I'd like to know who approved the park district to mow Madison Meadow on Thanksgiving Day, which has to be either time and a half or double time and he has been out there for hours mowing the lawn on Thanksgiving Day in a park district truck. I think that's a waste of tax dollars. Thank you, bye.

Your inquiry was forwarded to the Lombard Park District, with the following response: “Some Lombard Park District employees have to work on holidays because we simply can't shut down. Be it emergencies, complaints, garbage, vandalism, etc.—from time to time it does happen.    When our employees are scheduled to work on a holiday, their weekly schedules are adjusted so they receive straight time pay.  We do this to save the taxpayers money while also serving the citizens. As to the particular employee on Thanksgiving, he was assigned some extra grass cutting duties because of complaints from your neighbors about the ‘park district’ leaves blowing into your yards. My Superintendent of Parks felt some mulching was appropriate on the park side of Madison and authorized the work. This is simply a case of the Lombard Park District trying to be a good neighbor to you and others who live in that area. If you would like to discuss this further, please feel free to call me at 630-953-6016, Paul Friedrichs, Executive Director, Lombard Park District.”—JAC

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OK, you in charge of SPEAK OUT, you can come up with a lot of answers and I have a question. When the price of oil drops, so does the price of gasoline drop. But when the price of oil drops, the oil you use for your car never goes down. Is that a different type of oil, or a special type of oil? Why does it never, ever drop in price? Gasoline does, but never the car oil. It stays high forever, no matter which way it goes. I'd like to hear that answer from you and I would appreciate that. So long.

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Shame on the Village of Villa Park for its response to a comment in the Nov. 24 SPEAK OUT. The comment stated that “We could all use some reassurance from the police department that hate crimes are not to be tolerated in Villa Park.” The village responded, “Village officials understand there is some concern relating to the recent presidential election results.” What is the village suggesting? People believe that Trump's election will cause hate crimes—and those crimes will be tolerated? Why didn't the village mention there have been zero reports of any recent hate crimes in Villa Park? By the way, you could easily fill this entire page with stories about recent hate-crime hoaxes in this country in which leftists apparently made up some type of crime or offensive act.

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I see that four members of the current Helen Plum Library Board are up for election in April of 2017. That means a potential majority of the board could be replaced then. Winning the referendum by 1,114 votes in a village of 43,000 people is not exactly a mandate. I ask that the current library board proceed with caution, fiduciary responsibility and patience in knowing the majority could be gone in six months. I personally will not vote for any incumbents on the board. We need a library board with a bigger vision, think outside the box, have a capital improvement budget and not waste our money. The village and the park district have a lot more buildings and own more than 1.5 acres of land, yet the library tax rate is higher than the park district and right behind the village. It is ridiculous. A new smarter board can reconsider this outrageous tax rate to something more reasonable for what is needed. They want to build a Taj Mahal in a shoe box; there is no room to grow at the current location. I pray the park board will protect Lilacia Park.

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President Obama played the race card. Hillary Clinton played the gender card. American voters played the Trump card. Merry Christmas.

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I just wanted to call and say that a few weeks ago when we went to see the Glenbard East Theatre Department's “Cats,” it was spectacular. There was not one teen in there who did not perform beautifully, correctly; the singing was outstanding. It was just marvelous. Congratulations to all the kids and teachers who put on the show. Such a beautiful group of teenagers. Bye.

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The movie stars who threatened to go to Jupiter, Australia, Africa, Canada, etc., after the election, are they all gone or was it just acting, not people of their word? I guess they never thought the best man would win. And, to the ones who can't grow up and live with it, you don't always get what you want. Get used to it.

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Lombard. Prayers and consideration to the officers and families affected at the Ohio State terrorist attack. Great job to our fine current president for letting these types of people in, erring on the side of political correctness versus offending these people.  We can’t call it terror? He just ran people over and started slashing them. Spineless leadership, that’s what we’ve had. Thank God that will change. I'm pretty sure it will; I hope it will. It’s been a failure to use the philosophy that if it looks like a duck, it probably is a duck. So sickening. Let’s keep letting these people in our country.

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Villa Park calling. What is happening with our mail carriers, particularly on the north side? Mail delivered to the wrong address multiple times, advertisements delivered after the sale dates. The post office tells us the carriers are in training. It is a sad, sad situation. Thank you.

