CAPE MAY COUNTY Herald

Vol. 21 No. 16 1985 Seawave Corp. All rights reserved.

April 17, 1985

SPEED LIMIT 25 OCEAN DRIVE (THIRD STREET) Local Sign on County Road

News The Digest Week's Top Stories And a Partridge in a ... BURLEIGH — Wilson Guthrie, Sr., owner of the Cape Taxidermy Shop, pleaded guilty last week to illegally possessing the remains of 10 birds on the state's protected animals list. Guthrie, who was charged by the state Division of Fish, Game and Wildlife, paid $500 in fines and $100 in court costs. The birds included two barred owls, a back ibis, a least bittern, a great horned owl, two sparrow hawks, two screech owls, and a sharp-shinned hawk. Same Old Line SEA ISLE CITY — The sewer pipe on Central Avenue needs repairs again. This time, the section from John F. Kennedy Boulevard to the 49th Street pumping station has callapsed. Repairs are estimated at $730,000. Last year, the section from 35th Street to John F. Kennedy Boulevard collapsed, and sewage hacked up into homes, The cost then was about $1 million. Close Enough WILDWOOD — Mayor Victor DiSylvester says he's totally opposed to and won't cooperate with the filming of "Wildwood" because of a party scene "that sensationalizes and exaggerates teenage drinking and those things" in this resort. Cast and crew are expected Saturday and June 1 will begin shooting the movie — in North Wildwood. Don't Fence Me In OCEAN CITY Police and Council members clashed here last week over a (Page 22 Please) Stone Harbor Mall Makes Many Changes STONE HARBOR — The name's the same. Most everything else is changed. Harbor Square, 23-unit open air shopping mall at 261 96th St., is back under construction. It's a Williamsburg-style colonial mall. Rakharp Corporation original developer of the $4.4-million complex, has been replaced by Harbor Associates Inc. That's a limited partnership with Gerald Katzoff identified as "general partner and spokesman." Financing is by Progress Federal Savings Bank of Norristown, Pa. Stuart Properties Inc., headed by Robert Blumenstein, is the management company. Katzoff and Blumenstein are from Yardley. Bucks County, Pa. INSTEAD OF being for sale, units now are for rent. Square foot price runs from a low of $10 to a high of $21, from $7,200 a year to $32,004. A restaurant with a liquor license is still (Page 22 Please)

Never Mind Logic What's Legal Speed Limit?

By JOE ZELNIK AVALON — Pick a number between 25 and 50. That could be the legal speed limit on Ocean Drive (Third Street) in Avalon. Legal needn't be logical, officials point out. Ocean Drive is a county road. Route 619, the borough's major north-south artery! Many prefer the wider, smoother Dune Drive (Second Street). Both are posted at 25 miles per hour. And Municipal Judge Vincent L. Lamanna Jr. upholds arrests for exceeding that limit. But there's also a "Catch-22" situation, according to Police Lt. Louis Taylor, that's prompted a borough request for a speed survey on Ocean and two different speed limits: one for the May l Oct. 1 season, a

higher one for the Oct. 1-May l off-season (with apologies to the county Chamber of Commerce) THE LAW'S PART pf the problem. It says that, if there is no local ordinance, the speed limit, and it need not be posted, is 25 in residential areas. 50 in rural. That's Avalon's justification for enforcing 25. But Ocean Drive is a county road and the Board of Freeholders in 1971 approved a resolution setting these limits: From the Stone Harbor border at 80th to 37th, 45 miles per hour, from 37th to 18th, 35; and from 18th to the northerly end of town (the Townsends Inlet bridge), 50. A LOT HAS happened to Avalon since 1971, including a considerable amount of (Page 22 Please)

DUNE DRIVE (SECOND STREET) State Statute; Avalon Sign

TAN TIME — Catching a few rays of sun at the county park in Cape May Court House last weekend were Mrs. Robert Stansbury, left, daughter Joanne, 4, and sister Gina DeJames, all of Villas.

