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- Close to 150 people attended last night’s public hearing on the proposed settlement between the city (and the state) and PPG over chromium contamination in and around 900 Garfield Ave. Thirty-three people took the opportunity to speak about the settlement — the majority of them called for more details and a stricter cleanup process. Keep an eye out for JCI’s in-depth report later in the week.

- At NJCU for a presser yesterday, Gov. Corzine took some flak from students about the cuts to higher education included in his proposed budget.

- At-Large council candidate Joseph Cassidy has suffered a setback in his attempt to remove Mayor Healy from the May 12 ballot. At an emergency hearing yesterday morning, Cassidy’s attorney argued that Healy shouldn’t have been allowed to have a place in the ballot-position drawings, but a Superior Court judge ruled that Healy could. His ruling doesn’t seem to eliminate all of Cassidy’s options, as the judge ruled that Healy could be removed from the ballot at a later time if necessary. Speaking of the ballot-position drawings, they were held yesterday, and L. Harvey Smith received the highest position on the mayoral ballot. Here’s the rundown.

- A 19-year-old man was shot at Winfield and Ocean Avenues yesterday afternoon. Three suspects were picked up by the cops and charged with the shooting, which was the third in a seven-block radius in the last five days.

- HudCo prosecutor Ed DeFazio says the death of schools superintendent Charles Epps’ son “appears to be a tragic accident.” Jonathan Epps died Sunday as a result of a fall from a moving car last weekend in Hoboken.

- The Reporter takes a look at the life and times of native Mary Norton, the first woman elected to the U.S. House as a Democrat. The Jersey City native served 13 terms, from 1925-1951.

- Learning Community Charter School principal Susan Grierson is being awarded the School Leader Award today by the New Jersey Charter Public Schools Association at its annual conference in Trenton.

In statewide news:

- The Communications Workers of America and other unions filed three separate suits yesterday that argue Gov. Corzine’s emergency rule allowing government to furlough workers undermines existing contracts.

- Speaking of organized labor: Union membership in NJ was down in 2008 from the previous year, according to the U.S. Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics. Union members made up 18.3 percent of the state’s workers in ’08, compared to 19.2 percent in ’07. The figure is still much higher than the national average of 12.4 percent.

- A panel appointed by Gov. Corzine has recommended that the state’s undocumented immigrants should be allowed to pay in-state college tuition and obtain drivers licenses. The panel also calls for a moratorium on Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids. Corzine says that while he supports the tuition plan, the drivers license plan is “problematic.”

- A senior investigator for the state Department of Labor pleaded guilty yesterday in federal court to taking more than $1.8 million in bribes from a series of temporary employment agencies he was supposed to be auditing.

- A hearing is set to begin on whether to lift a ban on homebuilding that presently applies to a 28-acre tract known as the Highland Cross site in the Meadowlands. Developer Linque-H.C. Partners will make its case to build as many as 800 homes to the the New Jersey Meadowlands Commission beginning tonight.