Villa Park, Lombard's top stories of 2012

As Lombard and Villa Park residents, business owners and community members welcome in 2013, the staff at the Lombard Spectator and Villa Park Argus took a look back at some of our top stories from 2012.

Lombard house fire kills one woman, leaves a Villa Park man fighting for his life
In July, friends and neighbors mourned the death of 24-year-old Paula Morgan who was killed in fire at her home on Ahrens Avenue where she lived with her mother, Gina, and young son. Morgan died from smoke inhalation in the early hours of July 22, on the eve of her 25th birthday.

“I don’t think she had a mean bone in her body,” said Michael Sullivan in a July interview with the Lombard Spectator. Sullivan taught Morgan when she was a student at Willowbrook High School.

She’d hosted a birthday party with friends earlier in the night, but the celebrations took a devastating turn. Todd Mandoline, a former boyfriend of Morgan’s, is accused of starting the fire that killed her.

According to the DuPage County State’s Attorney Robert Berlin, Mandoline had been at Morgan’s birthday party, but escorted from the home after an argument. He returned later in the night and stuck a piece of paper into the fuel tank of her car, which he then lit. The fire spread from Morgan’s car to her two-story home

Following a police investigation, Mandoline was charged with four counts of first degree murder, three counts of aggravated arson, one count of arson and one count of criminal damage to property. He was denied bond at his first court appearance on July 25 and is being held without bond today.

With Morgan’s tragic death came the incredible story of one man’s survival. Jason Cassidy, 25, of Villa Park, was rescued from the burning home by Lombard firefighters. He wasn’t breathing, but had a slight heartbeat so he was taken first to Elmhurst Memorial Hospital then to Loyola University Medial Center in Maywood.

He was at a critical level of smoke inhalation and 40 percent of his body was covered in third degree burns, but he pulled through. After spending several weeks in Loyola’s intensive care unit, Cassidy was discharged on Sept. 7 and went to stay at his dad and step-mother’s house in Schaumburg.

Cassidy received several skin grafts and began a intensive regime of physical therapy while still in the hospital. Today he wears a skin-tight body suit that will help smooth out his skin that was grafted.

He moved back into his house in Villa Park in November and is eager to pick up where he left off.

"I've screamed about it, I've cried about it, I've done everything possible to get it off my chest and it's off my chest," he said in an exclusive September interview with the Lombard Spectator. "I've realized I'm a lot stronger, I have more friends than I thought."

Lombard mourns the death of long-time president Bill Mueller
In August, Lombard changed forever as the village said good-bye to its longtime village president, Bill Mueller.

Mueller died Aug. 18 after being admitted to the hospital for medical reasons related to multiple myeloma, the bone marrow cancer he had battled since 2008. While in the hospital, doctors discovered he also had West Nile Virus.

“He always made people feel at home and that they belonged in Lombard,” said Lombard Trustee Greg Gron, District 1, in an August interview with the Lombard Spectator.

Mueller’s funeral was held Aug. 25 at St. Pius X Church in Lombard, where hundreds of residents and community members came out to pay their last respects to the village’s biggest fan. Mueller had served as village president for 19 years.

With Mueller’s death, Lombard’s Village Board faced a dilemma: Which trustee, of the six, would fill the vacant village president seat for the remainder of Mueller’s term?

The board was split into two factions with three trustees supporting the appointment of Gron, the member of the board with the greatest seniority and three who wanted to see someone new in the position.

Deliberations at the Sept. 6 and Sept. 20 meetings turned nasty when trustees called out each other with specific reasons on why certain board members would make poor acting village presidents. One board meeting was forced to close after trustees Gron, Keith Giagnorio, District 2, and Bill Ware, District 6, walked out.

Finally, a compromise came at the Oct. 4 meeting when trustees Peter Breen, District 4, and Ware entered into a gentlemen's contract. It was decided that Breen fill the village president position until Jan. 16 and that Ware be sworn-in to fill the position from Jan. 17 until April 9 when a new president would be elected.

Fire forces the rebuilding of Villa Park VFW
The Villa Park VFW Post 2801 is nearly moved back into its building at 39 E. St. Charles Road that was renovated over the past several months after it was badly damaged during a fire.

Fire crews from Villa Park and neighboring departments responded to the fire around 6:30 p.m. May 29 right in the middle of the post’s Tuesday night Bingo activity. Dozens of people were evacuated from the building and several were treated at area hospitals for mild burns and smoke inhalation.

An investigation revealed that the fire started in the basement where spot-welding was being done on the post’s gun range. Sparks from the welding tools ignited the highly-flammable foam material used to soundproof the range. Typically, the soundproofing material comes with a flame retardant, but Lt. Mike Barton of the Villa Park Fire Department told Villa Park Argus in May that the high temperatures of the welding tools made the flame retardant ineffective.

