New Jersey Nightly News; 01/02/1980

The governor signs the bill that makes the drinking age 19. In sports Alabama is number one and Bernard King has been arrested in Utah and a judge orders Elizabeth police officers back to work. New Jersey Nightly News with Kyron's dad and Bill of Rights. Good evening for the second time in seven years the state has changed the minimum drinking age. This time hiking it to 19 years old. Back in 1973 the drinking age was lowered from 21 to 18. But ever since opponents have been pushing for higher minimum age to stop the increasing numbers of teenage drinkers and reports on their victory. Governor and a ride to Paterson City Hall this morning to sign six legislative bills. All of them related to drinking.

When the drinking age was dropped from 21 to 18 seven years ago. It was done to conform to the new voting age and the governor or politician that he is tried to placate those young voters this morning. I apologize to those people who are disappointed in our action today doing so. So many young people in the state we all know and young people hate to hear us say doing it feeling good. Well we hope that is the case and we hope that this will work. And with that at the stroke of his pen anybody turning 18 now has a year or more to wait. However those already 18 will be allowed to continue drinking. Other changes made today from now on both the person who illegally sells alcohol and the under aged person trying to buy it will face criminal charges. Another bill requires a color photograph on the driver's license of anybody under 21. Also high schools will now have to offer specific

counseling and instruction on alcohol problems. But there are still obstacles. State Senator Frank Graves who sponsored much of today's legislation pointed out that New York State will have to follow New Jersey's lead for the new drinking age to have full effect because of New York stays at 18. It will give temptation to the northern youth who want to slip across the border and can become a particular problem. But there are still those who think the drinking age ought to be back up at 21. Many many states increase the age we're now 25 states are already at 21 I would think perhaps maybe in the next five years if the entire country could be back to 21 where my family belongs. And there is the beginning of a movement calling for an amendment to the U.S. Constitution making the national drinking age 21. In Patterson I'm still talking. And during the ceremonies this morning in Paterson the governor surprised the audience by

departing from the subject at hand and taking an apparent swipe at the State Department of Education. It was just a final single sentence by the governor before giving the floor to local officials. Today legislation hoping it will work one doing in passing while the Department of Education the State Board of Education does not regard it as an intrusion and then they teach them well at the same time they're resisting teaching basic skills and the three Rs. The governor has been pushing for basic skills testing the investigation into last October's shooting death of 17 year old Darryl Walker has been reopened. Walker was shot by two orange policeman after allegedly running a red light and leading police on a five mile high speed chase. But a state grand jury will now hear new

evidence next week in Princeton. Attorney General John Degnan says the discovery of new evidence made it incumbent upon his office to reopen the case. Last November 7th an Essex County grand jury declined to indict the two police officers involved. The shooting sparked a series of rallies and demonstrations and a group of civil rights leaders conducted a weeklong sit in at Orange City Hall. And in Elizabeth a superior court judge assigned a back to work order against police officers there who have been staging a sick out. But the city's mayor says the state of emergency will remain in effect until he sees if that order will be obeyed. Nearly 80 percent of today's 3:00 PM shift reported for work just 24 hours after the sickout began over contract talks that Manahan has been following the story. Representatives of the policeman's Benevolent Association and Elisabeth began negotiating with city officials for a new contract at 12:30 and by late this afternoon no progress had been made. The PBA is asking for a 15 percent pay raise a dental

plan a two man patrol cars 24 hours a day. The policeman's contract with the city expired last Monday. Members of the Police Benevolent Association say they began writing to city representatives last August 15th asking them to set a date to begin negotiations on the 1080 contract. But it took a job action before they could get a response. Authorities claim normal patrols were maintained during the height of the sick out with supervisory personnel and new recruits so that police service was virtually unaffected. Elizabeth Mayor Thomas Dunn thinks the job action was politically motivated. Coming up for re-election again this year and they always pick an election year to try to get the mayor to capitulate over to them to curry favor with them for voting strength or some such thing but you think that with all the experience they have had and I've had that that they would know by now that the mayor of the city of Elizabeth is not going to roll over and play dead for them. In addition to the court order forcing the police back to work all officers will be required to take a

