Herald - Lantern ■ Dispatch 22 May '85

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News Digest (From Page 1) doesn't smell, apparently. Plant supervisor Rives King announced last week that he hasn't had an odor » complaint so far this year. That's unusual, and the MUA is completing a $1.9-million odor control project at the three-year-old 46th Street plant. Spraying Mosquitoes DIAS CREEK — The county Mosquito Extermination Commission announced last week that it will be spraying Cythion (Malathion) or Scourge (Resmethrin and peperonyl Buxtoxide) until Oct. 31 to control adult mosquitoes. Spraying will be done by aircraft and ground equipment. For information, call Judy Hansen, commission superintendent, at 465-9038. Lowering Flag (From Page 1) position continues to be that flag "etiquette" lefeves lowering the flag to the President and, in some cases, the governor. The spokesperson said an additional problem was that the county kept the flags lowered for too long, a ftill week for Murphy and "several weeks" for Parker. Kehr had asked the freeholders last week to give him "a date when you want it raised." "IT'S NOT RIGHT to drop the flag whenever anybody dies," said Evans in ap interview. "Where do you stop, Joe Doe down the street? I don't know. That's why I brought it to the board. I wasn't going to make a decision on my own." Freeholder James K. Kil pa trick Jr. said at the meeting that he agreed that "the director directs (the flag to be lowered) as a custom or practice in Cape May County upon the death of certain persons " "I suggest we continue," said Thornton. "I wanted a board decision," said Evans. "It's customary and traditional," agreed William E. Sturm Jr. "WHEN DIRECTED," Evans said to Kehr, "you will drop the flag." "This is the first time there was ever a complaint," Thornton told this newspaper. "It's the right and proper thing to do when a recognized public official dies. We should honor a person who dedicated his time and effort and a portion of his life to the betterment of the community." Kehr told this newspaper the county has flag poles at eight locations: the old court house and county park in Court House, the Social Services Building in Rio Grande, the airport in Erma, the veterans' cemetery, county jail and nursing home at Crest Haven, and the senior center in Upper Township. The flag normally is lowered from the day of the death until the day after the funeral, Kehr said. County Contract (From Page 1) to $3 from $1 in the co-pay of employes under the Prescription Insurance Plan, effective July 1, and an end to longevity for new employes hired after the execution of the contract. That amounts to 2 percent a year for every five years service up through 12 percent for 30 years and 14 percent for 40 years and over. Over the long term, the phasing out of that longevity benefit will save the county several hundred thousand dollars a year. The county was not successful in two other proposals: an increase to $500 from $100 for the major medical deductible, and an end to the "agency shop," which would have meant the county no longer would have deducted union dues from paychecks. Union members, who run the gamut from the courts and clerical to roads, facilities and services, etc., had the pro- , posed contract explained to them at a meeting in the old court house last Thursday night. The last contrast was a two-year contract that came from a state mediator after an impasse was declared. It expired last Dec. 31. The new one would be retroactive to Jan. 1.

Stinging in the Rain MEND HAM — Results of the first year-long acid rain study shows that New Jersey's showers and downpours are 25 times more acidic than unpolluted precipitation — about as acidic as tomato juice, according to the Association of New Jersey Environmental Corpmissions here. Formed from sulfur^ncT nitrogen oxides, acid rain washes away pesticides and paint, pits stone and marble structures. The American Lung Association says 500.000 Americans die prematurely every year because of acid rain. Bob Blasts Bill VILLAS^ Lower,Tbwnship Mayor Robert Fothergill blasted county MUA chairman William Band on Monday for using taxpayers' money ($3,500) to buy newspaper ads last week that, among other things, insinuated that Lower officials misled the public about trash incineration. "Mr. Band apparently thinks no one should question the MUA." scoffed the mayor. Trying to portray the authority as concerned about the environment, Band forgot that the MUA consistently opposed secondary treatment of sanitary sewage as too expensive and unnecessary, Fothergill recalled. Vacancies Filled VILLAS — Lower Township councilmen voted unanimously Monday night to appoint Freeman S. Douglass and Ronald E. Burgin to vacancies on the five-member township MUA board. Burgin of Cold Spring is an investigator with the state Department of Labor. Douglass of Erma is an assistant township construction supervisor and vice-president of Lower Cape May Regional school board. Coast Guard Saves 4 NORTH CAPE MAY - Coast - Guardsmen hoisted four men aboard a helicopter early Sunday morning after their sloop lost power and grounded on a bayside jetty near the Cape May Canal The captain reported that a 35-foot vessel ignored his distress signal. Rescued were Philip Corley, 59, of Harwich. Mass; Brendan Conroy, 57, of Freehold ; Joseph Baker, 59, of Levittown, Pa.; and Vernon Rodgers, 60, of Atlantic City. $3.3 Million Project OCEAN CITY — Resort planners will hear city Housing Authority specifications for a $3.3-million senior citizens' apartment project during a 7:30 meeting tonight in city council chambers The authority wants to build the four-unit federally-subsidized complex at 15th Street and Haven Avenue. If all goes well, building bids will be advertised next month with ground breaking in August. Construction is supposed to take 12-14 months, with the first occupant expected in December 1986 Can't Figure it Out SWAINTON - County MUA commissioners last week awarded Metcalf and Eddy of Somerville a $50,000 contract to study whether it's cheaper to treat Lower Township and the Cape Mays' sewage on land, through more sophisticated Delaware Bay discharge — or to pump it several miles to the MUA's Rio Grande treatment plant, the $20 million state-mandated alternative. The study is expected to take four-six months. MUA Shifts Contact RIO GRANDE — Citing irregularities in Cuyahoga Wrecking Co. contract paperwork, the county MUA last week withdrew the firm's $3.4-million contract for demolishing the former menhaden plant here and preparing the site for an MUA sewage treatment plant. With $318,000 more, the contract was shifted to Anselmi and DiCicco of Maplewood. v

