Cory’s a Survivor

By E. J. DUFFY STONE HARBOR - Cory the cat is on the mend in her new home here — thanks to a new owner, a dog, local vets, the Animal Welfare Society and readers of this paper who helped pay for Cory’s surgery. ‘‘She's going to be fine,” concluded Dr. Ralph Werner of the Somers Point Veterinary Hospital He operated on Cory to correct a deformity that caused a hind leg to protrude at a severe right angle. An account of her plight, printed under Cory’s photograph this month in the Herald and Lantern classified section, stirred a sympathetic response from readers

who mailed mine than $200 to the AWS for Cory’s operation — along with their good wishes. “Some of these letters are really heart breaking — written to the cat," said Cass Clark of North Cape May, AWS president. A Stone Harbor resident, who prefers to remain anonymous, answered the AWS plea for help with a visit to its Middle Township shelter. Despite her injuries. Gory purred during the visit. The resort . woman fell for the feisty gray tiger cat and took her home. “We’re going to pay the vet whatever we get and she's going to pay the difference.”

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Vol. 20 No. 8

The Time Is Ripe

More Middle Sewage?

By JOE ZELNIK Middle Township Sewer Authority has tentatively approved connecting the Jamesway Shopping Center and a proposed 120-bed nursing home to its sewage

Nursing Home $4 Million Job Court House Convalescent Center, 120-bed nursing and convalescent home planned for Magnolia Drive, would be the second nursing home in the county owned by Hospicomm Inc. of Philadelphia. It opened Eastern Shore Nursing Home in Swainton last September. That also has 120 beds and already has 70 residents, a number limited only by difficulty recruiting staff, according to Eugene Mayer, Hospicomm’s president. Eastern Shore has 70 employes and will have 100, he said. Court House also will employ 100, be said. MAYER SAID HE HOPES to break ground in May and open in March 1965. He said sewage was “no problem because there’s municipal, water and sewage there.” \ Michael Vistenzo of the M: Township Sewer Authority said it "ten^ tatively agreed” to accept the cento- “if (Page 20 Please)

treatment plant, which some people thought was over capacity 10 years ago. This would come on top of the recent potential increased flow from the enlarged Burdette Tomlin Memorial Hospital. “We feel we have the capacity,” said Michael Vistenzo of the authority. “The whole thing depends on whether my numbers on the plant (flow) are correct. I want to be satis if ed that we won't be overloaded. We’re being very cautious on this. We don’t want to do anything that will come back and hit us in the head later.” In separate documents and interviews, the county Health Department seems to both approve and disapprove of the additional hookups. APPROVAL ALSO would have to come from the county Municipal Utilities Authority (MUA) and the state Department of Environmental Protection (DEP). The 46-year-old sewage treatment plant is located at the northeast corner of the intersection of Stone Harbor Boulevard and the Garden State Parkway. The proposed nursing home (see related story), to be called Court House Convalescent Center, would be located on 2^ acres on Magnolia Drive behind the new Cape May County Savings & Loan building on Route 9 in Court House. That site is part of an eight-acre tract owned for less than a year by Magnolia Associates, a partnership that includes former MUA chairman John Vinci; three Avalon Real Estate Agency Realtors, William H. Tozour Jr., David J. Kerr, and ad, the broker in the proposed

sale; and Court House attorney Frederick W. Schmidt Jr. THE BUYER. Hospicomm Inc. of Philadelphia, has a purchase contract which means that “if we get the permits, we have to buy the land,” according to Eugene Mayer, Hospicomm president. Hospicomm and the shopping center would “share the costs” of connector sewage lines, according to Vistenzo. TTiose lines to Magnolia Drive presumably would enhance the value of the remaining 5.5 acres and whatever Magnolia Associates plans for them. The Middle Township Sewage Treatment plant was built in 1938 by the WPA. It is a primary treatment plant, the least stringent of several categories. Vistenzo, who also is township construction official and zoning officer, said the plant was “designed for 100,00(Kgallons a day capacity and is getting 50,000 to 60,000.” He said the hospital addition would be “a slight increase” in sewage flow with “35 to 50 additional beds.” The addition will take the hospital from 171 beds to 240 in about a year, according to Joann Oxley, director of its Community Relations Department. THE HOSPITAL IS the authority's best customer, with an annual $5,225 bill. Home owners pay a flat $75.90 a year, according to authority secretary Helen Westcott. V^tenzo said the hospital was putting “less than 30,000 gallons” into the sewage system prior to the addition, which he called “a minimal thing “ (Page 20 Please)

