Jersey City Police Director to Receive Only $2,200 in Unused Sick Days When he Leaves His Post: The former police officer who has been the city’s police director will receive $2,205 in unused sick time when he leaves the position on Feb. 17, Jersey City spokeswoman Jennifer Morrill said yesterday, not $53,000 Jersey City officials previously reported.

Jury to Decide Verdict for Jersey City Man Accused of Strangling Ex-Girlfriend’s Daughter, Lighting House on Fire: The fate of a Jersey City man charged with strangling his ex-girlfriend’s daughter and torching her Stevens Avenue home to hide the crime was in the hands of the jury after closing arguments yesterday.

Hoboken Denies Permit for ‘Shore’ Spinoff Over ‘Public Safety’: Hoboken Mayor Dawn Zimmer said Tuesday on the city’s website that a film permit request for a spinoff starring the two “Shore” guidettes had been denied.

Jersey City says Sinkhole in Street that Resident was Inspecting When he was Severely Injured by Hit-and-Run Driver is to be Repaired: A sinkhole on Van Horne Street on Jersey City that attracted the attention of a resident who became the victim of a hit-and-run will be repaired today, city officials said.

Crime Blotter: A Jersey City teen was busted yesterday morning after she kidnapped a friend’s child and took off with the kid in a stolen vehicle; A Jersey City man was charged with making terroristic threats after a couple said he followed them while yelling “Someone is going to die tonight, I’m going to have to kill someone.”

In Statewide News:

New York-New Jersey Agency Eyes Improvements to Terminals at LaGuardia, Newark Liberty: The agency that owns the New York City area’s major airports says it is considering improvements to terminals at LaGuardia and Newark Liberty.

Two Weeks Left to Fill Ward F Council Vacancy: There is still no word on who might fill the City Council vacancy created when former Ward F Councilwoman Viola Richardson won an at-large seat during last month’s special election. The mayor and council have just two weeks to fill the vacancy.

Jersey City Council Candidate Charged with Mail Fraud: A Newark grand jury yesterday charged former Jersey City Council candidate Lori Serrano with mail fraud, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

Traffic Light Cameras Generate More Than 3,000 Tickets: Since Jersey City’s second set of red-light cameras was activated at Jersey Avenue and 18th Street in October, the city has issued 3,126 tickets for violations caught by the cameras, a city official said.

Firefighters Battle Two Blazes: Jersey City firefighters were busy with almost simultaneous fires at vacant buildings last night.

Crime Blotter: A 23-year-old Jersey City man was gunned down in a Bidwell Avenue driveway Wednesday night and police are hunting for his killer; a man was robbed of $600 at gun-point Wednesday night on Reed Street.

In Statewide News:

Sen. Lautenberg Casts 9000th Vote: US Sen. Frank Lautenberg cast vote number 9,000 in the senate last night when he voiced an “aye” for the Defense Authorization bill.

Head of New Jersey Charter School Office Steps Down: New Jersey’s charter school director, Carly Bolger, on the job for less than a dozen months, will be stepping down at the end of this year to take a new job in Chicago public schools.

State Senate Committee Approves Sports Betting: Sports betting in New Jersey came a step closer to reality yesterday, with a Senate panel approving a bill to allow casinos and racetracks to apply for licenses to offer it.

NJ Black Bear Hunt Upheld by State Appeals Court: A state appeals court Thursday ruled a state-approved week-long black bear hunt can be held in Northwest Jersey beginning Monday.

NJ National Guard Leader Resigns: Maj. Gen. Glenn Rieth, longtime commander of New Jersey’s National Guard, is resigning after being caught having a physical relationship with a woman who works for him, government officials told the Associated Press on Thursday.

Beldini Prison Pacemaker Provision: Before ruling on whether corrupt former Jersey City Deputy Mayor Leona Beldini must begin her prison term, a federal judge has asked prison officials if they can provide treatment for her should she need a pacemaker.