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This is in response to the letter to the editor that appeared in the Lombardian (Dec. 1 issue) entitled, “Trump protests are collective voices of a nation fearful of its future.” Your letter was nothing but typical liberal fear-mongering. The two writers stated, “I disagree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.” What a crock! The only point of view you libs defend is anything that agrees with your own. When it doesn’t, you throw a hissy fit and demonize people, and then when you lose a presidential election, you demand recounts and want to get rid of the Electoral College. Oh by the way, I welcome immigrants, too, as long as they’re here legally—not sneaking in over the border.

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Villa Park here. I regularly have walked my dog for years at the south end of Villa Park. For years I have encountered the same problem—a golden retriever off leash walking around the neighborhood. The police have been told many times about this issue but it has persisted and the owners continue to break the law. They make excuses such as their children let the dog out or it got out on its own but they continue to get away with being negligent dog owners. This is also very sad to me, being a dog owner, they should at least give the dog away to someone who can care for it properly and give it a loving home. They also never clean their front lawn of the dog droppings. I urge anyone who encounters this dog to call the police and animal cruelty so that something will be done and this dog can go to a good loving home. All the excuses they give...don't believe it.

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That photo in SPEAK OUT of the sign in someone’s yard—Donald Trump is a vulgar pig—just goes to show just how petty and unhinged many of the Trump haters are. Here’s a suggestion for all you whiners around here who can’t accept Trump as president. Either get over it, or go hide in your safe spaces with your rattles and pacifiers for the next four years.

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People call in and say the Democrats are whining and they're protesting because Hillary Clinton lost the election. No, we're not; we know she lost. What we're protesting against is the person going to the White House. I don’t know where you people live, how you think, but do you not realize what this man, Paul Ryan and Reince Priebus, what they're going to do to our economy? Wake up, senior citizens: your Medicare, your Social Security are on the line and I believe they're going to dismantle it any way they can do it. The people he’s hired are millionaires and billionaires who don't seem to care about the middle class. He's not our president. He's a puppet. He's on a tour because he needs to feed his ego.

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In response to a letter to the editor comparing immigration and Hitler, his was a deranged, irrational fear of the Jews and others unlike himself when they had done nothing to give cause for concern. You say there is little to fear? Just tell that to the students at Ohio State. Remember the 2009 mass killing at Fort Hood, the rampage at two Tennessee military bases in 2015, the 2006 killing of a Jewish man in Maryland who had merely gone to the movies and of course, Sept. 11, 2001? Yes, we welcomed immigrants to our nation—our forefathers—but even they were vetted through Ellis Island. And, nobody is talking about cleansing, as you suggest when putting Hitler and immigration in the same paragraph. It is unfortunate that the “one-bad-apple” stigma persists, but it does.

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About two weeks before losing the election, Hillary Clinton said, “We’ve been around 240 years. We’ve had free and fair elections and we’ve accepted the outcomes when we may not have liked them.” Now that the election is over, Hillary's campaign team is looking for volunteers to help take part in recounts in Wisconsin and Michigan, initiated by Jill Stein, the Green Party candidate. When Hillary thought she was going to win, she said that questioning the results was a direct threat to our democracy. Now that she's lost, she's changed her tune. She apparently is a hypocrite.

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There was a deep and incisive comment about the recent presidential election in the Dec. 1 SPEAK OUT section. The commenter didn't see any Trump signs, but he or she did see signs for Clinton and others. Therefore, the commenter believes, the people who voted for Trump “knew he was not worthy of the presidency.” About 129 million people voted in the presidential election. This SPEAK OUT contributor can apparently read the minds of the tens of millions of Americans who voted for Trump. Based on what? Based on this: The commenter walks his or her dog quite a bit in Lombard. That's a great way to take the pulse of the nation, wouldn't you say?

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For all you people who voted for the library, thanks a lot. You didn't think anything of the seniors who are living on Social Security and being taxed right out of our house. Thanks again.

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This is to the caller about the Democrats complaining about Madigan. We've had Madigan in office for a long, long time, and he's worked with Republican and Democrat governors. We have never had what we have right now with Rauner in office. He apparently cares nothing about the infirm, he cares nothing about helping anybody, he wants to make this a right to work state like other Republicans have done to the states they run and destroy it like they have done with their states. All you have to do is look it up online and every state is in turmoil. If Madigan wasn't there, we would be in the same predicament these other states are. I’m very glad he's still there and I hope the other Democrats who are there with him will back him to the hilt.

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Hi, there, America. All you anti-Trump people in Lombard, I hope you went to Cuba for Castro's funeral so you could worship the man you love. Bye.