Lake County briefs

Power restored

About 5,400 ComEd customers in Fox Lake, Antioch, Volo and Lakemoor lost power overnight, ComEd officials said early Tuesday morning. ComEd spokesman Luis Diaz said the power went out for those customers at about 3:48 a.m. Power was restored to about 4,700 of those customers by 6:30 a.m. and the remaining 700 by 8:26 a.m. He said the cause of the outage remains under investigation, adding crews rerouted power through different lines. He said crews would work throughout the day to determine the cause and fix the outage.

Playground gear eyed

Lake County Forest Preserve District officials are weighing the purchase of nearly $173,000 worth of playground equipment for the Heron Creek preserve near Long Grove. The forest board's finance committee will meet Thursday to consider a contract with NuToys Leisure Products of LaGrange. The meeting is set to begin at 1 p.m. at the district's main office, 2000 N. Milwaukee Ave., Libertyville.

Firm has to-do list

The McHenry County Board on Tuesday unanimously approved its Federal Legislative Program for fiscal year 2010, a request for $4.6 million in assistance to fund roads, water and communications projects. The plan is a "to-do" list of sorts for The Ferguson Group, a Washington-based lobbying firm hired to serve the county's interests in the nation's capitol. Among the funding the firm is charged with seeking out is $1.3 million to complete comprehensive watershed plans for the Upper Fox River and Lower Nippersink Creek watersheds, both damaged in recent flooding. Other requests include $500,000 to perform water quality testing on 50 observation wells, $500,000 to widen Rakow Road between Route 31 and Ackman Road and $1.2 million to complete a plan to connect computer networks of various law enforcement agencies.