It will be sad to see eight years of the Obama Administration come to an end in a few weeks. I always enjoyed seeing pictures of Barack Obama at the golf course or taking vacations to Hawaii with his family on the taxpayers’ dime. And I have to give credit where credit is due. He was always great on those late-night talk shows and hosting sports teams at the White House. He also did a fabulous job issuing executive orders. Goodbye and good riddance to the Golfer In Chief.

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Villa Park Postal customer here —what's happening? I've lived here a long time and had great service—until lately. Mail for other addresses is my box and I put it back out for redelivery and don't think more about it. I just got a credit card statement and realized I never got last month’s statement—and I have to pay $21 in interest because our post office never delivered it to me. That is wrong and costly. I hope we are not going down the same track that Lombard did. What happens to missing mail?

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What is the alt left going to do now that they lost every recount and weren’t able to pressure or threaten enough Electors to change the outcome of the Electoral College? Continue blaming the Russians, I guess. Michael Savage (radio talk show host) said it best: “Liberalism is a mental disorder.”

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It seems like Russian hacking and “fake news” only became major issues to Democrats and their media cohorts sometime around Nov. 9, the morning we learned Hillary Clinton had lost the election. Does anyone else remember liberals' admonitions before the election? Not accepting the results, we were told, was a threat to our democracy. After Hillary lost, it suddenly became perfectly acceptable to question the results. Did anyone see the video made by B-list celebrities, pleading with Electoral College members not to vote for Donald Trump? Those pathetic has-beens were asking the electors to ignore the will of the people. What a disgrace.

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How many times have the village boards and school boards in our area said they've cut their budgets “to the bone?” I've heard it said more than once. It's appalling. Take a look at an area school district or village budget from five or 10 years ago, then look at its latest budget. The revenues and spending keep going up and up and up. Many residents' wages haven't gone up at all in that time, yet the villages and schools frequently ask them to cough up a little bit more money. It never seems to be enough. The people who work for public schools and municipal governments seem to live in their own worlds.

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If you go to a Friday-night high school basketball game in our area, try to stick around for a few minutes after the game ends. Chances are you will see quite a mess in the bleachers. The custodians are left to pick up numerous bottles, cans and other items of garbage from the bleachers. The student sections are often filled with litter. There are probably several garbage cans nearby, but many students seem content to leave their trash for someone else to pick up. Is anyone embarrassed by this? School leaders like to talk about their students being responsible citizens. They would be more responsible if they didn't leave such a mess.

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To the person who was complaining about his or her health insurance premiums going up, count your blessings. I own a small business in town. Our Blue Cross premium went from $966.98 per month, per family, to $1,968.67. Our out-of-pocket went from $9,000 to $13,500 per person. And to top it off, one employee lost access to the Rush University doctors. Dems— where's my $2,000 per year savings Obama promised?

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Does anyone remember the 2012 campaign? President Obama and his fellow Democrats ridiculed Mitt Romney's assertions that Russia was our top adversary. Now that Hillary Clinton has lost the 2016 election, who's worked up about Russia? Democrats looking for excuses as to why dear Hillary didn't win. If it isn't James Comey, white supremacists, the Electoral College system, “fake news,” Russian hacking, etc. Sigh. Blame anything and anyone except the candidate herself.

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Hi, Lombard calling. Question: This is Sunday afternoon. Is Lombard conserving the salt until we don't need it anymore for the streets? In Villa Park, no problem. Drive through Lombard, sliding all over the place.

See response below.—JAC

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Can somebody tell me why I'm required to shovel my walk but the village is allowed to plow snow off the corners of the street onto the handicap ramp in front of my house? People can walk past my house, but they can't cross the street. I don't understand it.

Editor’s note: The same questions about snow shoveling and plowing within the Village of Lombard come up every year, and have been repeatedly addressed in SPEAK OUT. Answers to those questions and more information—including “getting to know your snow plow driver”—can be found at http://www.villageoflombard.org/4626/Snow-PlowingWinter.

The page states that “Updates regarding major storm response will be available on this page during the event. Questions regarding snow plowing may be directed to publicworks@villageoflombard.org or 630-620-5740.”—JAC

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Hello, Lombard. I'm reading SPEAK OUT, Dec. 15, and it's very enjoyable, especially since we've had a snowfall and no one's called in to complain about their driveway being snow-packed because of street plowing. The street guys did a great job, but it's early yet and I'm sure we'll have the complainers. Thanks.