Medical Condition Ties Up Journal Square Traffic: A medical condition at the corner of JFK Boulevard and Bergen Avenue created delays for motorists and pedestrians traveling through the busy intersection.

Vehicle Crashes into Wall: A woman was taken to Jersey City Medical Center with non-life threatening injuries after her vehicle hit a wall on Tonnelle Avenue near Newark Avenue yesterday evening, police said.

Crime Blotter: Jersey City police continue to make arrests Downtown after beefing up patrols in response to a wave of car burglaries; a Jersey City man robbed by two men in the Newport section of Jersey City Sunday night tried to chase down his attackers, but they got away.

Today’s Best Bets:

Sample a variety of scotches paired with hors d’ oeuvres at Brightside Tavern’s Scotch Tasting Event, hosted by whiskey master Craig Vaught (8 pm, $15–$20).

In Statewide News:

Proposed Law Would Make Driving Stricter for Teens: Parents of teens with a driving learner’s permit would be required to take a teen driver-orientation course, and the teenagers themselves would have to practice driving for up to 100 hours, under the bill sent to the state Assembly.

Bill to Fund Hurricane Irene Repairs: New Jersey would issue $100 million in bonds to repair water and transportation infrastructure damaged during Hurricane Irene under a bill released by an Assembly panel yesterday afternoon.

Committee Says NJ Won’t Treat Wastewater from Hydraulic Fracturing: In a move that may be more symbolic than substantive, a legislative committee yesterday voted to prohibit New Jersey’s sewage treatment plants from accepting wastewater from operations drilling for natural gas in Marcellus Shale deposits in Pennsylvania and other states.

Democrats Press for Aid to Poorest Cities: After a nearly six-month standoff with Gov. Chris Christie, Assembly Democrats offered up a proposal yesterday to restore more than $100 million in aid to the state’s most troubled cities.

Updating State’s Drinking Water Infrastructure Could Cost Billions: Upgrading an aging water infrastructure will need investments of $20 billion over the next few decades to continue delivering safe drinking water to residents and businesses in the state.

Legislation to Ease End-of-Life Care: Legislation now on track in Trenton would bring to New Jersey a relatively new model of end-of-life planning known as the “Physician Orders for Life Sustaining Treatment.”

More on the study can be found here, along with metrics and fellow infamously congested roadways.

The boy was hit at Coles and 9th streets after he ran into the street from the sidewalk, according to Jersey City Police Department spokesman Lt. Edgar Martinez. He was trick-or-treating, one of many kids out with their parents in and around Hamilton Park that night. The vehicle that hit him was an SUV driven by a New York City man, according to reports.

Jersey City Medical Center spokesman Mark Rabson says the boy was transported to the hospital, admitted for observation and tests, kept overnight and discharged at 3:10 pm yesterday.

The accident has further galvanized concerned residents who say the neighborhood needs more stop signs — some of whom would like to see certain streets shut down altogether for a two-hour window next Halloween as it starts to get dark.

Althea Bernheim, moderator of the Jersey City Family Initiative list, was out with her children trick-or-treating around Hamilton Park that evening. She says kids often take off suddenly after their friends on a night like Halloween, but she also saw drivers ignore parents trying to cross the street with their kids.

For both of these reasons, Bernheim would like to see certain “hotspot” streets shut down from 6-8 pm on Halloween night next year or more involvement from police or crossing guards.

Bernheim, who lives in the Hilltop section of Journal Square, believes the most dangerous drivers Downtown are people headed to and from the Holland Tunnel and using local streets as a cut-through.

“They’re not stopping to buy our products, not stopping to do anything but get to the Holland Tunnel,” she says. “These are the people we don’t want to put stop signs in for?”

Ann Wallace, who lives in the Heights, was also out in Hamilton Park that night with her two daughters. “The neighborhood feels safe because there are a lot of kids and families, but it is not actually that safe” because traffic moves fast and is not slowed with speed bumps or enough stop signs, she says. “I think cars go pretty fast around the park.”

