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Vol. 21 No. 3 1985 s«wov. Corp. ab right, r^rvod January 16, 1985 ZTSSZIZ,'*?. V?~ — ■ • " ' ' " . i

Freeholders Let (Some) Sunshine Ln ' . - * V • ' . -fe • -S '

By JOE ZELNIK COURT HOUSE - County freeholders have amended their rules regarding private (closed) meetings in an apparent effort to better comply with the state's Open Public Meetings Act. A Dec. 26 Herald-Lantern editorial criticized the board for "strangling" the public's right to know with frequent secret meetings. The new rules require that resolutions authoring closed meetings (now called "a meeting excluding the public") indicate the matter to be'discussed, a requirement of the law that the freeholders were not previously following. But' their new rules also reduce the meeting minutes from the previous format of a thorough summary to the mere filling in of the blanks on a new form. That form tells when and where the meeting was held, who was there, and "subjects considered." THE NET RESULT is that the public will have more knowledge about a secret meeting before it is held, but less knowledge about what actually took place.

According to Diane Rudolph, county administrator and clerk to the freeholders, she it is even reducing to the new format the more a complete minutes of secret meetings held fc in prior months. f "We' are glad to see that the freeholders g now appear to be in compliance with the i Open Public Meetings Act," said Bonnie s Reina, Herald-Lantern general manager.

"On the other hand, we regret that they feel it necessary to reduce the information available in meeting minutes. As the preamto the law states, '...secrecy in public affairs undermines the faith of the public in government and the public's effectiveness fulfilling its role in Na democratic society.' " . THE NEW FORMAT for resolutions authorizing secret meetings also includes the statement that "the minutes shall be released to the public as promptly as possible, providing the making of the material public shaB not endanger the public interest, ex- the personal privacy or guaranteed rights of individuals." This, too, was a requirement of the law that the freeholders had not been meeting. The new format also sets a $5 fee for photocopying the minutes. The freeholders have met privately an average of once a week, and the HeraldLantern has been requesting minutes of those meetings since September. On Oct. 23, 1964, the Herald-Lantern reported a meeting with the freeholders to

discuss "1. The language in your resolutions authorizing private meetings. 2. Topics discussed at private meetings. 3. Release of minutes of private meetings." The freeholders did not respond. THE HERALD-LANTERN, then published its Dec. 26 editorial. "Secrets in the Court House," which charged that the board's policies on closed meetings violated the ( Page 20 Pleased

An Oversight County freeholders violated their new J secret meeting rules the first time they us- ( ed them, on Jan. 8. j It was "an oversight," some of them said, and they approved a "correcting resolution" Monday. | The resolution authorizing that closed meeting was passed at 5 p.m. Jan. 8 and the freeholders immediately went into closed session, their first of the new year. The resolution authorizing that closed (Page 20 Please)

tri Example URT HOUSE — Among persons freeholders met with privately at secret sessions last month was Dr. John N. Napoleon, county medical examiner and physician for the county prison and youth shelter. That was on Dec. 20. Last week the freeholders gave Napoleon » a 30 percent wage increase, from (34,244 a year to $45,000. In his medical examiner post, his annual (Page 20 Please)

News-~^ Digest TopTstories Nanavati, Vs. Burdette COURT HOUSE - Superior Court Judge Marvin N. Rimm is expected to decide today whether Burdette Tomlin Memorial Hospital had the authority to oust Dr. Suketu Nanavati, the cardiologist's ally, former Middle Township Mayor Samuel S. DeVico, announced Monday. Since late 1962, Nanavati has spent some $200,000 fighting his dismissal. Last February, he and other Friends of Burdette candidates ran unsuccessfully ih the hospital's board of governors' election. Cape May Depot? CAPE MAY — City council approved in concept Monday the local Chamber of Commerce offer to sublease the unused railroad station at Lafayette and Ocean streets for $1,200 a year and use it as a chamber office and meeting room called Cape May Depot. The city, which leases the building from New Jersey Transit, has received $15,000 from NJT to rehabilitate the structure. NJT operated the line until about a year and a half ago. Sewers Collapsing CAPE MAY — Old sewer pipes under Columbia Avenue are starting to collapse. They go back more than 100 years, to the days of the old Stockton Hotel and bathhouse which stood there in (Page 12 Please)

Sewerage ! Candidates 'Debate' Mon. COURT HOU§E^ Fourteen candidates for the Middle Township Sewerage Commission will offer their views at a Chamber of Commerce "Candidates' Night" in township hall at 7:30 p.m. Monday. .. Five will be elected Saturday, Jan. 36, from l to 9 p.m. at the Court House Firehall behind the township hall. It will be the first election in 20 years. Paper ballots will be used Current Commissioners said last week that 573 persons are believed eligible to vote. One must be a registered voter and live within the district, whose boundary i lines correspond to sewage lines. (Page 20 Please)

iwpi Doris Word

WINTER SPLASH — The season s first snowstorm dumped four inches ^ong the Jersey* Cape Friday, but plows'6 piled it higher at the Rio Mall where Andrew Bond, 9, took a slide while his parents, Mr. and Mrs. Charles Bond of Court House, went Sunday shopping.

