News—^— nia^ct Weeks L/lgCSl Top Stories

Vol. 19 No. 48 'if«3 s*owov« Corp- au rifhu >*»*fv«d. November 30, 1983

Freeholders Split on Administrator Proposal Effects Months Away

Double Overtime

COURT HOUSE — County grand jurors will continue their probe of the county Municipal Utilities Authority during a third three-month term, the county prosecutor’s office confirmed last week. Assistant Prosecutor Kyran Conner predicted that the grand jury will con->» elude its wide-ranging investigation during the third term. A state tax in- / vestigator and a state accountant hav^ been working full-time on the MUA probe which began in May.

Woman Raped WEST CAPE MAY - Borough pohee are investigating the ninth in a series of sexual assaults or attempted assaults that began in the vicinity during July. The latest attack occured just after midnight Saturday morning when a man entered a borough home, raped and punched its 26-year-old occupant. The woman was treated at Burdette Tomlin Memorial Hospital and released. The attack, police said, did not follow the pattern of earlier assaults but they did not rule out a possible link.

Depot on Hold BURLEIGH — County freeholders will decide Dec. 8 whether the county Municipal Utilities Authority should build a trash transfer station here on Shunpike. During a public hearing at Crest Haven complex last week, the freeholders said they will accept comments of the MUAproposed facility until Friday. Middle Township Mayor Michael Voll wants the transfer station at Crest Haven. Lower Township Committeeman Robert Fothergill has proposed an incinerator instead at the Sunset Beach magnasite plant.

April Showered ^ SEA ISLE CITY — Wary of another legal hassle, Commissioners Alan Gansert and William VanArtsdalen reversed their decision of last month, which prohibited a $2,720 payment to (Page 4 Please) k

By JOE ZELNIK “Everybody is practically ecstatic” with a 66-page management study of government in Cape May County, according to Jack Salvesen of the state Office of Management and Budget. “We were looking for six good recommendations,” he said. “We got 64.” Salvesen, of North Cape May, is former head of the county’s Fare Free Transportation Department. The study, released last week, actually contained 67 proposals. All but a halfdozen minor suggestions were "approved" by the freeholders, according to the study. But enactment of most of the major proposals may be many months away. • CONSOLIDATE human service agencies into one department, a suggestion Salvesen said Freeholder Gerald M. Thornton “will be driving home.” • Prepare an administrative code “that clearly defines everybody’s responsibility.” • Appoint an administrator “to provide a little bit more management at a level just below the freeholders.”

By M’ELLEN ROWLAND STONE HARBOR - Frank McCartney, 23, of Lafayette Hill, Pa., narrowly escaped death when fire gutted his parents’ summer cottage on 84th Street just before dawn Saturday. Borough police credit his friend, William Stokl, 23, of Runnemede, with saving McCartney’s life. Police gave the following account of the fire: Before the two men retired, they tried unsuccessfully to start a space heater on

• A “game plan” for the use of EDP (electronic data processing). • Long-range financial planning. • Improve state-county relations. The management study referred to “many major problems” in Health and Human Services and referred to the volunteer members of the county Welfare Board as “poorly informed on welfare legislation, requirements and Civil Service procedures necessary to operate the board efficiently.” “I DON’T KNOW what they’re talking about,” said Welfare Director Ralph I. Schellinger. “I don’t know what that means. I try to keep them informed of everything that goes on here.” “I do know exactly what the rules and regulations are,” said F. William Cole, chairman of the board. Cole was with Welfare for 24 years, director for 14 years prior to his retirement in 1975. Schellinger was his deputy and took the post at that time. “That was not meant to be criticism of the board,” said Thornton. “I don’t know who gave them that information. We’ve got a very dedicated board, among the

the ground floor of 310 84th Street, a colonial home owned by Frank and Albina McCartney of Runnemede. When the heater failed to start, the younger McCartney and Stokl covered it with a sofa. Stokl retired to the second floor and McCartney to a first floor bedroom. Just before dawn, Stokl was awakened by smoke. Unable to reach his friend downstairs via the stairs, Stokl climbed onto the porch roof, jumped to the ground, broke a bedroom window and pulled the un(Page 27 Please)

