The Jersey City Independent "

- The family of the girl who was shot in the face on Monday is fuming over a police search that left parts of their Van Horne Street home in shambles. The cops were allegedly looking for a gun, and may think that the victim’s 19-year-old brother had some sort of involvement in the shooting. At the City Council meeting last night, Annie McCord, the girl’s mother, clearly shaken, kept telling the council that “this doesn’t make sense” and that she was “being harassed by the Jersey City police.” Her boyfriend, Rev. Robert Allen, provided the raw anger to compliment McCord’s grief, admonishing the council for running a city that doesn’t work for everyone. He said that the city has to “get the young men jobs or jail” so as to keep them off the streets. Look for more from the council meeting on JCI tomorrow. The shooting was also featured on CBS-TV last night.

- The Journal‘s editorial echoes what we’ve been saying for weeks now, which is that the pension-fund payment-deferral plan being pushed by Gov. Corzine and being counted on by the city and the county is by no means a guarantee. The paper argues that the introduced city budget — which assumes not paying nearly $15 million into the pension fund — would be illegal to approve, since municipalities can’t make such assumptions in budgeting. Indeed, it will be interesting to see how this all shakes out. To us, it looks like the state bill is doomed. And then the city will have to do one of two things: come up with some other scheme to “balance” the budget or own up to the reality that its fiscal house is in disarray.

- Twenty-one-year-old Justin McNeil became Jersey City’s fourth homicide victim on Tuesday night. The father of a one-year-old girl was shot in the chest near the intersection of Ocean and Bayview Avenues.

- The JCPD cop who is charged with vehicular manslaughter and other offenses for running down two pedestrians with his car in NYC over the weekend while off-duty was in court yesterday. Not much happened, so we’re not sure why it warranted the front page of the JJ. His next hearing is May 11.

- Lutheran Social Ministries of New Jersey has leased 14,000 square feet of space at 377 Skinner Memorial Dr., a medical office building under construction at the Jersey City Medical Center campus. The facility will house Lutheran Senior Healthcare, a new program offering integrated medical and social services to qualified seniors living in JC, Bayonne, Hoboken, North Bergen, Union City and Weehawken.

- Luxury homebuilder Toll Brothers Inc., which has a number of projects in Jersey City, including the controversial plan to build high-rises in the Powerhouse Arts District, is hurting. Yesterday the company is reporting a 51 percent plunge in homebuilding revenue and a sharp drop in net signed contracts in the last three months, as falling home prices, the deteriorating economy and rising unemployment kept many would-be homebuyers on the sidelines.

- On Lincoln’s birthday, the Star-Ledger traces the famed president’s links to NJ. Of course, JC is home to the oldest continuing Lincoln Association in the United States, which this year will be celebrating the 200th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln’s birth. Today at noon the group will host a monument ceremony at the Lincoln statue at the entrance of Lincoln Park (JFK Boulevard and Belmont Avenue). Dr. Jules Ladenheim will deliver one of Lincoln’s memorable speeches.

- The February issue of the JCPD’s newsletter has an interesting history — dating back to 1887 — of the monument currently at Montgomery Street and Marin Boulevard that honors police officers who have died without relatives or the means to be buried elsewhere.

- Feed Your Soul’s Mya Jacobson talks to Bostonia, the Boston University alumni magazine, about her career move — she went from being a trader at the American Stock Exchange to proprietor of the Jersey Avenue bakery/cafe (Feed Your Soul also sells cookies nationally online and is in some supermarkets.)

In statewide news:

- New data from RealtyTrac shows that nationwide, foreclosure filings were down from December to January, but still up from January ’08 to January ’09. But in NJ, the opposite occurred. There were a total of 5,005 foreclosure filings — default notices, auction sale notices and bank repossessions — in the Garden State last month, up 29.5 percent from December, but down 2.11 percent from January ’08.

- The dean of the Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy at Rutgers University says that NJ stands to lose another 205,000 jobs before it emerges from the recession. James Hughes told a gathering of bankers that the final tally of jobs lost could top 265,000.

- Mobilizing the Region weighs in on NJ’s new Draft Global Warming Response Act Recommendation Report, saying it “presents a comprehensive approach toward reducing NJ’s carbon footprint that includes progressive solutions aimed at shifting travel patterns,” but that “an overall lack of specificity and prioritization are discouraging, and what few deadlines and concrete goals it proffers will require heavy lifts from state agencies and the legislature, and hard shoves from advocates.”

- The state has ordered developer Fred Daibes to restore a portion of the Hudson River waterfront in Edgewater after determining that he illegally filled in 1.23 acres of riverbed during construction at Le Jardin restaurant on River Road. Daibes apologized Monday for what he said was a construction “mistake” by his employees.

- NJ is conducting an audit of all public employees, believing as much as $185 million is being spent on health benefits for dependents who are ineligible for coverage.

- Former Gov. Tom Kean Sr. endorsed Republican hopeful Chris Christie for governor yesterday. Meanwhile, Gov. Corzine has an upside-down 34 percent-51 percent approval rating and gets a grade of D+ on providing property tax relief, according to a new Monmouth University/Gannett New Jersey poll.

- Former Gov. Christie Whitman says former Vice President Dick Cheney undermined her efforts to reduce carbon emissions during her tenure as head of the Environmental Protection Agency.

- A Bergen County judge has dismissed a defamation suit by three women whose photos appeared in the book Hot Chicks with Douchebags, finding the author’s use of the pictures is protected First Amendment speech.

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