physical examination to determine if they really were sick. Superior Court Judge Dee Buno said it would be naive of him to think that most of the Elizabeth police force could be sick all within the same 24 hour period. Elizabeth I can't man a hand as between 50 and 100 of Atlantic City's white collar employees staged a sick out today. They're members of the Teamsters Union and our contract with the city expired last Monday. However as Steve Taylor reports the union didn't authorize the job action. City officials didn't know today exactly how many of Atlantic City's 400 office workers stayed home to protest their lack of a contract. But here in the tax office 10 out of 13 employees were absent most of the city's white collar workers are members of Teamsters Local 331. But union officials who would not talk on camera stressed that today's shakeout was not you know authorized. We talked with Mayor Joseph Lizer 0 shortly after an emergency meeting of the Atlantic City Board of Commissioners where they

decided on swift harsh action to deal with the sick out. We issued an order that they produce a doctor's certificate that they are sick of they want to be paid for the day otherwise they will not be paid for the day and if they do not show up for work 9 o'clock tomorrow they will be considered to have resigned and will be terminated and Lizer Rowe said the local prosecutor's office was taking names in city offices this afternoon to find out exactly who came to work and who didn't. Last week at Lenox City police tied up traffic and staged their own sick out to protest the way their contract talks with the city are growing. But the cops were on the job today in Atlantic City. I'm Steve Taylor. And a legal battle is shaping up over what form of government Atlantic City should have. The city's commissioners recently announced plans to go to a mayor city council form of government and the legislature has been asked to approve a Feb. 26 special election in the city. But opponents of the changes filed petitions to try and block the legislature's action. The petitioners want to suspend the commissioner's move and to have the proposed change put

to City voters. There was more angry reaction today to the governor's proposed three hundred forty million dollar tax package this time from the state's Chamber of Commerce. The Chamber says business will bear about 90 percent of the tax burden. The Chamber further charged the governor with trying to ram the package through without the normal deliberations by legislative task committees and without consulting the business community. If approved the governor's plan would increase the corporate net income tax institute a 5 percent tax on non-medical professional services and add a 1 percent tax on the value of oil refinery products. And the tax package isn't the only program the governor is trying to rush through the legislature. There are only three more meetings of the current assembly before the new more republican lower house is sworn in on Tuesday. So the governor is counting every minute and putting the hard sell to get some programs passed. Mariam also is with us in the studio tonight for a look at tomorrow's packed agenda.

Mary one of the governor's top priorities no fault auto insurance reform has been kicking around for a long time and it's finally supposed to come up for a vote tomorrow. There are five bills in the reform package bills to charge bad drivers extra to crackdown on pumped up accident claims and to make the Department of Insurance move faster when it considers companies request for rate hikes. But the big sticking point has been a bill that would take a lot of work away from lawyers under the current auto insurance laws. Anyone who's accumulated $200 worth of medical bills because of an accident can sue. So there are a lot of lawsuits under the proposed change companies would have to settle most claims without going to court and could sue only in the most serious accidents. Lobbying is intense on this one and nobody's willing to predict it would pass. Auto insurance may be the biggest thing on the agenda tomorrow but it's far from the only thing the Senate scheduled 50 bills to vote on the assembly 100. Among them a measure that would

prohibit towns from creating combat zones where obscene materials could be sold. Another bill raising the salaries of state cabinet officials and judges. The members of the cabinet who've been scraping by on forty nine thousand dollars a year would be raised to fifty two thousand two bills sponsored by Senate President Joe Merlino are up for a vote. One would create a Department of Cultural Affairs. The other would let voters register Election Day. Opponents of that bill the voter Corruption Act something that's supposed to be introduced in Bill form tomorrow is the governor's new tax package. That's the one that's supposed to help balance next year's budget by raising the corporate income tax and imposing the sales tax on professionals like lawyers and architects. It promises to be a big fight. The governor is working against the new assembly deadline of next Tuesday. And so the legislature is coming in for a special session this Saturday Kyra.

