The Jersey City Independent "

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- Not Many Attendees at Spectra Public Meeting: While the proposal to route a natural gas pipeline extension through Jersey City has drawn criticism from a bevy of politicians and some local residents, turnout was light at Tuesday night’s public informational meeting.

- Council Action: An ordinance to make City Council jobs full-time was removed from the agenda, while a Healy administration ordinance to modify health benefits for commissioners of the Jersey City Incinerator Authority and Municipal Utilities Authority was passed. Look for our report on this and all the rest of the council action tomorrow.

- Searching for Attacker: Jersey City police have released a surveillance video from the scene of Friday’s brutal attack on a 48-year-old jitney bus driver, and are asking for the public’s help in finding the man who robbed, shot and run over the man. That driver, who somehow survived, talked to the press from his hospital bed yesterday.

- We’re Not Alone in Courting Google: Another local competitor to be a test city for Google’s new ultra high-speed network has emerged — Bayonne. Ward E councilman Steven Fulop recently kicked off the campaign to bring the high-speed test to Jersey City.

- Car Crash Snarls PATH Service: A 38-year-old Jersey City woman and her 14-year-old daughter avoided serious injury and death yesterday when their car plunged off a 50-foot cliff and landed on PATH tracks near Journal Square. The accident disrupted PATH service on the Newark-World Trade Center line for a while yesterday morning.

- JCPD Officer Arrested for Mortgage Fraud: A 36-year-old Jersey City police officer was arrested by the FBI this week on charges that he lied to a bank in order to score a $530,000 mortgage for a second home.

- Design*Sponge Guide to Jersey City: Kristen Scalia of Kanibal Home has written a Jersey City guide for the popular blog Design*Sponge; we’re happy to say that our magazine, NEW, is a part of it.

Today’s Best Bets:

- Author and social/cultural observer Michael Eric Dyson will be in town for a discussion at Hudson County Community College tonight (6 pm), and the Warehouse cafe brings back its free movies tonight with 2000′s Nine Queens (7:30 pm).

In Statewide News:

- Privatizing Public Worker Jobs: Gov. Christie will reportedly create a commission to privatize as many as 2,000 state jobs beginning next January, and is considering invoking the Disaster Control Act to suspend Civil Service rules to make it easier for him to lay off higher paid workers.

- The Public Entity Lobby: From small-town school boards to large independent authorities, public entities in New Jersey spent at least $2.1 million to lobby state government in 2009.

- Unemployment Rate Dips a Bit: New Jersey’s Department of Labor and Workforce Development says unemployment declined by 0.1 percentage point, to 9.9 percent, in January, though total employment in the state still shrank by 9,100 jobs that month. The total number of jobs lost in 2009 in the state: 114,100. Gov. Christie says the dip in the rate is “cold comfort” to those who are jobless.