Officials at Brookfield-LaGrange Park School District scrambled to restore the fire alarm system at S.E. Gross School as well as phone and wireless service to Brook Park School and the district's administrative office in downtown Brookfield after a lightning strike disabled those signals at about 6:20 p.m. on Sept. 27.

The good news is that work related to the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago's massive project to repair its Salt Creek Intercepting Sewer No. 2 below First Avenue and parts of Riverside, Brookfield and Lyons will finally draw to a close by the end of November.

Riverside trustees will soon consider whether to raise liquor license fees and water and sewer rates and mull imposing a local sales tax on gasoline for the coming 2020 fiscal year to boost operating revenues in the face of predicted annual budget deficits in the future.

A 59-year-old Berwyn man called Riverside police on Oct. 8 at about 4:40 p.m. to report that while he was driving his 2003 International tow truck northbound on Harlem Avenue from Ogden Avenue, a teenager jumped onto the flatbed of the truck and hitched a ride to 35th Street, where the driver stopped and yelled for the teen to get off the truck.