State officials are looking for people who lost money in a chain letter scheme last year. They might be able to get some of that money back. Officials from the State Division of Consumer Affairs says it is seeking legal action against him for promoters of the circle of platinum chain letter that operated in northwest New Jersey last year and they say persons who lost money in the scheme should try and write in the divisions Office of Consumer Protection. It's not news that many of New Jersey's older industrial cities are in trouble. And we spend much of our time covering those troubles high unemployment street crime bad housing. But today we have another story of a neighborhood that's determined to survive. Jack kind of the reports this neighborhood was on the skids the homes were old the headwaters were changing what route 80 was built in Paterson. It could have hurried this neighborhood into decay and blight. It didn't and that's because of the people who live here. Well we had some houses years ago that were being had to be boarded up

and they were fixed up people. And the nation's pride in your home. This is what has helped this street well on our own soil old folks are dying away and we've got a new young people in the neighborhood. A lot of very nice people they keep their homes nice their gardens nice try and do everything they can for their home and you feel comfortable to stay here you would want to move. You know this is my home and I stay here. But even desire can't do it alone. There's got to be money to help prepare houses that were built when Calvin Coolidge was the president. The money came as part of Paterson's community development plan. Low interest loans backed by state tax money. And today this ethnically mixed neighborhood is making it work and that attracts a new type of resident with the same kind of pride. Like I say you like the neighborhood and I moved in. Hopefully you know when I get married I'm going to stay over here. There's an active block association and neighbors work together to make the streets safe

and clean. Because here on East Twentieth Street in Paterson people say it's a lack of pride that comes before the fall. In Paterson I'm Jack Hardy. Now here is the weather forecast for the state. Tonight will be partly cloudy and there's a cold front moving across the state bringing on temperatures near 20 in length and in the mid 20s along the coast. Tomorrow should be cloudy and breezy with highs in the mid 30s. And on Friday it will be cloudy and cold. Wednesday night sports here's Bill Terry Bill.

Wednesday already. Fraid so. OK Karen thank you everyone wants to know who is number one in college football according to The Associated Press it's Alabama southern Cal is second. Former net Bernard King has been arrested on a sexual charge. Early this morning in Utah no further details at this time. What about the nets they took New Year's Day off but they'll be busy these next three nights tonight their home that's in San Diego tomorrow night and that's play in Atlanta Friday night back in Piscataway Houston visits what will 1980 bring for the Nets New Jersey ended one thousand seventy nine by winning their last two in impressive fashion however the nets are still games under 500 at 15 up 23 down they need a solid streak to get back into the playoff picture. One big plus in the last couple of games has been the play of the guys off the bench Richard Kelly now a sub behind George Johnson has responded well since his demotion the seven footers been more productive off the bench then when he was starting the key to professional basketball is have an eight or nine people and a good coach knows how to use the good players know how to use

the minutes they get it doesn't really matter where you started where you where you come off the bench. Well Kelly has done the job in the middle off the bench rocky cliff Robinson has been a revelation for what promises to be 36 points in the last two games 16 of 27 shots it's called instant offense and Robinson is due to be off the bench that it was a change for him because I'm used to store nerves since high school and college you know I'm used to being a star. That was one of the biggest transactions I had you know come from college to the pros. If the constant point has been the man off the bench the spell the starting guards scored 30 points in the last two games in a limited time shooting 13 of 21 points the forgotten man as a rookie last year is now bigger than that right now. Awfulness of the job he's been going to goodness from a bit counted on to give the team in the situation. I've been very fortunate. I'm going to point again just what a feeling that Kevin has a lot of confidence in me as a ballplayer to be limited to a point a game. It's tough to write a transition from the Nets to what we have next another example of our

