- Youth & Violence: Lucille Porter has attended about a dozen funerals for young Jersey City people who died due to violence, as part of her mission to reach the city’s youth. “I’m a Christian and I love the Lord,” she tells the Journal. “He let me know that I have work to do in Jersey City.”

- Velazquez Appointment: The City Council’s appointment of Ray Velazquez was a sign that Mayor Jerremiah Healy was out-muscled by a Jersey City legion redirecting their resources to protect County Executive Tom DeGise, according to Politicker’s Tim Carroll.

- Organized Crime: A 56-year-old Jersey City native who is an alleged member of the Bonanno crime family’s ruling panel will be sentenced in Brooklyn next week for loansharking offenses.

- Man Arrested in Alleged Sexual Assault: A 24-year-old North Bergen man has been arrested for allegedly sexually assaulting a 14-year-old Jersey City girl.

Today’s Best Bets:

- Looks like you’ll have pretty good weather for the annual Oktoberfest celebration on Grove Street this afternoon, featuring an oompah band, a short parade and, of course, plenty of beer (4 pm). There’s also an Oktoberfest celebration at HCCC’s Culinary Arts Institute/Conference Center a few hours later (6:30 pm). There’s a free screening of Broken English at the Warehouse (7 pm), and famed jazz drummer Billy Hart will be at NJCU for a free performance (7:30 pm). And last, but certainly not least, Art House Productions kicks off its 10th season of the Art House open mic/performing arts show, featuring poet Sean Van Kleef (8 pm).

In Statewide News:

- Medical Marijuana: New Jersey’s Department of Health and Senior Services has released its draft rules for medical marijuana, and it says medical marijuana should be available to approved patients by July 2011.

- Deportation Shift: Of the 5,502 immigrants in New Jersey deported in the past year, 1,830 were convicted criminals, according to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). That’s up from the previous year, when total deportations numbered 5,058, and 1,514 of the immigrants were convicted criminals. The shift is part of the Obama administration’s attempt to focus on removing illegal immigrants who pose a threat to public safety.

- Race to the Top Hearing: Fired education commissioner Bret Schundler on Thursday plans to accuse Gov. Christie of caring more about sticking to his public image as a foe of the teachers union than winning $400 million in federal education funds.

- Stun Guns & Cops: Attorney General Paula Dow today will announce new rules on stun guns that significantly loosen restrictions on how many police officers can use them and when they can be deployed.

- Wells Fargo Settlement: Wells Fargo Home Mortgage has agreed to provide Garden State homebuyers with nearly $67 million in loan modifications to settle charges of deceptive marketing of adjustable-rate mortgages. The company will also pay the state nearly $4 million.

- Shaming Delinquent Taxpayers: After a two-year hiatus, New Jersey is going back to its tactic of publicly naming and shaming the state’s biggest delinquent taxpayers in an effort to get them to cough up the missing money.

- Deputy Ed Commish Leaving: Willa Spicer, the state education official central to New Jersey’s policy in the classroom for the last several years, says she is leaving the department.

- Small Biz Lending: New Jersey saw a 19 percent increase in Small Business Administration-backed loans in the fiscal year that ended September 30.

- ‘Empty Sky’ Construction: State officials say construction on the “Empty Sky” 9/11 memorial in Liberty State Park is set to begin in November, despite continued local opposition and a state budget crisis. MORE from the Reporter.

- Red Tide in the Hudson: A reddish sheen reported Monday morning on the Hudson River has been determined to be red tide outbreak, an accumulation of bacteria whose dense concentration turns the affected water a reddish brown in color, according to U.S. Coast Guard officials.

- Homeless Man Wants Dog Back: A 49-year-old Jersey City man who is homeless had his dog was taken away by Jersey City’s animal control officer, and now he’s demanding the pet’s return — but it has already been adopted out by Liberty Humane, which first refused to return the dog to the man because he was homeless. (The shelter says the policy has since changed.)

- Body Found in Newark Bay: The body of an adult male was found at the water’s edge of Newark Bay on Sunday, and the death is being considered “suspicious” while authorities await the results of an autopsy.

- Home Health Aide Charged: A Jersey City home health aide was arrested Thursday after shocked family members of a 91-year-old woman viewed a videotape that shows the aide striking the woman repeatedly.

- Beating Suspect May Have Left the Country: A suspect in the case of a man who remains on life support after being attacked outside Grand Banks on the corner of Montgomery and Washington Streets is believed to have fled the country along with another “person of interest.”