Ward E Councilman Steven Fulop, contacted by Bernheim and other concerned residents after the accident, stressed that pedestrian safety is and has been a priority for him — and that while he’s requested 20 to 25 stop signs be installed throughout the neighborhood and has advocated speed bumps, he often faces push-back from the administration.

But city spokeswoman Jennifer Morrill says the administration is committed to safer streets and has taken measures like adding rumble strips to a section of Greene Street where people had complained they were having trouble crossing and two red-light cameras, with nine more to come. She says the JCPD has also done undercover stings against drivers who don’t stop for pedestrians in crosswalks.

“Certainly the administration is in favor of making crosswalks and pedestrian safety a priority and that’s what we’ve been trying to do,” Morrill says. “Whenever something is brought to our attention, we certainly give it to Traffic and Engineering to try to get something implemented.”

A new all-way stop at the corner of Coles and 10th streets came up for a first reading at last week’s city council meeting and will have a second reading at the next meeting Wed., Nov. 9. Fulop says that while it would normally take 21 days for the law to go into effect, it may be possible to waive the waiting period in this case, meaning a new stop sign could potentially go up at the intersection as soon as next week.

“There seems to be a very different mentality in Jersey City as it relates to vehicular traffic than in Hoboken,” Fulop says. The feeling in Hoboken is that pedestrians rule the streets, but in downtown Jersey City, “that the vehicles are ruling the ward.”

“The goal in requesting those stop signs is changing that mentality,” Fulop says.

He says it would be difficult to shut down streets altogether on Halloween night, and that he would rather see changes made that would help the situation and calm traffic year-round.

“If you make it more of a nuisance for cars to go through those downtown streets, cars would find alternate streets,” he says.

Bernheim supports diverting traffic away from the small local roads, especially on nights like Halloween when so many kids are out with their families.

“People are going to learn if it’s not a good cut-through they’ll stop going that way,” she says, “and stop putting people’s lives at risk.”

There will be lane closures on Kennedy Boulevard, between Virginia and Greenville Avenues, for the next few months as crews work on the project. Construction in the area will take place between 7 am and 3:30 pm on weekdays and between 8 am and 5 pm on Saturdays. There will be no parking on both sides of the street where crews are working and notices will be posted prior to construction. At the end of each day, traffic and parking lanes will reopen.

The company says the Jersey City–Bayonne Third Circuit Upgrade project will “provide reliable power to more than 50,000 customers in Jersey City and Bayonne,” and it will include the addition of one new 138 kilovolt electrical circuit between its Jersey City Switching Station and the Bayonne Switching Station.

The regional electricity grid manager PJM Interconnection has said the new circuit needs to be installed to guarantee reliable electricity for local customers if one or both of the existing circuits fails or is closed for maintenance, and PSE&G is also being told to upgrade the Bayonne Switching Station as part of the project.

Once this phase of construction is done in a few months, there are two more planned phases:

Spring 2012: Connections will be made from Greenville Avenue into the Bayonne Switching Station at West 63rd Street.

Summer 2012: Construction will take the circuit from Stuyvesant Avenue along Corbin Avenue, Broadway, Duffield Avenue, and Van Keuren Avenue into the Jersey City Switching Station.

Drivers heading east from the area will now take a new exit ramp and northbound viaduct (seen at right before opening) that connects to Tonnelle Circle and Route 139 east instead.

The change is part of the larger $250 million project to reconfigure the traffic patterns in the area, which is expected to be completed by spring 2013.

For more on the project, click here. For real-time traffic updates, click here.

Photo: NJ Department of Transportation

A downed tree took out power lines near Hamilton Park and closed part of Pavonia Avenue Monday morning

One day after floods consumed a few handfuls of roads around low-lying parts of Jersey City, the Jersey City Police Department (JCPD) says all the major roadways that were deemed to not be passable Sunday have been cleared and re-opened as of the morning rush hour. This includes Route 440, Route 1&9, and Merseles Street by the Turnpike Extension.