The post's building was deemed inhabitable, but that didn't stop its members from staying active in the community. In November, the VFW continued its Thanksgiving tradition of hosting nearly 200 Navy recruits from Naval Station Great Lakes. The holiday dinner was held at the American Legion post in Elmhurst.

Lombard's Tim Grobart receives first heart transplant at Lurie's Children's Hospital
Today, 6-year old Tim Grobart of Lombard is a busy kindergartner at William Hammerschmidt School, a stark contrast to his life earlier in 2012 when he was hospitalized at Chicago's Children's Memorial Hospital.

He was one of the children involved in the hospital’s June 9 overnight move from Lincoln Park to the new Ann and Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital at the Northwestern Memorial Hospital medical campus, and 10 days later, he became the hospital’s first heart transplant patient.

Grobart was born with levo-transposition of the great arteries, which means that his heart pumps in reverse, said his mom Christine Grobart in a August interview with the Lombard Spectator.

He’d had several surgeries already where doctors worked to reconfigure his heart so that blood pumped properly through his body, but none of the work was successful enough to allow him to run, play and live like any other healthy child.

He was placed on the heart transplant list last March when his condition became worse, and he was hospitalized in late May after his parents found him in cardiac arrest.

His father, Jeff, works downtown and practically moved into the hospital with Tim. His mom, Christine, drove into the city from Lombard every day to be with him. The family relied on family, friends and neighbors to help take care of Tim’s older brother, Lou, and younger sister, Rosie.

Tim’s heart transplant was one of his easier surgeries, Christine said, and the family returned to Lombard on July 26.

Since his surgery, Tim’s made several return trips to the hospital for biopsies so that doctors can check for signs of his body rejecting the new heart. So far, everything has been normal.

He turned 6-years old on Sept. 5 and started school Sept. 24. The transplant compromised his immune system, so he wasn't able to start on time with the rest of his classmates.

Community members take steps toward opening local food cooperative
Since early summer, Lombard residents Jerry and Kathy Nash have been leading the charge to open a food cooperative in Lombard or another surrounding towns.

The couple moved to the village a little more than three years ago from Urbana, Ill. where there were owner-members of Common Ground Food, a local food cooperative that sold sustainable, locally grown food.

Now they’re working to bring the same concept to Lombard.

Over the past several months, the couple’s co-op vision has been officially named the Prairie Food Co-op and  the Nashes have developed a core of volunteers helping to get the initiative off the ground.

According to the Nashes, opening a food cooperative can take anywhere from two to three years, depending on the level of community support. They’re also counting on their friends at already established co-ops to help them get things started.

“We’re fortunate,” Kathy Nash said. “It’s really different from a traditional grocery store chain. They would not be sharing information about sales and profits.”

Find the group on Facebook at facebook.com/LombardFoodCoop or at their website prairiefood.coop.

Pet owners reunited with missing tortoise, cockatiel
Two missing pets made headlines this year as Lombard couples were reunited with their beloved animals.

On June 17, Lance, a 44-year old African spurred tortoise went missing from the backyard of his Lombard home, where he lives with Susan and Andy Lechner.

The Lechners searched their backyard and looked in all of Lance’s usual hiding places, but were unable to find him. Desperately, they contacted local media outlets hoping to spread the word about their missing pet and the tortoise became an Internet sensation.

A woman in St. Charles saw a report about Lance on the news and contacted Susan and Andy with the news that their tortoise was living in her neighbor’s empty pool.

After the tortoise escaped from his backyard a man found him in an apartment parking lot and, thinking he was a wild animal, took him home to St. Charles to be a pet. Lance was cared for by a 10-year old girl until he was reunited with his owners.

On Thanksgiving morning, another Lombard couple, Frank and Kim Alonso, lost their 10-month old pet cockatiel Tango, who flew out the sliding glass door of the Alonso’s condo.

His owners frantically searched the area around their home and although they located him in a tree, could not catch him before he flew away again. Frank and Kim were devastated thinking they would never see their pet again, and in a last-ditch effort they posted “lost bird” fliers around town.

They came up with a hit on Nov. 25 when they got a call from a woman who said a guest at the Westin Hotel had been walking around with Tango all weekend.

Tango had been found in the hotel’s parking garage the night after Thanksgiving, nearly frozen to death, but a woman at the hotel had taken him in and nursed him back to health. By the time the Alonsos got the call that their bird had been found, his rescuer was already on her way back to Minnesota.

She agreed to leave Tango at Rockford’s Animal Control where Frank and Kim picked him up a short while later.

“I saw him and I was just in shock,” Kim said in a December interview with the Lombard Spectator. “... He’s our miracle bird.”