March 8, 1995

With less than four months left in its fiscal year, Jersey City finally has a budget. Despite the opposition of some angry taxpayers, the City Council voted 6 to 2 last night to adopt a $288 million budget that will raise the local tax rate by a projected 50 percent.

After a seven-year wait, Blanche Pollack, a retired cashier, finally got a city-subsidized apartment in the Big Six Towers cooperative in 1980, and it was, she thought, such a deal: $6,775, with a monthly maintenance fee of $431. Mrs. Pollack, a widow, believed that she was going to spend her final years secure and comfortable in Woodside, Queens. But by yesterday afternoon, her calm had been shattered, and her future suddenly seemed uncertain. Sitting in curlers in Frank's Hair Salon at the Big Six complex, she struggled to retain her composure as she grappled with Monday night's stunning news.

New Jersey's plan for supplying and regulating its energy needs into the next century will be made public today when Gov. Christine Todd Whitman speaks to a members of the electric power industry at a conference organized by the Board of Public Utilities. The plan would allow utility companies to charge large industrial users lower rates than other customers. Officials say the system is needed to meet competition from other states and to keep large companies and their payrolls from moving elsewhere.

Patricia Brown still has nightmares about the orange fireball that set building after building ablaze in her apartment complex on March 23, 1994. To work through her feelings, she is helping to organize a celebration, "Miracle in March," on the first anniversary of the natural gas pipeline explosion. "The fact that nobody was killed does not mean it's not as important as an earthquake," said Ms. Brown, who is annoyed that President Clinton and Governor Whitman have declined to attend.

Harvey L. Leighton has lived a dream shared by thousands of New York Yankees fans: as an owner of the club for 19 years, he had great seats, his picture in the program, a parking space for his limo, a championship ring for his finger and all the big-league names he could drop. Now he's living a nightmare: trying to sell. Out of desperation, he has even taken out a classified ad.