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Beat Deadline COURT HOUSE — More than 2,100 new contributors donated at least $10 to Burdette Tomlin Memorial Hospital before Aug. 23 and thereby qualified to vote in the Feb. 28 election of seven hospital governors. Unless some of the new contributions are duplicates, a total of some $4,700 people will be eligible to cast their ballots.

Writers’ Cramp SEA ISLE CITY — One group of resort residents recently circulated a petition calling for a public referendum on the commissioners' salaries, a group and cause Commissioner William VanArtsdalen supports. A second group, the Committee for Government Unity, is circulating another petition calling for VanArtsdalen’s removal, a group and cause supported by Mayor Dominic C. Raffa. Three Teams VILLAS — Lower Township will field three football teams this fall, thanks to some last-minute budget revisions and promises of gridiron funding. Last year, however, the township had five teams. During last week’s township committee meeting, football coaches complained about the funding shortfall and inadequate equipment for their young players. Terminated WILDWOOD — Jerome Brown was dismissed as a part-time housing inspector last week at the suggestion of the state Department of Community Affairs, Mayor Earl Ostrander announced. Hired by Ostrander shortly after he took office, Brown had been convicted and fined $2,000 in 1981 for building code violations at his Park Boulevard property.

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August 31,1983

Gift Horse

COURT HOUSE - Middle Township officials reluctantly accepted a $950,000 gift from the state Friday — the pedestrian overpass which opened last fall to allow (Page 18 Please)

Dorl« Ward YESTERDAY’S NEWS — County recycling coordinator Diane DeMeo inventories bins of scrap paper at the county recycling plant on Rio Grande Boulevard in Middle Township.

1,

But Controversial in Lower

Recycling: Easy in Stone Harbor

By E.J. Duffy Despite its rejection by Lower Township opponents last week, trash recycling — both mandatory and voluntary — does work in other ‘county communities, although on a smaller scale than that proposed by the township committee. During its Aug. 8 meeting, the committee unanimously approved for first reading a mandatory recycling ordinance which would have obliged residents to separate glass, paper, aluminum, other metals, garbage, trash and debris into individual containers for collection at specific times. When the ordinance was scheduled for a public hearing Aug. 22, nearly 200 Lower residents turned out at the township building, most of them to oppose the ordinance's adoption. After heated debate, the township committee unanimously voted to table the ordinance and try voluntary recycling instead. COMMITTEEMAN ROBERT Fothergill was driving force behind the mandatory recycling ordinance. Until the public hearing, he could not be persuaded to weaken its provisions. Fothergill argued that, withoutrecycling, the township faces huge increases in its tipping fees at the new county landfill in Woodbine, hikes in trash transportation costs etc. By recycling, he maintained, the township could sell the separated trash and realize a profit. Although the Lower Township recycling program was designed to start as a pilot project in North Cape May, the prospect of mandatory trash separation in the future, its costs and burden on residents, — par ticularly the elderly, — and stiff fines for non-compliance turned off many residents. If the ordinance had been approved, Lower Township would have had the stiffest recycling program in the county. If it * worked, though, the township stood to save a tidy amount on its trash bill. STONE HARBOR is the only municipality in the county that currently obliges its

residents to recycle. Unlike Lower, however, Stone Harbor proposed and adopted an ordinance which mandates the separation only of paper and glass. Unlike Lower, where a $500 fine was proposed for recycling violations, Stone Harbor imposes a $50 fine on first offenders and $500 fines for repeated offenses. No one has yet been prosecuted. Three other factors also affect recycling in the two municipalities: Stone Harbor is much closer to the Woodbine landfill site than Lower; the borough’s year-round population is less than 2,000 while Lower's is nearly 20,000; Stone Harbor encompasses 1.68 square-miles while Lower includes 27.8 square-miles. With its population, size and distance from the landfill, Lower's cost of collecting and hauling trash would be greater, but the savings would be proportionately larger as well. Stone Harbor began its recycling pro-