See above calls.—JAC

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To the person who called in about his or her medical insurance going up, and the insurance man saying it's because of Obamacare, and so many people flooded the system with claims. The reason your insurance is going up is because it's your insurance companies that are working with Obamacare. They weren't making enough money because there weren't enough sick people to put in claims, so they were losing money with Obamacare. The only way they could make any more money was to increase your insurance payments tenfold so their CEOs could pocket the money for themselves. Not saying Obamacare was perfect but I'm also saying maybe you need look to a little farther to find that the reason they went up is because the rich weren't getting any richer and they really don’t care about the poor getting any poorer.

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In my lifetime I have voted for Republican and Democratic candidates. What the Democratic Party is doing now, with the apparent manipulation of the Electoral College and constant harangues, will forever stay in my memory. The Democratic Party is saying, in effect, “The heck with America and the system of electing a president.” The Democratic Party is a terrible, self-seeking party. They lost the election because people felt left out and isolated by the Democrats and their policies. Also, their candidate was flawed.

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Villa Park calling. I don't know if you read the Dec. 15 Villa Park Review. The Villa Park board members unanimously approved the Villa Park Library board’s referendum proposal [to be placed on the ballot in the election of April 4, 2017] to borrow $10.6 million for their library expansion. We have other problems in Villa Park, such as flooding, streets, sewers, property values going down; this is crazy. Taxpayers are all going to end up paying or this–it's right in the Review and anybody who votes for this on April 4, 2017, should really think about having his or her head examined. I will keep fighting this situation, along with many other people, to do what we can do for the village, and I've been living here for 30 years. We have to get this straightened out. Nobody wants the library expansion or reform because it will end up being a new library built. Thank you, goodbye.

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Hello, Thank you to the nice lady at JCPenney on Friday, Dec. 16, who told me to go ahead of her at the return counter so I could be on my way for a 75-mile trip on-way so I could stay ahead of the snow storm, so I could get my hearing aids repaired. She has connections with Sacred Heart Parish, De Paul and St. Pius. You know who you are; thank you so much and God bless you. I can now hear again.

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Hey, I thought the reason they were mowing the lawn in the park on Thanksgiving was they were trying to scare all the geese away. Nobody seems to want to answer that question about the stinking geese in the Lombard parks. Thank you. Ho, ho, ho.

Inquiries about geese have been addressed in previous SPEAK OUT columns, but your comments were submitted to the Lombard Park District. Executive Director Paul Friedrichs provided the following response: “Canada geese are federally protected by the Migratory Bird Treaty Act. They are also protected by the Illinois Wildlife Code. In urban areas, Canada geese may not be removed. The [Lombard] Park District for many years has tried many different solutions to the goose problem that all open spaces in the Midwest face; however, using tractors to scare them, as you describe in your call, has never been one of those solutions.

Lombard is a wonderful place to raise your children. We have great schools, we are provided wonderful village resources and we also boast a nationally acclaimed and accredited park district. I guess the geese know a good place when they see one.  They really are pretty smart; they have figured out that there are not a lot of predators in the parks and a lot of Lombardians love to feed them. Although I have never gotten close enough to smell one to determine how ‘stinky’ they are, I, for one, would love them to fly away because they certainly leave a mess behind.

Over the years, the park district has used various types of products, devices and services to move them on their way. Some are more effective than others. The best solution usually involves our Border Collie ‘Molly’ scaring them, but then I get complaints from our neighbors who demand we take ‘our’ geese back to the parks and out of their lawns. The park district endeavors to be a goose-free park system, so we are continually looking for humane solutions to this problem. We continually test equipment in and around the ponds. If someone out there has a solution that doesn’t include providing permits to shoot the geese, please feel free to forward anything to me at my e-mail below.

Since it’s the holidays, I will give a foursome with carts to Western Acres Golf Course, for the best solution that’s forwarded to me, that the district can put into action this spring and we conclude it has had measureable effect on the goose population. Happy Holidays from the Park District Board and Staff, Paul Friedrichs, Executive Director, 630-953-6016 or pfriedrichs@lombardparks.com.”—JAC