This is in response to the person who had issues with the Villa Park police keeping their cars running while they are parked at the depot. Police cars today are full of sophisticated electrical and computer equipment. They are not at all like the squad cars of yesterday. They are truly mobile crime-fighting units. The equipment will not work unless it is kept at a steady temperature. This means air conditioning during the summer and heat during the winter. They also don’t turn their cars off because if they do and then get a call and the car won’t start, they can’t respond to the emergency. It’s really a matter of public safety that those cars stay running.

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I’d like to comment about the person who called SPEAK OUT on Nov. 12 complaining about the fact that his or her cat had been shot with a pellet gun and had a broken leg. I feel sorry for the cat. I would never intentionally hurt an animal. But I surely do not feel any sympathy whatsoever for the owner of the cat. You are an irresponsible pet owner. Keep the cat on your own property and in your own home. I have had dogs all my life. I keep them on my property unless I take them for a walk on a leash. And, I clean up after them. I am so tired of seeing stray cats kill birds at my bird feeders and I am definitely more than tired of seeing them poop in my flower beds. Why do you think it’s my responsibility to clean up after your pet? If you really cared about your cat, you’d keep it at home.

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Hi, I live on Main Street and the person who claims that the lamps are a bunch of cheesy lamps is nuts. I like them. I think they look very nice, and they’re classy. Of course, the ugly light poles, that’s another situation that you can’t get away from, because we would be paying more to bury them. I like them. Too bad, you lose, close your eyes—but don’t do it while you’re driving.

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Hello. So Trustee Soderstrom wants to run for village president. Let us remind all the seniors that he voted no against senior affordable housing in Lombard. When election time comes around, we seniors know who we want; we want someone who’s an advocate for seniors, and obviously, every trustee who voted no for senior affordable housing has no interest in us.

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This is for the person who wants us to thank President Bush for bringing oil prices down. First of all, he didn’t do that. Secondly, just because the prices are lower than this summer, when they were gouging us, doesn’t mean that they’re low. This is just what the oil companies want us to do. They want us to be lulled into thinking that we’re paying a lower price. Also, this summer when we wanted to take road trips, he caused a ripple effect in our economy. Fewer people were taking road-trip type vacations. The restaurants suffered, the amusement parks suffered, the national parks suffered.

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Hi, I have a question. There’s a hot dog stand drive through on Main Street by the old Walgreens, called Mike’s Hot Dog Stand, I think. Does anyone know if that is a new owner or new management? It looks like they may have put a new sign up, or something’s new in there. I’m just trying to figure it out.

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Lombard calling. I just want to correct somebody. George Bush wasn’t going to put all the Social Security in the stock market. That would have been left up to the individual, and if the stock market would have tripled, would you be swearing at the Democrats for saying they should have allowed us? Come on, America, get it right. Everything that’s bad is Bush’s fault, and everything that’s great, the Democrats get credit for. What the heck is this? Come on, grow up.

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This is Lombard calling. I thought I’d just chime in on the whole skateboard park thing. As the parent of a skateboarder, I’d like to respond to some of the people who said skateboard kids are slackers, that they should get jobs. Well, my son does have a job—it’s called being a kid. And, that they should pay for the park themselves. As far as that goes, my son doesn’t play baseball, he doesn’t play football, he doesn’t play soccer; he doesn’t play any of those, but I pay for all of those fields and everything that goes with it. So, if all of us have to pay for stuff that our kids don’t do, why can’t we as a town build a skateboard park? It seems to make a little bit of sense. But, if we want to go with that other person’s logic, then I want every baseball field, football field and soccer field torn out and let’s not pay for anything. Yeah, sounds kind of smart, doesn’t it?

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I’m calling about the fancy street lights on Main Street. I don’t think it’s necessary to have a street light every other house on both sides of the street when our side streets are dark.

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This year things have gotten completely out of control, and I’m feeling the need to speak out. Christmas is coming earlier every year. This year, the stuff was starting to go up in the stores in August, but even worse, I’m now witnessing Christmas decorations going full tilt on people’s lawns beginning the day after Halloween. These are the same houses that leave the decorations up until March. Ergo, we lucky people get to see the stuff for at least one quarter of the year. If the Christmas decorations were nice that would be bad enough, but what’s being placed on our lawns anymore is starting to make every day look like garbage day. The inflatables have taken on a life of their own. When these things are deflated, it looks like a mass murder has taken place on someone’s front lawn. The victims include Santa, Mrs. Santa, several innocent snowmen and occasionally something really Christmasy like Homer Simpson. Certainly nothing says the birth of Christ like a Ferris wheel on the front yard occupied by stuffed animals with vacant children of the corn staring out with hollowed eyes.

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Just calling I want to say I went to see “The Sound of Music” put on by the Glenbard East music department and it was just spectacular. Those kids performed like they were professionals. It was the greatest thing I’ve ever seen. Nice to know our future is in the hands of these kids and all other kids with talent.