The one possible exception, the JCPD says, is Paterson Plank Road heading into Hoboken, which was closed by the Hoboken Police Department to keep motorists out of Hoboken and may still be closed.

The Jersey City Police Department is reporting that all of the major roadways that had been closed Saturday night into Sunday due to flooding from Hurricane Irene have been re-opened (including Route 440, 1&9 and Merseles Street by the Turnpike Extension) with the possible exception of Paterson Plank Road heading into Hoboken. Paterson Plank Road was closed by Hoboken PD to keep motorists out of Hoboken and is possibly still closed.

Meanwhile, most of the nearly 10,000 PSE&G customers who lost power at some point on Sunday have gotten their power restored, the utility reports. However, between 500 and 2,000 PSE&G customers in Jersey City still do not have power as of 8:30 am this morning.

And the Department of Public Works (DPW) will be making the rounds in Jersey City today, attending to the many trees and limbs that came down during the storm. The city says DPW will focus on public areas like streets and sidewalks today, and tackle city parks only after the other areas have been cleared.

The New Jersey Department of Transportation (NJDOT) says the overnight lane closures are necessary for the installation of new drainage system components for an ongoing drainage improvement project on the Skyway.

Here’s the schedule of lane closures, which is subject to change. For the most up-to-date information, NJDOT suggests checking 511nj.org:

Wednesday, August 17:

• Pulaski Skyway single-lane closures overnight in both directions
• NJ Turnpike northbound Eastern Spur right-lane closure from 8 pm to 6 am

Thursday, August 18:

• Pulaski Skyway single-lane closures overnight in both directions
• NJ Turnpike northbound Eastern Spur right-lane closure from 6 pm to 10:30 pm
• NJ Turnpike northbound Eastern Spur left and center-lane closures from 11 pm to 5 am

Friday, August 19:

• Pulaski Skyway single-lane closures overnight in both directions
• NJ Turnpike southbound Eastern Spur left and center-lane closures from 11 pm to 4 am

Saturday, August 20:

• Pulaski Skyway single-lane closures overnight in both directions
• NJ Turnpike southbound Eastern Spur right lane closure from 4 am to 9 am
• NJ Turnpike northbound Western Spur right-lane closure from 8 pm to 11:59 pm

Sunday, August 21:

• Pulaski Skyway single-lane closures overnight in both directions
• NJ Turnpike northbound Western Spur left and center-lane closures from 12:01 am to 6 am
• NJ Turnpike southbound Western Spur left and center-lane closures from 12:30 am to 6:30 am
• NJ Turnpike southbound Western Spur right-lane closure from 7 am to 11 am

Photo: U.S. Library of Congress

“Traffic impacts are expected to be moderate to severe during peak travel times until motorists become accustomed to the new traffic pattern,” according to a release from the Turnpike Authority. Peak travel periods westbound on that section of the Turnpike are the evening rush hour (4 to 7:30 pm on weekdays) and from 11 am to 7 pm on weekends, according to the authority.

To help alleviate the project’s impact on local roads and assist motorists looking for alternate routes, engineers have already installed “variable message signs to alert motorists of the construction,” though not all City Council members at Monday night’s caucus meeting were pleased with the efforts by GPI, the engineering firm responsible for the construction.

Though the planned work is starting tomorrow, Ward A Councilman Michael Sottolano said GPI had “cost” as its prime motivator, which he suggested was reflected in the work and planning done so far, including insufficient signage.

“I have a low opinion of your signage because of problems in the past,” he said, adding that the city is having to provide “24 off-duty police officers to help with traffic flow” to augment the work of GPI.

The Turnpike Authority suggests calling 511 or visiting 511nj.org to find real-time information about delays associated with the project.