changing world courtesy of our sports department here is Bill Maher. Maureen Brady is like most 17 year old high school girls. But her interest extend beyond dances and other social events. What's unique about Maureen is she's a weightlifter. She works out on the universal three times a week and she swims in exercises to keep in shape her aspirations do not include rivaling the Arnold Schwarzenegger's or competing in the Olympics. She just wants to keep her muscles toned and now I'm interested in it for other reasons such as releasing tension at the ends of it the same as jogging or swimming with and basically those are my reasons and to have physically fit farm and to have strength to be able to lift things and do things. Maureen first got interested in weightlifting by watching her brother's workout at home. She got started in the weight lifting program and she said the results were incredible. What

kind of reaction do you get from the other girls at school both from the girls. We were on a weight training class and during gym class many of the girls felt they didn't want to develop muscles so I find myself a sign of beauty boys have more of a joking mocking reaction but I like it so much that I just have to look I'm not in West Orange. I'm Bill Maher when I have trouble bench pressing this pen down way to go Martin. That's for. Almost sixteen hundred white tailed deer were killed December 20th during a special one day extension of the hunting season. State gaming officials say that brings the total killed to within 5 percent of their annual goal needed to bring the deer population into balance with winter food supplies. And among our many concerns for the new decade is one of energy or the lack of it. Tonight our Sound Off commentator Tom O'Neill gives us his views on our State Energy Department and the role it will play in solving some of our

energy needs in the 1980s. Since the Arab embargo seven years ago New Jersey has had to learn some difficult energy lessons and learn the hard way. After a long and often tedious debate the state created a Department of Energy but the governor has never seemed convinced we really needed it. The gasoline crisis of the summer seems to have given the department a new lease on life. Coming of a new year and a new decade is the right time to take a hard look at the state's energy problems and our ability to deal with those problems. Most observers would agree that the results of New Jersey's experiment with the Department of Energy had been mixed. The department and its commissioner Joel Jacobson had made more noise than progress. The department has been handicapped by a small budget and uncertain future and a dubious commitment to its role by other state agencies and the governor. The department has the chance in 1980 to prove its worth by taking action in three areas. The legislature recently refused to put a moratorium on nuclear

power plants but it did raise the question of the economies of nuclear power once advertised as too cheap to meter electric power from nuclear plants is beginning to look very expensive. The Energy Department makes an honest comparison of the costs of nuclear versus coal. It will provide a real service to the state and it also begins to move in a large scale program to make energy use more efficient in homes offices and industry. The Energy Department will prove itself necessary. And if it begins to move the state to new energy technology such as solar power the Energy Department will have made a good start for the new decade. I'm Tom O'Neil. The latest idea from the State Department of Education is school classification.

And tonight our ad as you commentators Tom Kane and Richard Leone weigh the pros and cons of this newest attempt to upgrade New Jersey schools. TIME You know ever since the state passed through my fiction education law there been various attempts to get some output. You know what we were doing now we're spending all this money on local school districts that. There's a huge book of regulations over 300 pages and there are all sorts of attempts to evaluate how well the school districts are doing. Now the latest idea the Department of Education has come up with is to classify the schools to go out and take a look at what they're doing and to mark them approved or approved with conditions or unapproved. This goes along with the idea for school improvement councils and other sorts of steps which are designed presumably to say here's how you're doing or you've got to do better. I don't think it's a very hot idea. I don't think it's a bad idea because we've got to do finally is recognize where the problems are before we can help kids. We know that there are certain schools are not any good. We know that there are certain kids who are being graduated without the ability to read or

write or do simple sums and therefore they can't get jobs. We've been sort of ignoring a lot of this we've sort of been implying that all schools aren't that bad and so the problem goes on. In my mind the thorough and efficient and Education Act. And that whole court decision and income tax and everything else was about improving schools that are not teaching kids and I think by classifying and by identifying which ones those schools we can least focus attention on and at least make it public and then perhaps we can improve them. I guess my problem is that I am skeptical of what the state officials will really do I think they're going to go out and label schools and they're not going to provide any useful information to school districts about what they ought to do. I think in the nature of the way bureaucracies work that will become an end in itself and you'll get all kinds of school districts labeled across the board with some children unfairly considered as mal educated because they go to an unapproved school district. And in fact we won't get any real change because of that will simply have a struggle to get the good housekeeping seal of approval for the Department of

