the article on Page 2 about the half-million-dollar settlement with the former police officer, which was slightly irresponsible in my mind. Thank you.

If you read the entire article, you would see that the settlement was recommended by the village’s insurance company. The article cited a memo from Lombard Village Manager Scott Niehaus, which said the $555,000 settlement will not be paid out of village funds and will not impact the village’s budget.—blm

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This, to the person who recommends bringing your own container to the grocery store for the meat man to put the meat in, I don’t know if you’ve ever talked to these people in these major grocery stores. I was in a large national chain store the other day and asked the butcher if he would re-package a package of three pork chops into two for me, as we have a small family. He absolutely refused, so I don’t know how you’re going to get him to weigh your container and weigh it again later, and let you bring your own container. Then there’s also health department situations. How do they know where your container was? What if you brought a dirty container and contaminated all the meat? It needs to be thought through.

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With a rookie in the White House and Congress in turmoil, what does the future hold for us? Americans have got to wake up. Americans are not the priority. We are given lip service. To the politician, the party, special interests, ideology and power are the primary movers. Look at what’s happening in Washington, and each party blames the other for gridlock and no progress. People have to get the politician moving. We have to wake up. Call them. Text them. E-mail them and if they don’t listen or respond, vote them out the next election. We have to wake up, Americans, or we won’t have an America.

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To the contributor to SPEAK OUT regarding restricting voting privileges to 72-year-olds, the problem is not that the 72-year-olds vote. The problem is lack of interest in voting and the uninformed voters. There’s no such thing as modern-day issues, which is a youngster’s term. Spending is a problem earlier presidents dealt with which is not dealt with now. Jobs is another. Americans, probably over 50 percent, don’t care. The politicians have gotten bolder and stronger because of Americans’ lack of interest. The politicians, Democrat and Republican, don’t fear public opinion. In some elections, only 40 or maybe 50 percent of us vote. The remaining 50 to 60 percent who don’t vote complain. If there was a 70- to 80-percent voter turnout for an election, that would shake up the politicians. Good thing you have seniors voting. A steady, reliable citizenry.

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Hi, I’m Sadie from Villa Park. I’m a four-legged person. Come join me at Eclipse Dog Grooming for play time. It’s phenomenal. They take excellent care of me. I have a gas. They’re there Monday through Friday. I just love Eclipse. I love Debbie, Jenny and all the other lovely ladies who work there. They’re very good to me. So, come on over and meet me and have fun with me. It’s an excellent doggy daycare place. Thanks, Eclipse. I love you. Bye.

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In response to the caller from Villa Park on requiring a civics test for seniors at age 72 for voting eligibility, this is my response: As a resident of a retirement community and an 82-year-old, I find this comment appalling. You cite evidence but don’t specify it. But more than that, the caller reveals a naiveté hard to imagine. In the first place, the person’s position is patently unconstitutional and represents a cynical embrace of ageism. Why 72, why not 52 or 62? My experience indicates that many 50-year-olds don’t know the difference between one, a bill and a law; two, state representative and a senator; three, the national debt and the budget deficit. Many seniors I encounter daily, age 75-95, share an eagerness to learn, sharpness of intellect and openness to change. Tell you what, let’s test your thesis. Select five 40- to 50-year-olds from your Villa Park block and I’ll pick five seniors from my resident community. We’ll give them both the eighth-grade civics test.

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Villa Park. To the caller who said senior citizens are not informed at the age of 72 and should take a test like a civics test, similar to a driving test and if they pass, they can vote. Maybe you should take a test to see if you have all your marbles. Similarly, seniors are more informed than some young people. Thank you.

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To the Villa Park caller who feels that senior citizens are not up on current events in economics and quotes a study, I’d like to know where that study came from. How about pointing us toward one? Most senior citizens are conservative. If senior citizens didn’t vote, the only people who would vote are the people who are on the welfare rolls.

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Netanyahu laid out the deal with Iran. We need more and harder sanctions with Iran or our children and our grandchildren will pay the price. Stop. Think what price the whole world will pay if the whole deal is made. Thank you.

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To the person who called in about is there anyone out there who voted for Rauner who’s disappointed, well, I did not vote for him and I’m not surprised at all at what he’s doing. If you bothered to check any of the other states that have Republican governors, they’re all in the toilet, they ran their states into the ground and so you voted for this gentleman, now you can sit back like those people who didn’t vote for him and you’re going to suffer just as much as we are. Thank you for voting for him.

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I’m calling in response to the incredibly nasty and judgmental call from a Villa Park resident suggesting that senior citizens take a civics test before they can be allowed to vote. You’re about 100 years too late with your idea. There used to be a poll tax and a literacy test to ensure that only people of property and educated people could vote. My experience has been that when people are clueless when they’re young, they’re clueless when they’re seniors. When they’re informed when they’re young, they’re informed when they’re seniors.