TALK OF THE COUNTY

The Wadsworth Village Board voted 4-2 to eliminate our community's traffic police. All of this without benefit of public discussion! Why our mayor and four of our trustees think that protecting the residents of the community is not important enough to spend money on is beyond me.

Former Vice President Cheney is correct. President Obama is dithering about Afghanistan. The reason is quite obvious. Unlike former President Bush, he is indecisive. Obama was against the surge which succeeded. He wanted instead to send the troops to Afghanistan, but he was not at that time the person to call the shots. Now he is president and must decide whether to send more troops to Afghanistan or to pull out. The waiting is long enough. Our troops are in danger without sufficient backup.

Commercial delinquency has doubled in many small-to-regional banks in the last 10 months. Over the next two years you could see as much as $6 trillion in commercial loans go bad. These loans make up 56 percent of banks' portfolios, and in small town banks, it's 70 percent. There's many empty office buildings and this will not get better unless we see 5 percent unemployment. Double-bubble will happen and you will see large write-offs and 500 small banks fail over the next nine months. You have seen nothing yet.

In today's time, we have to look at innovative answers to the issues that face the country. As President Obama said, violence isn't just a Chicago problem anymore, it's nationwide, and as our economy gets worse it will grow in the same amount. Let's look for the answer with the people being trained more and more to urban issues. The National Guard is such an answer. They could use their people in a very good training program that would relieve stress on local law enforcement and give us three shifts of local people to work with the local law enforcement gang squads and enforce a needed system to rid the streets of individuals with guns and violence. I don't know what you think, but it is comforting to know we have police power and an answer.

With some states finally stepping up in the last couple of years to the reckless conduct of talking on cell phones and now texting, perhaps our Illinois representatives will take a stronger stance instead of these slap-on-the-hands type of punishment. Or maybe it will take someone close to a representative to really get hurt or worse because of a cell phone user before they start to get interested in these stupid, stupid actions. Did I say stupid? Yep.

Why does the health-care reform the Democrats want need to be done in such a hurry, and why behind closed doors? Several reasons come to mind, and quality and transparency are not on the list. If it is done slowly with actual debate, the American public will be able to determine what is actually wrong with the bill. The whole idea was to give every uninsured citizen access to health care. Do not fail to look at the number of uninsured citizens that will remain after the bill is passed. It has been reported that up to 20 million citizens will still not have health insurance. Sounds like a failure to me.

The seniors put the Warren Township supervisor in office. Her decision to push this land deal through could hurt her re-election in the coming year. They should have put this on a referendum and not as a hidden deal.

I've tried driving the speed limit but it doesn't work because somebody always wants to drive faster. Everybody ought to drive the speed limit but rarely does it happen.

It is ridiculous to listen people complain about those evil Republicans who didn't want the Olympics in Chicago. A poll showed that 44 percent of Chicagoans did not want the Olympics in their city. Are 44 percent of Chicago residents Republican? I think not.

The Wadsworth Village Board voted to cancel our police contract with little discussion. It was shameful.