Education approved. I'm not. I just think it's too simplistic a device to do any good in as complicated an area as improving education. Dick I think the schools are already labeled informally not formally. I think right now for instance if you want to buy a house in a community. You going to check and see if those schools are running good and if they're not any good you're not going to buy the house so it's the fact there aren't good schools are hurting real estate values I think that any college admissions officer at any of the state colleges knows which of the bad schools and often let kids into college because of it because they haven't been prepared properly I think that people know these schools are bad already. They're in firmly labeled just not being labeled properly and the fact that you know the violence in those schools the buildings the test scores at a so low. We know and we ought to admit what these schools are not teaching kids because I say I don't think otherwise will not be able to really concentrate on improving. Well everybody's in favor of improving them but I just wonder if the practical effects of this will

be unfair and even misleading. Suppose for example a school is marked approved but it really has some problems. It's going to take three to five years the way bureaucracy works to change the label. And that's going to affect a lot of kids in the meantime what the kids DIC of the things are being affected right now. They're the ones who can't get jobs they're the ones who don't understand some of the basic things you have to understand to make life work in New Jersey. Let me give you an example. I ran to a man the other day who own chain of supermarkets. You have to be black. He was interested in employing people kids from his old neighborhood. He wanted to employ the unemployed. He found that kids who had been through a school. In a suburban area who had diplomas. When he asked them the question if something is selling free for 99 cents. What should one sell for. They couldn't answer the question. And he said I can't employ them. And that's what's happening to kids. They're not getting educated and therefore they're not getting jobs and they're being labeled for life because of that. And I think if we recognize. Again the

problems in the schools we can move into improving and I think that's really what classification I hope is all about. Well Tom I think we're both in favor of making the schools more accountable I guess. The difference on this one is I'm a little skeptical about letting the Department of Education. Even seem to be doing that job. By putting a label on the schools I'm afraid that's all we'll get their labels which are very useful. Once again our top stories tonight Governor Burton today signed legislation hiking the legal drinking age in New Jersey from 18 to 19. And police in the Lizabeth who have been suffering from blue flu for the past two days have been ordered back to their jobs by a superior court judge. Finally the story of the great baby race of 1980. Last night on this program we proudly proclaimed Judy and star New Jersey's first baby of the decade proclamation we were comfortable with because she was born just five seconds into the new year. But it appears we were wrong. A nine pound 1 1/2 ounce baby boy. Dennis James Madlang was born at Riverside

General Hospital when the decade was just three seconds old which clearly makes him the winner. We hope to this Madeleine's our congratulations and to Judy and start our apologies. It was just a matter of being at the right place at the wrong time and that's the news for Bill Perry I'm Karen Stone. Good night for the New Jersey nightly news. Broadcast weeknights at 6:30. Television and at 7:00 the following morning. Pre recording. And now live from the New Jersey Public Television Studios in Trenton.

It's time for the drawing of the picket number for January 2nd do you want me to know you again. Now wait a minute wait a minute. How I view one I'm fairly young you're drawing on a good show and helping me tonight's drawing is Margaret of the new. Bicycle machines contain 10 balls numbered 0 3 9. Margaret will you please release him and turn on the machine. The winning number will be made up from one ball for each. Order that are automatic. Thank you Margaret. Find. The.

Right. Number is 0 0 3 more sweetly drawing will be held at the New Jersey State Lottery headquarters in Trenton at 11 o'clock. Please join us and join us again tomorrow night for another picket show. Till then I'm hella saying Thanks for watching. Good night.