- Hit & Run Victim’s Recovery: The 8-year-old boy who was dragged 70 feet in a hit-and-run accident two years ago is on the mend. “I’m doing awesome,” he tells the Journal.

- Jets Player Donates Equipment to High School: The Lincoln High School football program was pleasantly surprised last week when 80 pairs of brand new cleats and gloves were delivered to the school’s athletic department as a donation from New York Jets wide receiver Santonio Holmes.

- DWI Checkpoint Nabs Three: A DWI checkpoint set up at 18th Street and Jersey Avenue by the Hudson County Sheriff’s Office over the Labor Day weekend resulted in three busts for driving under the influence, including two people who were also charged with carrying guns illegally.

- Heights Fire: Four families were displaced yesterday by a three-alarm fire that ravaged two houses on Bleecker Street in the Heights.

Today’s Best Bets:

- If you haven’t gotten over to Hamilton Square’s arty mini-golf course designed to raise money for the Jersey City Museum, tonight’s closing reception is your last chance (6 pm). LITM hosts the opening reception for Bonnie Gloris’ Surface Tension exhibition (7 pm); for more on Gloris, check out our Q&A that ran last week. And the film Clear Blue Tuesday, which was produced by NJCU alum Al Parinello has its premiere at the university’s Margaret Williams Theatre (6 pm).

In Statewide News:

- Immigrant Deportations: So far this year, 64 percent of the 4,000 people ordered deported from New Jersey had no criminal record, far more than the national rate of just under 50 percent.

- Race to the Top Fallout Keeps Coming: A week after he was fired, former education commissioner Bret Schundler says he isn’t considering taking legal action over his termination. But the former Jersey City mayor says he would like an apology. Meanwhile, state Democrats have invited a slew of people to testify at an Assembly committee hearing today in an attempt to determine how the error on the state’s Race to the Top application was made and “avoid future missteps.”

- Tuition Hikes Outpacing Inflation: Students at New Jersey’s four-year colleges and universities will pay between 3.5 percent and 7.3 percent more in tuition and fees this year as their institutions try to make up for cuts in state aid and rising operating costs, according to a Star-Ledger survey of two dozen schools.

- Christie vs. Public Workers: As Labor Day passes, NJ Spotlight takes a look at the “serious battles” to come over the next 10 months between Gov. Christie and the state’s public-worker unions.

- Christie’s ‘Reform Agenda’: Gov. Christie plans to unveil today the first of what aides describe as a series of reform initiatives targeting everything from conflicts of interest in state government to changes to ethics law, public pensions and regulations on how many public salaries a person can earn.

- Solar Rebate Program Returns: New Jersey’s Office of Clean Energy began taking applications for its residential solar rebate program last week after a four month hiatus, inaugurating a new distribution system that avoided the problem they had in May when they ran out of four months’ worth of solar rebates in a day.

- Transpo Trust Fund Issues More Debt: New Jersey’s Transportation Trust Fund Authority has approved $1.75 billion in new and refunding bonds, using up almost all the borrowing capacity in the state’s main funding source for highway and mass-transit improvements. The troubled fund is expected to be insolvent by some time next year.

- Christie & the Midterms: What impact will Gov. Christie have on New Jersey’s congressional races? Matt Friedman takes a look.

- Artificial Turf: As more and more New Jersey high schools, colleges and community-based organizations opt to go for synthetic turf over grass on playing fields, questions about cost and safety remain.

- Lots of Dragonflies This Year: Swarms of dragonflies not seen in years are flitting throughout New Jersey, and in spectacular numbers on the Shore’s salt marshes.

- It’s been more than three months since political consultant Jack Shaw’s death at his Paulus Hook home, and authorities have still not publicly announced his cause of death. There has been much speculation that Shaw committed suicide; his death came just five days after he and scores of others were arrested on federal corruption charges.

- Homeowners, get ready for a jump in water/sewer rates. The Municipal Utilities Authority has voted to raise the combined water/sewer rate from this year’s estimated $6.57 per 100 cubic feet to $8.15 per 100 cubic feet, an increase of 24 percent. The new rate will go into effect Jan. 1.

- CFG Health Systems has filed a lawsuit accusing Hudson County of flouting the state’s pay-to-play law when it awarded a contract for medical services at the jail and juvenile detention center to a campaign donor and former employee.

