The Jersey City Independent"

The Independent’s offices will be closed tomorrow; the Roundup will return on Monday. Enjoy your weekend, everyone.

- Former city councilman Tom Fricchione, who died earlier this week, was remembered yesterday as a joyous public servant who helped anyone who asked.

- The pastor of St. John Lutheran Church in Union City writes in to the Journal to remind everyone of the good work that embattled At-Large councilman Mariano Vega* has done in the area of homelessness.

- More than a dozen children at a daycare center on Martin Luther King Drive were evacuated after a construction crew ruptured a gas main yesterday morning.

- A two-alarm fire in the Heights yesterday morning sent two people to the hospital, killed two parrots died and caused a cat to have to be resuscitated.

- Fe Fe and Bon Bon, two sheep found in Jersey City earlier this month, have gone back to farm living after spending two weeks at the Liberty Humane Society.

- Jersey City comic artist auilix has a new cartoon up about the PATH Christmas tree.

- The Jersey City Free Public Library will host a Kwanzaa celebration at the Miller Branch Library Cultural Arts Auditorium on Saturday.

In statewide news:

- Census estimates released this week show that New Jersey’s population continued to grow more slowly than many other states’ in 2009, which could lead to the state receiving less federal aid and having one fewer Congressional representative in the coming decade.

- Gov.-elect Christie is vowing to scrutinize New Jersey’s pension laws in the wake of a report that questions how a private lawyer could have held 12 part-time public jobs giving him pension benefits totaling more than $100,000 a year.

- Speak of the devil — New Jersey’s state pension fund spent $166 million on Wall Street fees and commissions during the last fiscal year — including $5 million a new state audit says it didn’t need to pay.

- A group of legal and mental health experts says the state should look at creating an independent watchdog panel for all five state psychiatric hospitals to monitor patient care and programming.

- A new “Silver Alert” system in New Jersey was signed a law Wednesday; it will create a system similar to the nationally recognized “Amber Alert” to locate missing people suffering from Alzheimer’s disease and other cognitive disorders.

- The New Jersey Italian American Legislative Caucus is weighing in on the Jersey Shore debate, having recently sent a letter to Viacom asking it to cancel the controversial MTV show that some say promotes offensive ethnic stereotypes of Italian Americans.