gram last January in cooperation with the county Municipal Utilities Authority Last year, the borough recycled 358 tons of paper and glass, saving more than $4,000 in dumping fees. Since those fees have climbed from less thai^$36 a cubic yard to nearly twice that amount during the past 19-months, borough officials expect an increasingly better return for their recycling efforts. "IT’S NOT a money-making proposi tion," said Edwin F Pain, borough manager, ’’but it certainly is costavoidance." » "That’s where the real cost factor will come in,” he added, alluding to expected tipping fee hikes when the new Woodbine landfill opens next spring. For the tons of trash Stone Harbor recycled via the MUA last year, the borough was paid $173. "But we figured it out on what we would have paid at the (Page 18 Please)

Set Probe Of County Government COURT HOUSE — A team of private sector efficiency experts will study Cape May County government for three-to-six months and recommend improvements. The free probe, by corporate volunteers on loan to the state Governor’s Office of Management Service and the state Department of Community Affairs, nor mally would cost more than $100,000, according to Freeholder Gerald M Thornton. He said this county was selected as the first in a series of investigatioas because Of its small- population. It’s the second smallest of 21 counties with its 84,000 residents (Salem has 65,000.) "We re kind of a pilot program," said Thornton after the state offer was accepted by the freeholders last week. THE SURVEY IDEA, said Thornton, stems from a conversation he had with state officials about a year ago on duplica tion of services provided by municipal, county, state and federal governments. The talks led to a suggestion that it might be "enlightening" to study just how much duplication there is, he Said Date for the survey hasn't been set, he said, and will depend on "when they can get their people together." The volunteer experts will come from such firms as Johnson & Johnson, AT&T, etc., he said. "Hopefully, we'll keep the good things and sort out the bad," he added. GOV. THOMAS KEAN had asked for corporate help in his attempt to streamline the state government, Thornton said "Through regulation, there has been a great deal of red tape created," he said, "and the governor and his staff are in terested in cutting down on the bureaucracy" Presumably the survey team's recom ' mendations to Cape May County will bo useful to the state's other counties If 5 the recommendations are costeffective, Thornton said, other county governments can be etpected to realize their value and implement them.

Early Deadlines Advertising and news items for next week's issue of the Herald and Lantern must be in by 3 p.m. Thursday because of the Labor Day holiday.

Schools Face New State Monitoring

By JOE ZELNIK Cape May County public schools head into a new year under the gun of all-new state monitoring and planning objectives. The schools practically had a free ride in critical comment during 1982-83 as the county superintendent’s office "relaxed” its monitoring while the state Department of Education came up with a ‘ 'streamlined plan." The office also did not give state Minimum Basic Skills (MBS) tests to grades 3, 5 and 11, as previously. Only ninth-graders took the tests, which are a prerequisite to graduation. Both changes are the result of a new state commissioner of education, Saul Cooperman , who intends a new statewide ninth-grade test in this school year and

locally developed or selected tests for grades 3 and 6. "The MBS is an easy test anyway and has ceased to be very important in this county,", said county schools Supt. Robert G. Bongart. "Very few could not pass." The county eased up on what was a 300item monitoring system because Cooperman "felt it was too specific and too minute," Bongart said. It will be replaced this year by a "monitoring instrument" that measures 10 basic areas, he said. THE MONITORING is supposed to measure district progress toward providing a thorough and efficient education, popularly known as the "T & E" assessment. The previous system looked at such things as whether Tire extinguisher tags were current and whether school districts

observed Commodore Barry Day (they didn't), Bongart said. "Cooperman was unhappy with this," said Bongart "Rather than hurry to judgment, we relaxed the strict monitoring procedure for a year." All county school districts got from Bongart this year, then, was what has come to be known as "the June 1 letter" that "serves as the annual evaluation report.' , ' It reviewed progress, issued commends tions and explained a "refocus" in the coming school year that included elimination of "previous reporting and evaluation procedures." The only criticism came in the letters' "recommendation" section. Six districts received none "due to the success of the (Page 18 Please)