Villa’s Broken Date on Again VILLAS'— Villa got bumped out of the White House by the death of Soviet leader Yuri Andropov The two-year-old, 90-pound Newfoundland was slated to get a “Dog Hero of the Year” award from the wife of Vice President George Bush, Barbara, on Valentine’s Day. But Andropov died and the Bushes went to the funeral. The event has been rescheduled for the White House at 3:30 p.m.’ next Wednesday-, Feb. 29, according to Nancy Parsons, manager of Consumer Communications for Quaker Oats Company in Chicago which gives the award. Along with the medal and $500 for Villa's owners, Linda and Richard Veit of Frances Avenue, Villa will get a year’s, supply of Ken-L-Ration. Vila became a hero in the blizzard of Feb. 11, 1983, when she rescued Andrea Anderson, then 11, from a snowbank close to the bay and led her to her nearby home. Villa, Andrea and the Veits will be flown by helicopter from Washington to New Yoffc City next Wednesday and appear on "Good Morning America" the following morning. The show airs from 7 to 9 a.m.

NewsDigest

The

•Weeks

Top Stories

More MUA COURf HOUSE - Cape May County will try to seize nine properties controlled by three defendants indicted by a county grand jury this month in connection with e kickback probe of county MUA land deals. Assistant county prosecutor Kyran • Conner said yesterday that he has filed civil forfeiture actions against two Ocean City and a Middle Township property owned by defendant Francis Pandulio, former head of PQA Associates, the MU As engineering firm. Conner has also moved to confiscate four Middle Township and one Stone Harbor property controlled by John Vinci, former MUA chairman, and his wife, Mary. The prosecutor will ask court approval for his seizures “in the event there are convictions," Conner said. (Page 20 Please)

Higher Enrollment Seen Vo-Tech Turnaround?

Dortj Ward NO TAJ MAHAL - Michael Vistenzo, center, member of the Middle Township Sewer Authority, recently showed its facility, which he conceded is “ao Taj Mahal," to, from left, Larry NewboM and Stephen Patrick of the Cape May County Environmental Council. From right are Walter Turaier. the licensed plant operator, ami A1 Herman, authority engineer.

By JOE ZELNIK Cape May County secondary- schools have had declining enrollment for the last three years and expect more of the same for the next five years. Cape May County’s vocational schools had an 18 percent enrollment decrease this year, going from 572 FTEs (full-time equivalents) to 468. Despite all that, Vocational Schools Supt. Wilbur J. Kistier Jr. last week submitted to county freeholders a budget based <m an estimated 34 percent enrollment increase next year. And they bought it. THE FREEHOLDERS APPROVED a vocational schools budget that is up 9 percent, to $2.76 million. It will require almost a 10 percent increase in the county’s share of the budget, a hike of $154,186, from $1,590,886 to $1,745,072. Kistier is pinning his hopes on changes in instruction and curriculum, be said, and looking for enrollment to climb from this

year’s 468 to 628 next school year “An increase of 160?” said Freeholder Gerald M. Thornton “That’s significant.’’ “It could be more than 160,” said Kistier. “I understand that's very ambitious. 1 understand the magnitude of the job before us." Freeholder James S. Kilpatrick Jr., the liaison to the vocational district, asked Kistier what effect it would have on the proposed budget “if we took out that projected increase?” KISTLER NEVER answered that question, but be said that tenured teachers have to be informed of the following year’s employment by April 30. So, he said, a decisio. .11 ha* - to be made by April 1 on what program, ue district will offer The staff has already been reduced by more than 20 in the last two years, to about 83 persons. “It’s more difficult for us to project enrollment than a secondary' school,” said Kistier. “We’re absolutely an elective (Page 20 Please)