» • BiH DoLfhtrty FIGHTERS — Jerr>- Lynch and wife. Cheryl, of Villas, entertained recently at the Marmora Sehior Citizen Center in Upper Township. Lynch, a professional banjo nlayer for 15 yean.' is a marble sculptor and Cheryl is a painter. 'ITjeir repertoire focuses on old favorites, but includes the “Villas Fight Song.” which Lynch wrote.

5 Unite to Seek Bond Money for Meadows

COURT HOUSE - No money from the $$0 million Shore Protection Bond Issue, approved by state voters in November, is earmarked for South Cape Meadows in Lower Township. But, said Freeholder William £. Sturm Jr, the county, and four municipalities that border the 180-acre coastal tract, intend to present “a united front” for flood prevention when their officials meet with the state Department of Environmental Protection here next month. "Everytime you have -*•. bad storm,” complained Lower Township Mayor Peggie Bieberbach, “water comes over the meadow and floods out Sunset Boulevard.” The meadows, between Cape May and Ca($e May Point, are also situated between the ocean and Sunset Boulevard. When storms strike the coast, waves breach the dunes, flooding the meadows and, often, Sunset Boulevard hs well. ' During the disastrous northeaster of 1962, Point residents were isolated when Sunset Boulevard, their only roadway to the rest of the county, was submerged in the meadows’ flooding, the mayor recalled.

“THE FOUR TOWNS and the coudty did not agree yet on what we're going to ask for,” Elwood .Jarmer, county planning director said of officials from Lower Township, Cape May, Cape May Point,, and West Cape May and the pending bearing, Feb. 15, with John Weingard, acting DEP director. Sponsored by the DEP and the county Planning Board, the 1:80 p.m. hearing in the old court house. Main Street (Routes), is actually one of several sessions the DEP has scheduled statewide on distribution of Shore Protection Bond Issue funds Local officials, however, expect to use the bearing to lobby- Weingard into diverting priority bond money toward South Cape Meadows Even before voters cast their ballots on the bonding question, the DEP released a list of projects it proposed to finance with the $50 million. Top priority and the-lions share of the money went to upstate projects. Ocean City, North Wildwood,' Avalon. Stone Harbor and Middle Township were marked for bayfront or beach protection three years down the road; South Cape (Page 18 Please)

News—^— Digest Topfstorii Shuddering Wallets 1

OCEAN CITY — Property owners will pay 7.4 percent more in local taxes if Mayor Jack Bittner’s proposed $15 million 1984 budget is approved without change by city council. Changes are expected, however, during council budget hearings over the next few weeks. Bittner submitted the budget to council last week. He attributed the projected tax hike primarily to trash collection costs, delinquent taxpayers and terminal leave payments.

Shuddering Wallets 2 AVALON — Borough property owners will pay $60 more a year ($15 a quarter) in water and sewer fees if borough council approves the proposed rate hike after a Jan. 26 public hearing. According to the ordinance introduced last week, quarterly fees would rise April 1 from $30-$45 for the first 15,000 gallons of water and from 45-90 cents for each additional 1,000 gallons used by each of the borough’s 5,000 customers.

Mayor Disturbed WILDWOOD - Mayor Earl Ostrander vetoed the recently-enacted salary ordinance Friday night by ripping it apart before an audience of 100 or more city workers. He called the measure “a (Page 18 Please)

Girl Scouts Trying Again

“Walk-a-Day-in-My-Sbces,” a Girl Scout project that flopped in Cape May County last year, will be tried again in ’84. “We’ve decided to run with it again,” said Program Services Director Catherine Cooper. Idea is to match cadette and senior Girl Scouts with employed persons so the former can learn about the “problems and pressures encountered by those in the work world.” Project is sponsored by the Holly Shores Girl Scout Council. Cape May County has almost 1,000 of its 7,000 members in Cape May, Atlantic, Cumberland, Gloucester and Salem counties. But last year, letters went to 200 employers in the county and five responded. After the Herald and Lantern reported that, about 40 volunteered. But when “Walk a Day" was held in (Page 19 Please)

CAPE MAY — Milton Briggs’ former three-story frame home at 201 Broadway goes on the county auction block next week. The seven-bedroom, four-bath house, with its efficiency apartment and detached garage, isn't being sold for back taxes or to settle an estate. The county prosecutor’s office wants at least $145,000 for the property lawmen seized after a drug raid in

1962.