Dor 1 1 Word MAYOR MICHAEL VOLL '

Doris Ward RODNEY DOWNS

Downs Freeholder Candidate

(From Page 1) against incumbent Freeholder Gerald M. Thornton and his GOP running mate, former West Wildwood Mayor Herbert "Chuck" Frederick, for two $15.000-a-year part-time seats on the five-member, Re-publican-dominated freeholder board. Frederick finished first with 24,622 votes, followed by Thornton with 24,519. Bieberbach came in third with 14,195 and Downs finished last with 12,389. After the votes were counted. Bieberbach complained about a lack of support from the county Democratic organization headed by chairman Samuel S. DeVico of Court House. He's expected to step down during the party's June If reorganization meeting. \ % "I'm considering taking it," Middle Township Mayor Michael Voll said Friday. "As far as I know," he added, no one else is running to replace DeVico. / Downs is willing to accept "whatever they'll give me" from the county Demo-

cratic organization members in his bid for the freeholder slot. His main interest in running, however, is to make sure the party has a freeholder candidate, he said. Financial support from the organization might be tough to come by this year. The party's Court House headquarters is listed for township tax sale. Golden Sands AVALON — Seventy percent of the 32,000 cubic yards of sand, dumped last month on the beaches as shore protection for $151,260, washed away with high tides two weeks ago. But the state plans to pump another two million cubic yards on Avalon and Stone Harbor beaches next year for another $10 million Bernard Moore, state engineer, told residents of those resorts last week

A Different Life for Joe Tracy : '

(From Page l) His mother named him Clarence, a name that she thought no one could turn into a nickname. But Tracy came to hate his first name and dropped it after his mother's death in 1955 because of the many fights over it that he had in a neighborhood where most boys were called Steve or Butch. "I had a lot of fights over it," Tracy told the Philadelphia Bulletin in a 1974 interview. "A hell of a lot." TRACY WAS INTERVIEWED nearing the end of his first and only term as Bucks County commissioner. "The little things in life ... that lead you in a direction that you^ never intended to go," was the theme that emerged from the interview. Tracy was a Philadelphia policeman, a career he intended to follow until a freak accident led him to retire on a disability pension of $248 a month in 1962. Tracy was sitting at a typewriter in an old swivel chair in a Philadelphia police station when the chair collapsed and his left knee folded under him. His fellow workers thought it was a joke, and put up banners that read, "Beware of The Dangerous Chairs." But badly torn ligaments left Tracy with the option of accepting a less physically demanding job, or retiring. BEFORE HE BECAME a cop. Tracy attended Temple University in the hope of becoming a lawyer. To pay for his tuition, he worked as a credit manager for an Adams Clothing store. Marriage and the need to care for his sick mother led Tracy to drop out of school and become a policeman. » When he retired as a result of the knee injury, Tracy took a job as inventory control mad with General Motors and moved to Bucks County. Then, in 1964, after he and his wife and their two sons, Joseph and Michael, bought a home in Warrington Township, near Doylestown, Tracy started Bux-Mont Exterminating Co. "I told my wife, 'Let 'em laugh. I'm^o-

ing to laugh all the way to the bank,' Tracy told The Bulletin in reference to the business venture. TRACY'S INTRODUCTION to politics came in 1967 when a neighbor persuaded him to attend a meeting of Warrington Democrats. "It was the first one I ever attended," % Tracy told The Bulletin. "I just wanted to hear what it was all about. Politics and I were about as foreign as any two things couldbe." Tracy emerged from the meeting la little dumbfounded," as the endorsed Democratic candidate for township supervisor. "That shows you just how strong an organization that was," Tracy said. He lost thd 1967 race, but won in 1969 by two votes to become the township's first Democratic supervisor in 50 years. \ The next year he became vice chairman of the county Democratic committee, and the year after that, a candidate for county commissioner. Tracy and his running mate, J«6eph F. Catania, then mayor of Morrisville, won in an upset in a county that was traditionally Republican. < IN A MOVE that was designed to increase their unity, the two new commissioners decided to try a new ploy — rotate the chairmanship of the board of commissioners. # U was supposed to be Tracy, Catania, Tracy, Catania. But in the third term, Catania forked a ** deal with Denver Lindley, Jr., the Republican minority member of the commissioners, to elect Catania chairman * v "It was probably the most embarrassing day of my entire life," Tracy said, recalling his betrayal. Asked in the 1974 interview how he felt' about his unlikely odyssey from a tough working class section of Philadelphia to the ornate commissioner's office in the Bucks County Courthouse in Doylestown, Tracy replied: "I'm very proud that I'm here. If I never go any further, this is an achievement that I can be proud of."