Herald & Lantern 21 December '83

3

Lower, MU A Eye Incinerator

Bank Will Run Fishing Loans

COUNTY TREASURER PHIL MATALUCCI ARRIVES AT STATE HOUSE.

Phil Fits the Role

Matalucci Wins High {Temporary) Position

TRENTON — 'Twos the week before Christmas when through the State House Not a staffer was stirring not even a mouse. Ornaments were hung on the state tree with care In hopes Phil Matalucci soon would be there. “Ho, ho, ho — yeah,” said the disguised county treasurer and GOP chairman, revealing hjs undercover role yesterday as the state’s official Chris Cringle. “I’ve spent 52 years to get to the size I am so I can play it,” he added, puffing on the less-than-traditional but fairly familiar cigar. Appointed to the celebrated if temporary position by Gov. Thomas Kean’s staff, Matalucci left a state Civil Service Commission meeting Tuesday

dressed in the customary fur-trimmed red suit and cap to distribute gifts to underprivileged children at the state tree-lighting ceremony in the governor’s

cypress presented to the state by the New Jersey Christmas Tree Growers Association and decorated by the state Arts Council with handcrafted or-

outer office of the State' naments from Jersey

House.

KEAN HAD INVITED 29 children from Jersey City and Essex County state day care centers to the annual affair. Matalucci balanced them on his knee, handing out the special treats he brought from Cape May County and the gifts donated by the governor’s staff as the Newark Boys’ Chorus sang carols. The children are supervised by the state Division of Youth and Family Services, Kean’s assistant, Deborah Ann Francis, explained. “It’s a gorgeous tree," she said of the 16-foot blue

artisans.

Since Matalucci is a local official, though, the Herald and Lantern pressed for information about his latest (Page 19 Please)

By E.J. DUFFY <5

SUNSET BEACH — Both Lower Township and the county Municipal Utilities Authority are now eyeing the Harbisoh-Walker magnesite

plant as the possible site of a trash incinerator station. Lower’s designs on the . >

plant might go up in snfoke ^

if the MU A pulls rank and adapts the township’s concept of a municipalityoperated, incineratorpowered industrial com-i plex to suit a countywide

trash disposal plan.

But neither side has formally discussed its ideas with the other. Until they do — perhaps this week — the question of which party will push an incinerator plan into reality remains

unresolved.

The background. Harbinson-Walker Refractories’ 125-acre facility here has been for sale at a minimum price of $1 million since the firm decided earlier this year to shut down its local

operation.

Even before Smith’s Sanitary landfill near West Cape May and Mar-Tee landfill in Middle Township announced their imminent closings this fall, Lower Township commissioned a study of township trash incineration. Township consultants concluded that the magnesite plant was an ideal incinerator site. Four incinerators could be retrofitted to the plant’s tall smokestacks that are already equipped with ’’scrubbers” to remove noxious particles from the fumes. The fumes would blow out to sea with the prevailing winds, said the

researchers.

FURTHERMORE, they (Page 30 Please)

By JOE ZELNIK A local bank, not the Cape May County Treasurer’s Office, will oversee a revolving loan fund for the county’s commercial fishing industry. Which bank will administer the low-interest loans will depend on the interest rate it indicates and, possibly, the interest rates

it charges.

The county has been awarded $500,000 from the state-administered, federally-funded Small Cities Community Development Block Grant

Program.

Job creation for low-and moderate-income persons is the goal, and the county’s application envisioned 236 new jobs over a five-year

period.

THAT APPLICATION had indicated a local financial institution would “oversee the collection and bookkeeping functions necessary for the proper administration of the loan program” and said the institution “will be selected . not only on the basis of its ability, but also on the amount of its involvement in the local commercial fishing industry.” But county officials last

Share Christmas Dinner?

FANTASY — The Cape May City Library should receive at least $300 from the benefit performances of “Boardwalk Christmas Fantasy II” presented last weekend at the Cape May Convention Hall by Joanne Reagan Dance Studios. Left to right are Melissa, 10, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. David Souder of Erma; Sherri, 9, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Robert Leidy of North Cape May; and Robin. 13, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Maurice Kanady of Cape May.

CAPE MAY - John and Anna May Royle of Village Green shared their Thanksgiving dinner with fo6r recruits from the U.S. Coast Guard Training Center in Cape May. They’ll take five, “or more,” for Christmas, according to Mrs. Royle, because “it was a joy, and they need more volunteers. I don’t want anybody to be left on base for Christmas. I’ll make room for them.” The program is called Operation Fireside and it’s coordinated by Gertrude Reiss of the Cape May County Red cross. She said she has about 250 recruits who would like to have a home-style Christmas Day. Many of them are away from home for the first lime. This is 100 more than the project handled last year and 150 more than were matched with families at Thanksgiving. Persons willing to share their Christmas dinner with the recruits are asked to call Reiss at 884-1587, or Rev. Mark Brown, chaplain at the center, at 884-8451. • Host families are asked to take a minimum of two recruits. There is no maximum. v The recruits hosted by the Royles came from California, Hawaii, Puerto

Rico and South Dakota. They invited the Royles to their class graduation Dec. 9, and the Royles went. “I loved it,” said Mrs. Royle. “I cried." The Royles know what it’s like to have a serviceman away from home at the holidays. Their son, John, is serving in the

Navy on the USS Guam in the Mediterranean outside Beirut. They also have a daughter, Carol Ann, in West Chester, Pa. The Royles moved to Cape May in September 1982 from Glen Mills, Pa. Royle'is retired from Arco in Philadelphia.

month expressed doubt that banks would want that job because of the relatively small servicing fees available. Instead, they had said, the county treasurer’s office wanted "to reexamine it." “We prefer an outside institution handle it,” , Freeholder William-E. Sturm Jr. concluded last week. “We don’t want the mcounty in the business of

collecting loans.”

The county’s Economic Development Commission last week also decided on the makeup of the project’s loan selection committee, described by state officials as “the key” to the pro-

ject’s success.

IT WILL BE a slitmember committee made up of the commission’s executive director, currently A.H. (Rick) Childs; the county’s Marine Extension Agent, currently Stewart Tweed; Robert A. Laws, commission member and owner of Laws, Color Litho Inc. in Erma; two members of a still-un-named Marine Advisory Council that Tweed will be appointing; and! a repre^ntative of financial institutions to be selected

by Childs.

Tweed said he will napie an 18-member advisory council to give him “citizen input” for his annual plann-

ing by next month.

Childs is talking to financial institutions not only in 0 a search for a loan selection committee member, but to seek interest in participating in the prograni and in overseeing the loan

operations.'

At last week's commis-(Page-19 Please)

GOOD LISTENER — Two-year-old Erick Teasenfitz looks a little dubious, but his six-year-old sister, Janice, just keeps ticking off her Christmas list during Santa’s visit to the f Middle Township tree-lighting ceremony. They are the children of Mr. and Mrs. Fred / Teasenfitz of Court House.