The brightly colored flyers are enclosed in envelopes displaying the 28th Council District seal and prominently feature a picture of a smiling Jennings. They boast, “No one can sell your home faster.”

A former police officer who lives in Richmond Hill, part of Jennings’ former district, took exception to the postal ruse.

“Here I think I’m getting an official communication from the city, and it’s a sleazy real estate ad,” said retired cop Matt Fanning.

The voice-mail message of the phone number listed on the flyers still identifies Jennings as a councilman.

Of the 14 employees, 3 were promoted in 2001 and 2002 based on the phony degrees; they did not have the required college credits.

The other 11 turned in phony diplomas that were subsequently rejected; 10 were promoted or hired anyway because they eventually obtained enough legitimate credits, but one was improperly promoted without proper credits.

Asked whether any employees would be punished or promotions rescinded, a Fire Department spokesman, Francis X. Gribbon, said officials had awaited the completion of the investigation “before proceeding with any disciplinary actions that may be warranted.”

He added, “That review is now under way.”

The report says several of the 14 employees had suspicions about the degrees and expressed their misgivings to peers and supervisors.

The phony diplomas were purchased from St. Regis University, described by federal prosecutors as a diploma mill that churned out thousands of fake degrees, at hundreds of dollars apiece, from a base near Spokane, Wash., using various Web sites.

In October 2005, a federal grand jury in Spokane indicted eight people at St. Regis on charges of conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud. Three have pleaded guilty. The other five cases are pending, including those of Dixie E. Randock and Steven K. Randock Sr., who were described as the main owners of St. Regis and were also charged with money laundering.

The strapless gown by Vera Wang retails for $12,900. However, the yet-to-be-engaged woman, who didn’t want her name mentioned lest her live-in boyfriend find out she was planning ahead, bought it for only $450.

Donated new and store-sample wedding dresses by high-end designers went on sale yesterday at the United Jewish Appeal Federation of New York Thrift Shop on West 17th Street. All of the usually four- or five-figure gowns were tagged at $500 or less.

Beneath an eight-foot-tall sculpture of Douglass, the plans call for a huge quilt in granite, an array of squares, a symbol in each, supposedly part of a secret code sewn into family quilts and used along the Underground Railroad to aid slaves. Two plaques would explain this.

The only problem: According to many prominent historians, the secret code — the subject of a popular book that has been featured on no less a cultural touchstone than “The Oprah Winfrey Show” — never existed. And now the city is reconsidering the inclusion of the plaques, so as not to “publicize spurious history,” Kate D. Levin, the city’s commissioner of cultural affairs, said yesterday.

. . .

Algernon Miller, who designed the memorial site, said he “was inspired by this story line,” which he discovered in the library. His was a re-interpretation, he said, noting that he was “taking a soft material, a quilt, and converting it into granite.”

“Traditionally what African-Americans do is take something and reinterpret into another form,” he said.

. . .

Giles R. Wright, director of the Afro-American History Program at the New Jersey Historical Commission, rattled off the historians’ problems in a telephone interview: There is no surviving example of an encoded quilt from the period. The code was never mentioned in any of the interviews of ex-slaves carried out in the 1930’s by the Works Progress Administration. There is no mention of quilting codes in any diaries or memoirs from the period.

Number one on their list is parking tickets.

At a meeting called on Jan. 9, over 40 store owners met with community leaders in hopes of building a unified front to tackle issues many in the area fear could lead to the commercial strip’s downfall.

“It’s totally supportive. They need it desperately,” said John Fratta, district manager for Community Board 11.

While the addition of sidewalk cafes, new clothing stores and diverse shops would be a boon, all merchants had one beef: Ticketing of their customers by parking agents.

“Morris Park is getting killed by traffic agents,” said Fratta. “They have those people out there issuing 120 tickets a day. A customer gets a ticket, that person no longer comes to Morris Park. That person will be going to the malls in Westchester, where there’s parking.”

Clothing stores, especially well-known vendors, could provide an anchor to draw shoppers to the area between Williamsbridge Road and Bronxdale Ave., Fratta said.

“Most people now come to eat or get their nails done.”

But traffic agents deter any newcomers, he said. “Cookies [a school uniform store] wanted to come here. They looked at the traffic agents and changed their minds.”

Marco Muccitelli, owner of Marco’s Salumeria Leone caterer and deli, called the ticketing “absolutely insane.”