best. The confusion here may be that they said ‘board’ when they meant the Welfare Departmeht." Schellinger said he was interviewed by members of the study group, but “I didn’t identify any problems.” He said he, and other county department heads, first had the entire report read to them at an hour-long session in the freeholders’ meeting room Nov. 22. It was released to the public the following day. THE ADMINISTRATOR position was to have been created and filled by the freeholders on Nov. 9, the day after the election. It turned out that only Thornton was ready to take those steps. The proposed resolution, tabled that day over his objections, named Freeholder Board Clerk Kathryn A. Willis to the post. An assistant clerk also would have been named. It now appears unlikely this will happen. Willis has been reported planning to retire next summer and the freeholders are not expected to create the position until late next year. The study recommended “a person who is in charge of administrative duties in the county government while having no policymaking powers. Salvesen said the proposed resolution was based on that of Burlington County. It has a clerk/administrator appointed for a three-year term. Current salary is $45,780. Burlington has a population of 362,542, according to the 1980 Census. Burlington’s cleric/administrator can appoint, promote, remove, suspend, discipline, supervise and control all department heads and their subordinates. Charles T. Juliana, who has held the Burlington post since 1976, also can “control ... and reorganize, when necessary, each department ..." HE ALSO HAS the power “to appoint consultants to aid in ... examirtations or in(Page 27 Please)

Two Escape Pre-Dawn Blaze

When in Doubt, Ask the Reference Desk

By BARBARA METZLER COURT HOUSE — What was the name of Paul Revere’s horse? The name of the dog on the RCA label? How many miles to the moon? How long does the average butterly live? And where is Timbuktu? All these questions and more can be answered by two people at the County Library reference desk. Leonard Szymanski and Virginia Sague have over 110,000 titles to help them answer queries like the above. Many of the questions they receive are answered easily, Syzmanski said, "but there are those that seem to hand on forever.”

THOSE DIFFICULT Inquiries like the name of the RCA canine, are often passed on to the state library in Trenton. Szymanski and Sague also will give the library patron phone numbers of agencies that might provide an answer. Finding the dog’s name took them to the R.C.A. offices before they discovered the answer was “Nipper.” The most common types of inquiries, said Sague, are questions about where to write a letter of complaint for a specific business, and if the library has books on a certain subject. People often call with legal questions, too, said the librarians. That is something they “can’t do,” and “won’t do,” said Syzmanski. They don’t have the time and they’re not qualified. When they first began answering legal questions, library patrons would often ask them to interpret a law for them. That subjective analysis often got them in trouble later, said Sague, when the patron encountered a different opinion. AND THERE ARE impossible-to-answer queries, like how many people have lived on the Earth. Sague set out to find the answer to that question and discoverd five totally different hypotheses. The reference business picks up when the sdhools open, and calms when they close. Many students doing reference work, including those taking courses at the local branch of Atlantic County Community College, use the Court House library But how do the librarians keep from doing a student’s homework for him? Syzmanski signed. “Sometimes we have done it,” he answered.

The librarians also will not answer questions for a contest, preferring that, in all fairness, the individual work out the answers. But they do help on cross word puzzles. The Avalon branch, they said, has a crossword reference book to speed answering. And perhaps inevitably, there are strange calls. The library is open till 9 p.m., Monday through Thursday nights, and there is a strong possibility that the reference desk may be getting some bar patron calls. “We don’t know, but sometimes we suspect it,” said Szymanski. “When the moon is full, we get wierd questions.” he added. DURING THE World Series or Super Bowl, Sague offered, the phone rings of the hook with sports trivia questions from patrons who have spent a couple days arguing with friends over the correct answer. “I always ask them if there’s money on the bet,” she said. A lot of the questions answered by Szymanski and Sague, can easily be found in the phone book, they said, but it’s easier to give the patron the answer. It makes them happy, and that’s a librarian’s job. They find answers for trivia treasure hunting by searching the 110,000 titles in stock at the library. The main reference works used are, of course, the encyclopedias and almanacs, bu^ magazines and the New York Times are other wellused sources. Also helpful is the Encyclopedia of Associations, which is good for referring patrons to special interest

groups and clubs. “We try not to send anybody away empty-handed,” said Sague. Sague and Szymanski both have masters degrees in Library Science. Sague, 29, a Lower Township resident, worked “unofficially" at Drexel University and LaSalle College libraries before joining the Court House library staff two years ago. Szymanski has been with the library since 1973. he began delivering books to the branches in Stone Harbor, Avalon, Sea Isle City and Lower Township, and was later hired as a reference librarian.

VIRGINIA SAGUE