- 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.