Will Memo Save City's Neglect?

By JOHN DONOHUE CAPE MAY — It's easier to get your Uhcle Horace put on the public payroll than it is to fix old storm sewers underneath county roads. * For years, nobody wanted to pay the repair bills. Not the city nor the county. So the work wasn't done. But the city, which Mayor Arthur Blomkvest says is "neglected underground," will pay the price in 1985 with higher sanitary sewage rates because street water that should be carried off by storm sewers is instead carried off by sanitary sewers. ' That may change, however, if an innocuous-sounding "Memorandum of Understanding" drawn up by City Manager Fred Coldren has any legal teeth in it. * THE DOCUMENT is an agreement between the city and the county road department in which the county takes responsibility for maintaining storm drainage systems along the oceanfront's Beach Avenue, plus Broadway, Madison and Pittsburgh avenues. Coldren says the maintenance agreement covers Beach Avenue all the way from Wilmington Avenue to Broadway. That two-and-three-quarter-mile stretch along the ocean is prone to flooding during storms. Broadway, Madison and Pittsburgh avenues are cross streets. The county

agrees to be responsible for drainage systems on those streets, as well. THE COUNTY ALSO agrees to maintain the timber bulkhead on Beach Avenue from JVilmington to Madison avenues, a distance of about a mile-and-an-eighth. And the county bridge department agrees to make necessary repairs to the . bulkhead. The county is not responsible for mainjtaining the concrete and stone sea wall along Beach Avenue. The agreement is signed by Coldren, county engineer Neil O. Clarke, county road supervisor Leroy Reeves and his assistant, Edward Ayere; county bridge supervisor Harry Gilbert who is also a city

councilman, and Jerome Inderwies, Cape May's assistant superintendent of public works. County Freeholder William E. Sturm Jr. supports the agreement and said he suggested that it be drawn up because there had never been one before. THE MEASURE awaits approval of Sturm's colleagues on the county board of freeholders. At least one of them, Ralph W. Evans, a builder, had previously balked at the county taking any responsibility for draining county roads. Sturm heads the county's public works department and has been sympathetic to Cape May's problems. (Page 20 Please)

Contamiitafed Well Ans triers Due Thursday COURT HOUSE - Middle Township is inviting East Pacific and East Atlantic area residents to a local Health Board meeting at 7 p.m. tomorrow (Thursday) to discuss solutions to contaminated well water. Committeeman James Alexis said he hopes to have enough answers by then to outline what will be done — and what it will cost. In the meantime, private wells at two more homes — both on the east side of the Garden State Parkway — have been found to have water contaminated by trichloroethene. Polly Leonard of 1 E. Atlantic Ave., and George Williams Jr. of 5 Atlantic Ave., both near the Middle Township High School, were notified by the county Health Department Monday afternoon to stop using their water. Those results were five days late due to an equipment breakdown at the state Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) lab. This brings to seven the total number of locations with dangerous contamination. Township officials will meet today with officials from DEP and the New Jersey Spill Compensation Fund of the state Treasury Department to discuss funding of public water lines to the affected areas. t Alexis said he also will be meeting today and tomorrow with officials of the New Jersey Water Co. "to help speed up the installation of lines on Atlantic and Pacific 1 x between Route 9 and the Garden State, and along Atlantic and Pacific on the east side of the parkway." Money's the problem. (Page 20 Please)

Group Fights Nursing Home Permit mm 'mm * fn* »UA Paiip* Uaiko Prtnvalocppnf nrtncilipp thp nn( pntl H 1 for P round water issued Convalescent consider the potential groundwater

E. J. DUFFY i COURT HOUSE — Karl Faust, chairman of a neighborhood group, said Monday that it is appealing a state permit for a nursing home under construction on i Magnolia DriveX Twenty-six members of the newly fonnti ed Cape May Co yH House Neighborhood g Association raised $1,500 almost overnight, he said, to hire attorneys in the b latest battle to block a Coastal Area y Facilities Review Act (CAFRA) permit

Center. Edelstein and Bernstein of Lawrenceville, attorneys for the association, filed two appeals last week, one with the Appelate Division of Superior Court, the other with the state Department of Environmental Protection (DEP). Its Division of Coastal Resources (DCR) issued the CAFRA permit, allowing on-site 1 septic treatment of sewage at the 2^-acre nursing home tract. Amging that the DCR didn't adequately

pollution from the septic system, the county Planning Board appealed the permit but voted 6-2 late last month to withdraw that appeal. FAUST, A RETIRED PROSECUTOR, trial lawyer and Romney Place neighbor of the nursing home, said his association seeks to replace the Planning Board in appealing the CAFRA permit. "Residents believe that the regulatory agency failed to fully and properly con- ( Page 20 Please)