- Color Lines magazine has a heartbreaking story of a former Jersey City resident who was deported to Jamaica. His family was left behind and eventually became homeless after a job loss caused their eviction. (Excerpt here at The Root; full story at Color Lines.)

- Dislocations has an interesting post on the “history & mystery” behind the St. Jude statue at St. Lucy’s on Grove Street.

- Don’t be alarmed by this morning’s waterfront gunfire. It’s only the USS New York; the ship will stop at the World Trade Center site at 8 am for a 21-gun salute.

In statewide news:

- New Jersey will elect its next governor tomorrow. The latest Monmouth University/Gannett New Jersey poll released Sunday shows once again a statistical dead heat and slipping numbers for the independent. It finds that Republican challenger Chris Christie is backed by 43 percent of likely voters, with Corzine pulling 42 percent and Chris Daggett at 8 percent. As the candidates scrambled to campaign on the final weekend, the state “took on the carnival-like feel of a political convention,” and the Times has a look at the New Jersey race (and the gov race in Virginia) from a national perspective. Meanwhile, Corzine is now saying that toll hikes are off the table and that his comments were mischaracterized by the Times last week. Gannett’s Michael Symons says the race has become “a referendum on the independent running third in public-opinion polls,” posing the question that is surely on many voters’ minds: “In a close race, is Chris Daggett worth voting for?” Speaking of Daggett, state GOP leaders are accusing the Democrats of pushing out a robocall that they claim tries to trick Republican voters into casting their ballots for Daggett in order to take votes from Christie.

- Also on the ballot tomorrow: A $400 million ballot question on extending the state’s open space program. With the economy and voters’ revived willingness to reject ballot questions in the background, environmental groups are running a $600,000 campaign to support the public question, while conservatives and others worried about the state’s fiscal health are advocating a “no” vote.

- The White House says the federal economic stimulus package has created or retained 24,000 jobs in New Jersey so far.

- A report from the federal Small Business Administration finds that New Jersey’s 205,321 small businesses account for 98.5 percent of the state’s employers and 51.1 percent of the state’s private-sector work force.

- A Rutgers researcher is working to develop integrated methods to capture and exterminate bedbugs that won’t wreak widespread environmental damage, including encasing mattresses, applying hot steam, placing interceptors under the legs of furniture so they can’t reach their hosts, and devising traps that will lure and kill them.

- Weird NJ has released the first in a series of iPhone apps, featuring haunting locations found in the Garden State.

The vigils are sponsored by a coalition that includes the ACLU-NJ and various immigrant rights and church groups.

- Many mayoral and council campaigns are aping the Obama presidential campaign in their campaign slogans that will appear on the May ballot. The Journal has the rundown of all the slogans. City clerk Robert Byrne tells the Reporter that he was “underwhelmed by the effort” that some potential candidates put forth in submitting their petitions. Meanwhile, Sean Connors, who for a while was rumored to be running for the Ward D City Council seat, has endorsed Mayor Healy’s slate of candidates. Connors is running for school board this year. And Al Sullivan cites an unidentified poll that has Healy in front with 25 percent, followed by L. Harvey Smith (18), Lou Manzo (10), and Dan Levin (7).

- Jersey City will receive $1.7 million in federal stimulus money from the Department of Housing and Urban Development under the Community Development Block Grant Program.

- The Heights man who is campaigning to have traffic patterns reversed on his street found a handwritten note reading “Stop or else think about your kids!” under the windshield wiper of his vehicle last week.

- One Jersey City family is receiving $25,000 from the Foster Care Rehab Program, which helps foster families fix physical issues in their homes that might prevent them from being eligible to foster a child. As we noted last week, the city is receiving a total of $100,000 from the program, which is run by the state Department of Community Affairs.

- The Jersey City Waterfront Parks Conservancy is set to unveil its master plan to create one park from several parks in the Paulus Hook area tomorrow night. For details, click here.

- John “Jack” Hill, chief of investigations for the Hudson County Prosecutor’s Office, died this weekend.

In statewide news:

- Deportations in New Jersey rose to 4,453 in FY2008, from 3,387 the previous year. Of those, 71 percent — or 3,155 deportations — were for non-criminal offenses.

- Political observers think that Gov. Corzine’s transition from promising to fix the state’s budget problems when he campaigned in 2005 to having to deal with the stark reality of a recession will frame this fall’s election.

- A state anti-smoking initiative known as the Comprehensive Tobacco Control Program will face an $840,000 budget cut for the next fiscal year.