Good (County) Business

Borrow , Invest , Profit

COURT HOUSE — Interest rates are down. But the county has earned twice as much interest on investments this year compared to the same period last year. Financial savvy? Fiscal acumen? Magic? Possibly a little of each, but the big reason is that the county borrowed $15.5 million last fall. THE COUNTY will spend about $775,000 of it for a new Upper Cape branch library in Petersburg, Upper Township, the remainder (about $14.8 million) for a new Crest Haven nursing home and expanded courts facilities. The library is 50 percent completed; the .other two projects probably won't be started until next fall, if then. The money was borrowed last Oct. 11 via one-year bond anticipation notes at 7.27 percent, a rate that satisfied investors since the interest is tax-exempt. But the county turned around and invested that money in Certificates of Deposit at rates currently around 9 percent — and pockets the difference. "That's good business," commented County Treasurer Philip R. Matalucci. HIS LAST REPORT to the Board of Freeholders cited 1965 interest earned through April 4 of $265,411. That compares to $131,867 a year ago. But a year ago, the county had $11 million invested. Now, it has $27.6 million, probably a record amount. The highest rate it's currently earning is 9.25 percent. Last year at this time it was earning 10.38 percent. Matalucci 's office is responsible for getting the best (highest) interest rates as it in-

vests the money. The return is averaging more than $1 million a year. THUS THE COUNTY currently has about $14.5 million at Security Savings & Loan (main office, Vineland; branches in Ocean City and Marmora ) : $10.7 million at Collective Federal Savings & Loan (main office in Egg Harbor; branches in Ocean City. Rio Grande and North Cape May ) ; $1 .8 million in the First National Bank of Toms River (local branches in Cape May Court House, Rio Grande, Villas, and Wildwood Crest) ; and $225,000 at Marine National Bank ( home office in Wildwood ; branches in North Wild(Page 22 Please)

"Toughest" Fire Code Looms Countians with anything bigger than a .duplex will come under the nation's toughest fire code in August. Many owners may face expansive retrofitting with such safety equipment as sprinkler systems, fire doors and exit signs. That's in addition to new fees for quarterly or yearly inspections ranging from $75 for day-care centers, service stations etc., to $400 for taverns and markets, and $1,200 for covered malls of 12,000-square-feet or more. Still to be determined is whether the state, county, municipalities or fire companies will accept responsibility for enforcing the code. State fire commissioners are meeting in Trenton today to review a consultant's package of retrofit proposals, according to George Miller, chief of the state Bureau of Fire Safety. As drafted by the consultant, the Uniform Fire Safety Code regulations call for "some public assembly buildings... to install suppression systems. Those buildings include structures of six or more floors and institutions, Miller said. "ALL HIGH-HAZARD buildings, or por tions, are required to have sprinklers or suppression," he added. "Means of egress (exits) will have to be improved in an awful lot of buildings (like schools). "Wherever means of egress are not up to ( Page 22 Please )

Is This the Week for Water?

COURT HOUSE - Patricia Webb returns home this week after wintering m Fort Lauderdale with her father. And what she's missed: Almost four months without water. Husband Edmund and three sons, 16, 19 and 21, have been getting cooking and drinking water from drums of water supplied by Middle Township. And they've been "making other arrangements" for bathing, according to Webb, principal at Elementary School No. 4 in Court House. Webb and a half-dozen others in the At-lantic-Pacific avenues area got the word at Christmas-time that their wells were contaminated by toxic chemicals. Neighbor Dr. Shah Chaudhry's well had been found to be contaminated four months earlier The New Jersey Water Co. is slated to

finish extending public water to their homes this week. Webb and several others got temporary relief about two weeks ago when the township hooked them up to a line on Colonial Avenue. Middle Township Committee member James Alexis said 23 homes or businesses getting public water should have heard from the water company to apply for connections. Their next step : hire a plumber or come to the township and ask it to connect from the home to the curb line. It's a four-five-hour job, and "we can't do em all in one day," cautioned Alexis. The township won't charge the residents now, he said, but record the costs and submit them to the New Jersey Spill Compen(Page 22 Please)