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Kudos to Glenbard East’s theatrical department and orchestra for their outstanding performance on Nov. 16 of “The Sound of Music.” There are not enough positive adjectives to describe their talent. Not only I, but others wept tears of joy. This musical was just as good, if not better, than anything I have seen at Drury Lane. I’m extremely proud of the students at Glenbard East and our grade schools.

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Listen up, ladies and gentlemen; this is regarding taxes. Real estate taxes—I’m choking on it for years. You can’t sell your houses; everybody wants to pay less, less, less; you’re losing your jobs; your hours are being cut; your income is being cut. I can’t afford anything anymore, yet you go to the taxing board and they tell you it’s mandated, that they have to charge that amount. Where is it mandated that they bloat their system and put all these employees on there? We don’t need that many employees running this game over there. They want more and more benefits. Something’s got to give, and I think we should mandate them to lose their jobs, too, unless they start cutting the real estate taxes.

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Lombard here. The lights on Main Street look beautiful, but are a total waste of money to have two lights for every pole. Those lights could have been used elsewhere—South Edgewood, off of Roosevelt Road, is about the darkest street in the entire town, and they refuse to even give it a chance to put lights there. Not only is it dark, it’s a very busy street, so the cars coming down the street do not always see all the kids. I wish Lombard would have really thought about how they were going to use the money that they spent on this runway that we have now going through town, and maybe would have split the cost among other streets that needed lighting.

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Hello, Villa Park. Enough is enough with wasting the taxpayers’ money. First you put stop signs up at High Ridge and Ardmore, and spent over $6,000 for these stop signs. Now, you’re thinking about putting traffic signals up. Why didn’t you just do that in the first place and put the money from the stop signs toward the stop lights? And another one, who’s paying for that new skate park? This is getting ridiculous. Why don’t you quit wasting our money and our time?

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Kudos to the Glenbard East theater who did such a professional job on “The Sound of Music” production. The musicians, the singers the actors, the scenery and the costumes were outstanding. I applaud you. Great job.

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Hi, this is Lombard calling in regard to asking Republicans to support the new president. The people have spoken, John McCain did lose, and most of the Republicans I know have graciously accepted our new president-elect. However, it isn’t our new president-elect’s job to clean up the mess that the Republicans made. It’s his job to clean up the mess that’s been made by the bipartisanship government we have. George W. cleaned up Bill Clinton’s mess, and now Barack Obama is going to clean up George W.’s mess. Until we can all get along, there will be no mess-cleaning-up getting done. So, until we can have a bipartisanship government, look forward to a long, long time of messes, because each party’s going to continue to clean up each other’s messes.

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Lombard calling. I just wanted to commend and congratulate Glenbard East on the fabulous production of “the Sound of Music”; not only the students but also the faculty who worked with them We are truly blessed to have such a wonderful, wonderful program.

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Specifically to “the people have spoken,” in SPEAK OUT, clearly this is a great example of a political statement made by a person completely devoid of historical political fact. The current mess you refer to is the complete doing of the Democratic Party. The current mess you refer to was started because the Democrats decided that ill-equipped borrowers were entitled to the American dream, even though there was no way they could pay for it. The current mess you refer to is thanks to Democrat-sponsored deregulation of the banking industry, which was just beginning back in the good old Clinton days. Yes, the Clintons who, under their watch, had known about the likes of bin Laden, his intentions and his whereabouts. Not only did the Clintons have bin Laden in their sights, but they also had a mountain of evidence to have legally pulled the trigger on him instead of him pulling 9/11 on us. Now, in your giddiness to call SPEAK OUT, you throw up your hands and say, hopefully Obama can do it.

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You know, it’s been awhile, but I just want to give thanks to the old crew at the old White Hen at Main and Madison—for all of the years, all of the sandwiches. Thank you so very much. God bless you for everything.

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Hi, my daughters go to school in Lombard and I want to thank Sweet Street and Debbie for all the donations she has let us have for the school and for the kids to have fun parties and stuff. I just want to thank Sweet Street for all their wonderful candies and help, and making the kids so happy.

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Hi, I recently attended “The Sound of Music” at Glenbard East, and though I thought it was very, very good, I think three hours long for a play is a little excessive, with people bringing in little ones, little ones are crying and falling asleep. I think they should cut those plays short, maybe to two hours. A full length movie isn’t even three hours long.

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Hi, Lombard calling. I received a parking ticket on my car and noticed that if it wasn’t paid within two weeks, the parking ticket went up to $100. I find a $100 fee very excessive for parking your car overnight on a street in Lombard. I think that the late fine of $100 does not equate to the penalty of parking my car on the street overnight. I mean, that is a minimal crime in Lombard. I believe the penalties for parking your car on the street overnight should really be evaluated.

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I was on vacation Thanksgiving week, I turn on the TV, and every major news channel has the president-elect already outlining his stimulus package to save the economy two months before he’s even inaugurated as president. When has this ever happened before in my lifetime; which I’m almost 50 years old? One hour, one hour of air time on every major news network outlining his economic recovery plan, before he’s even in office.