LETTER: Hammond needs a new village board

To the Editor:

The Village of Hammond has a very important election coming up on April 3, 2012. The existing village leadership for the past three years has not led the village. The existing board has had trouble with the No. 1 job of the board, adopting budgets and following budgets. They have allowed village employees to be in charge of this job with very poor results.

The sewer department was operating $100,000 per year deficit for three years. This problem would have been brought to light early on if the public works director was following a budget.

This is a discrepancy in the property assessment in the village, which was caused by incompetence of the village clerk. These employees obviously cannot be left to run or lead the village and the existing trustees have failed to find and correct these problems. It is time to replace all incumbents; as they have shown that they cannot lead this village; we need new people, we need to give these new people a chance to lead this village into a new era of open and transparent government.

The incumbents have failed the people of this village. It’s time to move on from the trustees that have poor attendance and leadership records. We must elect new people to the village board April 3.

Saturday, Feb. 11, there is a candidate forum for all the candidates at the Hammond Golf Club at 9-10 a.m. This is a chance to meet and question the seven people running for the three village trustee positions. To change things we must change the leadership. Voting is the duty of everyone 18 years and older. Let’s get involved! Waiting for things to happen is not a good plan. We all must cast our votes on Tuesday, April 3, for a new Hammond Village Board.

John Rivard

Hammond

Tags: letters to the editor, opinion