The house can be inspected from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. tomorrow and bids will be opened at the county freeholders office in Court House at 2 p.m. Jan. 25. Milton Briggs, 51, and his twin brother, Murton, weft arrested Sept. 15 of 1962. Both pleaded guilty to possession of controlled dangerous substances, possession with intent to distribute and manufacturing a controlled dangerous substance, reported William B. Matthews Sr., chief of county detectives. “These fellows were making meth (methamphetamine) down in the basement," he added. The Briggs brothers were sentenced last September and October to six months in jail and fined $6,000 each, Matthews said. They are free, pending appeals, but that won’t stop their forfeiture of the house at Broadway and Grant Street. “That’s law," said the chief detective. "Anytime a... house, car or anything is used in the commission of a crime, we (can) seize them.” IN THE PAST, the prosecutor has confiscated everything from the automobile used in Wildwood by a hired arsonist to a ship carrying 2,800 tons of marijuana, be noted. “We have, I would say, half a dozen vehicles,” Matthews continued, citing property currently held by the prosecutor’s office besides the Briggs house. When the properties are sold, he said, “the moneygoes hack to the county — the county coffers, I guess.” “It’s a civil actibn,” explained AlTdsey, assistant county prosecutor. While handling a criminal case, his colleagues decide if forfeiture of a suspect's property seems justified and ask a civil court judge to approve it.

Avenue home in Villas where Welter O. Keresty, 28, murdered his three baby daughters last April. A newcomer to the prosecutor's staff, Telsey speculated that the lawyer assigned Keresty's case decided his 30-year-minimum sentence was appropriate without forfeiture. The murderer, Telsey observed, might not have had enough equity in the house to make seizure

worthwhile.

Elio Pizza, 51, of East 14th Street, Noth Wildwood, pleaded guilty in November to three weapons offenses in connection with a December, 1962, raid on his A&LP Italian Food Center, East 15th Street. Seventeen charges were dropped in the plea agreement. / PIZZA FORFEITED a lot of money confiscated during the raid, Telsey recalled, “but I don’t thipk we're moving against the property.” Nor, he believed, was the, prosecutor’s office attempting to seize the Erma home arxl Laura’s Fudge Shops owned by Louis Lambert, although “we found money in his business and guns in

his house.”

Sometimes it’s “just not appropriate” to ask a judge to authorize forfeiture. Telsey

said. "You just sound greedy."

The U.S. Coast Guard, Matthews said, has “two or three boats (it’s) seized" recently, including the "Hetty.” a 150-foot British freighter taken Nov. 3 with 11 tons of hashish (worth $246 million) aboard. Its captain, ’Donald C. Dickinson,. 31 of Auckland, New Zealand, and three foreign crewmen pleaded guilty in federal court, Newark, this month, to conspiracy to

smuggle the contraband into the U.S.

In April, the Coast Guard Cutter “Duane" intercepted the “Civonney,” a 200-foot coastal freighter suspected of carrying drugs, Lt. Thomas King of Group Operations, Cape May, reported. AlthoogL the crew scuttled the vessel, a few bales of

pot surfaced as evidence, be said.

“Basically, it’s all turned over to the Customs Service,” King said of property seized by the Coast Guard The “Hetty," and two fishing vessels seized before last year, are now berthed at Utsch's Marina, Cape May, awaiting auction, 1 he added.

“THE STATE POLICE seize an awful lot of cars,” observed Matthews. They Jake lb-20 automobiles each year (Page 19 Please)

Proceeds Go to County li_

‘Meth’Mansion on Auction Block

V ‘i • - j V* By DUFFY “That’s an interesting question," he

replied when asked if the prosecutor’s offices could move to seize the W. Pacific