I purchased my home in 2003 for $269,000. I put another $50,000 into the house for improvements over the years. According to Zillow, my home is now worth $215,000. My taxes this year in total were $8,900--hard to believe. My taxes went up this year even though my home value dropped $45,000. I have friends who own a $500,000 house in the northern suburbs who pay just a bit more than me. Please share how ridiculous Bolingbrook's taxes are, wasteful spending. John Pemberton

Dear Editor:  Above all else, nothing is more important to the Village of Bolingbrook than ensuring our 74,000 residents enjoy the highest possible quality of life. Central to that goal is securing ample access to quality healthcare. As such, on behalf of the Village Board, I am happy to welcome U.S. Renal Care, a provider of life-saving dialysis services, to our community.  Next Monday I will be joining Village Board Members, community leaders and area patients and physicians to cut the ribbon on a state-of-the-art, 13-station U.S. Renal Care dialysis center in Bolingbrook. The new facility …

On Saturday of last week I had the privilege of meeting State Representative candidate Bob Kalnicky.   I had seen his mailers and commercials but [there] he was face to face at my front door. I asked Mr. Kalnicky the most important question to me during this campaign, when he gets to Congress would he get rid of Pat Quinn’s tax increase that is stealing my money? I told him if he answered my question the right way I would vote for him and write a letter to the editor for him, so here you go, Bob.   I am sure you can gather that Bob Kalnicky committed to me that he would work to get rid of Pat…

On behalf of the Kiwanis Club of Bolingbrook & Romeoville, we want to thank Andy's Frozen Custard for the $482.15 check you sent us for our Fundraising Night we held back on Tuesday, May 8. The evening went amazing – the crowd had a great time. We love having Andy’s as a community partner. This money will go towards our Eliminate world-wide service project goal. Thank you for supporting The Eliminate Project. Thank you for supporting Kiwanis.  — Michael Carpanzano President, Kiwanis Club of Bolingbrook & Romeoville

I would like to share a story about my trash collector, who recently went above and beyond. On the rainy morning of Feb. 21, my wife was running late to work and remembered to put the garbage out for our weekly pick up. She set down her phone on the top of the car to move the garbage to the curb and forgot it was there when she drove away. A block down the street she turned onto Cumberland from Pepperwood and the phone flew off and broke into three pieces. Luckily, it landed right in front of a neighbor's garbage spot. While running his normal route, our trash collector, Chris Flasza, who …

The most important person in Patch is not yours truly, the local editor. It's not the talented freelancers who fill this space with informative and interesting articles each and every day — though we appreciate them very much. And with all due respect to Patch's CEO and other corporate brass, it's not them either. The most important person in Patch is you, the reader. The articles you read largely drive where our reporting will take us next. The events and announcements you post have a major effect on the way our community works. And the comments you leave on our stories let us know what we …

The May 10 (Joliet Junior College) board meeting confirmed what I have been saying all along.  There is no needs assessment evidence to support the $43 million City Center Project plan.  After public pressure to do so, trustee Mike O’Connell and President Dr. Proulx conducted a survey of current culinary graduates over the last month.  The results were evidently so bad, that they were not released.  Dr. Proulx’s comments confirmed that success tracking has not been done for culinary or hospitality programs until this survey.  A positive needs assessment would provide evidence of employment …