SPEAK OUT - November 24th, 2010

Link to this week's Speak Out

This week we have people complaining about Republicans taking back Congress, the socialist taking over Lombard, a eyesore of a bridge, and people complaining about having to wait for trains, despite the fact Americans have been doing that for ……150 years…

So the election is over and we got our country back. Not sure where it went or what privileges I lost but that’s what the Republicans told me. So the first thing they’re going to do is give tax breaks to the rich making $250,000 or more a year; we sure did get our country back, back to the way it was those eight long years.

I know isn’t it amazing!?! Just wait until more corporate tax loopholes are given and more and more corporations are paying $0 in US Taxes! Add on to that that Republicans want to lower taxes even further than 35% on people making more than $250,000/year and lower the corporate tax rate to 25%. In all seriousness, Republicans might as well just pass a tax law that says if you make over $250,000 you are exempt from every tax possible. Just hurry up and get it a lot of the way already Republicans!

I read in the Lombardian that Village of Lombard passed an ordinance in March that you can’t keep more than a cord of wood on your residential property. That is just amazing that in this time of recession when people actually use firewood to heat their homes and lower their fuel bills like myself, that the village is going to say you can’t keep more than one lousy cord of wood on your property? Well, I’ve been keeping four or five cords of wood on my property. It’s thick, it’s stacked, stored properly in my big fenced yard; and unless we’re turning into a socialist government, where the government dictates everything we can do. here again, government is interfering with people’s lives. If they want to pay my heating bills in the winter, when I turn down the heat and make a nice big fire in my fireplace in the basement, and lower my heating bills, then I’ll send the Village of Lombard my electric and my gas bills.

Oh! There you go again with that socialist word. You do know you live in DuPage County, which constantly elects Republicans to office right? So by saying Lombard is adopting socialist policies that would mean you will no longer support the Republican Party in elections right? But if you’ve been voting for Libertarians I will cut you some slack.

Hi, this is Lombard calling. I would just like to say that we have a real issue here in Lombard with these trains. Traffic is being held up at an unsafe level. There’s traffic backed up everywhere. I don’t think these trains should be allowed to go at such a slow pace and I don’t see why we have to have so many go through our towns. This is not right.

In case you haven’t noticed, there's this street called Main Street in Lombard that goes under the railroad tracks. You can take a detour at any time to go under the railroad tracks and be on your merry way. With that said, freight industry is a leading driver of our economy and as the trucking industry fell on hard times with high gasoline prices and then the overall economic collapse, shipping companies turned to rail to ship their products, and as a result they have seen an increased work load and companies like the Union Pacific, which runs through Lombard, have been highly profitable and are in fact hiring workers in this country as opposed to most companies. So if you want the economy to continue to suffer, then lobby for less movement of goods.

Lombard here. The very individuals and corporations of Wall Street that the “everyday American” denounced when the bailouts occurred, are the very individuals who poured millions of dollars into the Republican coffers to win seats this election. Just when financial regulatory reform was just getting under way. The wealthy in this country have fooled the undereducated citizens once again. How very, very sad.

Money wins. So, go on Wall Street, become one of them, but trick them! Seriously though, this will continue to be a problem in this country as long as we have privately financed campaigns. There’s seriously no way to fix it other than to educate American voters and make them vote for the guy who gets funded the least from major corporations. Unfortunately most Americans don’t pay that much attention to things in this country.

Lombard, all these people who voted Republican think this party is going to fix everything. Well, they are wrong. They blame the Democrats for all these problems; Europe has the same problems. Are you going to blame the Democrats for that, too?

Republicans aren’t going to fix anything. They're going to cut 2% of the budget and declare victory while making life harder for the American poor and middle class and they're going to lower taxes for the richest 1% of Americans….well they would like to, but there's this thing called the Democrats control the Senate and OBAMA IS IN THE FREAKING WHITE HOUSE! All of our problems that have existed since 2008 will continue to exist in 2012.

Yes, to the Villa Park individuals who had a Weber Grill and a bicycle stolen on Saturday, Nov. 6, four individuals were seen running with your items to South Wisconsin. So if you are looking for your stuff, go to South Wisconsin. It was seen being taken there.

Did you at least contact the police?

Hello, Villa Park. How long do we have to look at the Ardmore bridge? It’s an eyesore and what are we going on, four years now? Are you waiting for somebody to get critically hurt in a vehicle accident at Ardmore and North Avenue and they don’t make it because the fire engine had to go around or the ambulance had to go around? Or they got stuck by a train? How long do we have to look at this? Please. It’s been long enough. Please, stop the ugliness in Villa Park. Lawsuits will cost a lot more than fixing the bridge will.
The bridge closed down Aug. 25, 2009. –JAC [This is the Lombardians reply to the comment]

Maybe you should have been petitioning people to slightly raise the sales tax in Villa Park so they could pay for the bridge repair. And also, don’t ever rail about the Stimulus Plan because Villa Park lobbied for some money for that project.

Lombard calling. I just finished watching the last village board meeting where the Downtown Lombard Plan was addressed and I have to say I am completely disgusted by President Mueller’s response. First and foremost, he clearly did not read the entire report prior to the meeting. Had he read it, he would have realized that his comment about needing to see tasks that could be completed immediately were addressed in the report. As Trustee Moreau stated, there were items that could be addressed immediately, items that are a few years out and items that are several years out. When is President Mueller going to understand that residents of Lombard are demanding change to downtown Lombard? He was elected by us and works for us. I, for one, am tired of hearing his excuses of not having money to do anything. He clearly found money to rehab Yorktown. Now, it is downtown Lombard’s turn. Everything that was presented to him in the report, he was negative about. He is constantly negative about anything having to do with downtown Lombard. Instead of him constantly saying “we can’t” do something, it’s time for him to say “we need to find a way.” The days of President Mueller putting off revitalization of downtown Lombard are over. If he cannot find a way, it’s time for him to step down and for someone to step in who can. If you agree that it’s time for Mueller and the board to make changes to downtown Lombard, please call Speak Out and start getting involved. That is the only way things will start to change.

Ok, let me just put it this way. Mueller put a lot of work, time, and money into Yorktown but guess when he did that? BEFORE 2008! We are in this thing called a recession now. Lombard had to cut back on spending to keep a balanced budget (They cant act like our Federal Government) and so the money is not there unless you are in favor of a tax increase for improvement to downtown Lombard. Anything drastic would have to have voters’ approval anyways. I’ll agree that the downtown needs help, but a plan will not come about easy now a days.

Thank you for your time the six of you that currently read this.