News— Diapct Weeks Top Stories Clean, Clean, Clean CAPE MAY - With a clean bill of health from the county Health Department, the city yesterday opened the Queen Street beach several days ahead of schedule. Poverty, last of the city’s io beaches, will open Friday when crowds justify Queen Street had had some bacteria problems last year, but the city combined a pooper scooper ordinance with some underground sewer repairs so that, according to city manager Fred Coldren, “clean waters are lapping at Cape May City shores."

Dredging Starts

Bar Wants Taxpayers

STONE HARBOR — American Dredging Co. has been awarded an $800,000 contract to dredge Hereford Inlet between here and North Wildwood. The project is slated to begin tomorrow and could be completed by Independence Day, according to state Assemblyman Joseph W. Chinnici.

Standing in Line COURT HOUSE - Several local lawyers are interested in being appointed as the county third judge for $70,000 a year, but the state Senate Judicary Committee only released the bill authorizing the new jurist last week. That bill must still be approved by the full Senate, the Assembly and signed by the governor Third Victim OCEAN CITY — Dealh claimed a third victim involved in the May 26 rescue off 9th Street when Mattie Lapp, 17, died of (Page 41 Please' —Early Deadline

Advertising and news items for next week’s Herald and Lantern must be in by 3 p.m tomorrow (Thursday) because of the Fourth of July Holiday

To Pay for Defenders

Constance Walker: ‘Nonposit’

By E.J. DUFFY Cape May County Bar Association is asking the county’s municipalities to pay part of the cost of defending indigents Ocean City and North Wildwood already retain public defenders, but other communities don't seem anxious to take on the additional expense and the county League of Municipalities nixed the proposal in April. "Why should the lawyers have to come in and work for free on what should rightfully be paid for with taxpayers’ money?" Thomas M Rossi of the association asked the Lower Township Committee last week. "YOU’RE SORT of a target." Rossi told Mayor Peggie Bleberbach and Commit teeman Robert Fothergill, pointing out the township's 44 indigent cases assigned to local lawyers last year was the county's highest When a municipal court judge determines that a defendant is too poor to pay for legal representation, the judge asks the county to assign a lawyer to the case That lawyer does not get paid. But. since the state cut funds for its public defender's offices, the 80 attorneys on the county assignment list have also been fielded as free representatives for

child abuse and matrimonial cases in higher courts. THOSE LAWYERS want to be paid for the free work at the municipal bench and Rossi, as head of the bar's Municipal Public Defender Committee, has been assigned the task of convincing local govern ments to start paying for public defenders. Noting that Lower Township's municipal court collected $107,450 in fines and fees last year and that the township share was $44,881, of which it spent $41,000 in court salaries, Rossi argued that the township court was operating in the black and could afford to hire a public defender He suggested that a public defender either be hired for about $5,000 a year or paid for by vouchers at a minimum fee of $125 a case. "Who's going to pay for the public defender 7 " Bieberbach asked, noting that the $41,000 in township municipal court salaries was not the only court-related expense "Your taxpayers," Rossi replied Bieberbach shook her head. She asked if the municipal court judges have been pro^ perly reviewing the indigency claims. "That's a tough question to answer," Rossi replied. “It's (thedetermination) up (Page 20 Please)

“I’m Willing to Do Almost Anything”

By JOE ZELNIK Constance Walker is 53 and worried. She's out of work (but in a training course) and can’t pay her bills. Her mortgage is $331 a month and she owes the electric company for a bill that ran $200 to $300 a month in the winter. She’s been "hiding out with friends" because there are traffic warrants ouLstanding, the result of not being able to repair her car so it will pass inspection. Her financial problems are partly the result of a half-dozen years of working for the minimum wage. CONSTANCE WALKER sees herself as a victim of her age, of Cape May County's

low wage scales, and society’s concept of women as "cheap labor " The social services system over the last four years has made a half-dozen efforts to help her: job training courses, life skills counseling, welfare, unemployment It calls her a "displaced homemaker" and a "nonposit." Displaced homemakers are women who were dependent on another person and have been thrust into the work force by necessity. Separated, divorced, widowed, their job skills rusty or atrophied, they have difficulty even in good economic times, which these aren't. A "nonposit" is the sociological jargon for a "non-positive placement," the bureaucracy’s way of saying it couldn't find someone a job. WALKER WAS "ON THE LAM” earlier this month because of a "Catch-22" situation. She was ticketed for failing to have a current inspection sticker. She was going to drive that uninspected car to her court appearance, but its tailpipe fell off. She called the court, which told her to take a cab. She said, "I can't afford it." They issued a warrant. It gets worse. Still driving the uninspected car, but "busy looking out for the police," she "bumped into somebody. " It was a minor accident, but it resulted in another ticket — for a stop sign violation. If she goes home to Town Bank, Walker said, her 1967 Oldsmobile will be impounded, leading to a $300 fine, and "I should be jailed." The "should” is not Walker’s view that she belongs in jail; it is her British accent. Close your eyes and it’s Mrs. Miniver, stiff upper lip while Nazi bombs fall from the skies. UNABLE TO GO HOME, she leaves her 17-year-old son alone. She asks that his name not be used. "He’s ashamed of me,"

she said. "He’s ashamed of our poverty " "He needs somebody at home," she adds. She cannot call. There is no phone The social services say Walker has ability, but is "lackadaisical " They say she lacks the motivation to stay with a job Not staying, they say, she doesn't advance Walker says she is "willing to do almost anything to get ahead. I'm gungho to go out and get a good job, but any little job at any little money isn't good enough. "I'd love to get into waitressing in a good restaurant," she said, "but you practically have to shoot a waitress to get her out " WALKER COMPLAINS that she must fight "an oiitlook that women can work for less." Her complaint of inadequate pay is more than 30 years ago. It appears on her resume as an explanation for leaving teaching in London in 1951: "Salary too small for life in metropolis," reads her resume. "Resigned at end of Easter term." Bom Constance Russell in England, she was graduated from an academic high school in 1946, from secretarial school in 1947, and from a two-year teacher-training college in Nottinghamshire in 1951 In between there was a three-month summer school in Denmark Her father, a horse breeder, brought her to Cold Spring in 1953. She met and married Charles Walker a year later They lived in England for a dozen years, had three children, returned to Cold Spring in 1969. They separated in the mid-70s, divorced in 1978, and Mrs Walker, who had been doing some part-time teaching, became a displaced homemaker with a 12-year-old son. When her husband first left, she worked as a knitter for Ever Ion Fabrics in Erma. She couldn't make it on the $100-a-week

take home pay. She quit to try insurance sales for Metropolitan Life of Millville in January 1978 "I ENDED UP WITH $40 a week," she said. "You can’t see people in the summer They're too busy down here. I didn't make my quota I couldn't cut the mustard They fired me." That was in October 1978. A few months later her file with county social service agencies begins. She Went to the federallyfinanced CETA (Compreheasive Employ ment and Training Act i program and they sent her to a blackjack dealers' school. She said she did well, obtained her (Page 20 Please)

Dorii Word CONSTANCE WALKER