New Jersey Nightly News; 12/30/1978

New Jersey likely with some trouble. Good evening. In the news tonight automobile drivers face a new year of higher insurance rates. We'll have a report. In other news a blood shortage is reaching a critical stage in New Jersey and more housing enabled lower income families to buy homes in 1978. In sports Bill Perry will have some surprises in the holiday basketball classic. And important news in football and on a closer look tonight. We'll look back at This Week in New Jersey. An increase in car insurance rates seems a dubious way to start the new year. But Jane Sharon New Jersey's insurance commissioner has approved rate hikes that will average more than 13 percent over the next four months. Greg Wells explains the higher prices. The average motorist will be shelling out an additional $50 a year for each car insured in New Jersey. More than 200 insurance companies receive the increase. The only companies not requesting a rate hike were all state Jersey's largest auto

insurer and Prudential. All the others will see their rates jump. It's no surprise to Jeffrey Pahlka of the Insurance Information Institute that justifies the double digit increase by pointing to the basic rule of business. Making money. Insurance Commission assurance granting yesterday of auto insurance rate increases as a wrong overdue step in the right direction. No industry including the insurance industry can continue to absorb multimillion dollar losses year after year and stay in business. Mr. Palca these rate increases don't seem to come within President Carter's wage price guidelines. Of course the the auto insurance industry filed for these rate increases months and months ago. And in fact the rate increases as granted for the insurance services office for example was only about a third of what they requested. So it was put in a long time ago and. The last figures show that the rate increases were needed in commission Sharon would have to answer the other part.

Most of the insurance companies will be raising their rates immediately. But for people who are really feeling the pinch of higher insurance costs there are ways to save. Surance brokers suggest increasing deductible coverage or on an older car dropping the comprehensive in collision coverage entirely. Brokers also remind clients to take advantage of discounts offered for good driving record. Rate reduction for high schoolers who are taking driver education for the little known discount offered to people to carpool. For a motorcycle they have to hike in premiums. Those may be the only alternatives to the high price of automobile insurance. In Newark I'm Ridgwell. By the way the insurance commissioner made his announcement late yesterday before the holiday weekend. According to today's Star Ledger the timing was designed to negate public reaction to the increases. Sharon couldn't be reached for comment today. New automobile emissions standards proposed by the State Department of Environmental Protection could cost New Jersey motorists 60 million dollars each year. That's the word from the head

of a state study commission who says that tougher controls may constitute unfair treatment of state residents because neighboring states have not yet implemented any emission control strategies. Commission Chairman Matthew cautioned against going ahead with the plans for meeting federal air quality standards. Durham's report was released this morning just two days before the state is scheduled to submit its plan to Washington. The holiday season is supposed to be a time for giving but without fail it's also a time when not enough people are giving blood. Your Jersey Blood Services has set up emergency blood donor clinics across the state because of a back to back holidays many businesses are closed and there's a lot of scheduled donors blood supplies for hospitals are always low this time of year. But this year the situation is critical. Only expect to collect about 300 pints of blood. And ordinarily like the stocks of about a thousand points in the refrigerator. When we get down to 300 pints of blood which

is a one day supply we consider it a crisis. And at that point we can only really split on an emergency basis to the hospitals. And that's where we are now. If you are able to give blood you can call New Jersey Blood Services at 2 0 1 8 2 8 9 1 0 1 and you'll be able to find where you can give. This emergency drive again Wednesday and doctor says the response so far. Has been poor. The American Can Company has close the doors of its hillside plant leaving 300 employees without jobs. Company officials say some of those workers may be transferred to other American can facilities in Edison and New Brunswick. The company's explanation for abandoning the hillside plant the 30 year old facility had become obsolete. New housing construction this year enabled more people with less money to buy houses. Your Jersey's Housing Finance Agency today announced that one hundred ninety million dollars worth of housing was financed in the state in the past year. And according to the agency's report the

housing was purchased mainly by low and moderate income families. A recent decision by a state's appeal your court has made it mandatory that low cost housing be included in many new developments. But in rural Franklin Township that court ruling has allowed some residents to breathe a sigh of relief. The court said no. The township did not have to allow a developer to build a large townhouse complex. Phelps Hawkins has the details. What a place to live even in mid-winter the rural scene here in Franklin Township is entice ing. But if you feel enticed check your bank balance first because here you have to buy at least a three acre lot to build your modest home on. And there's not even an apartment complex in sight. But there almost was an initial 700 units expanding to 1000 covering some one hundred seventy five acres of what used to be a farm. The Glenview Development Corporation was denied permission to build by the Franklin planning

board based on the townships three acre minimum for each home Glenview went to court citing the 1975 landmark Mount Laurel decision by the state Supreme Court which said that developing suburbs must provide low and moderate income housing. But in this case this appear your court in Hundred and county sided with Franklin Township saying that the area was almost entirely agricultural and therefore could not be considered a developing suburb township attorney Richard O'Brian who argued the case in court. He says the local zoning laws are not meant to exclude anybody. So the township within the limits of its ground water and sewer availability is doing what it can and will do what it can to. Provide whatever housing it's able to. For low and moderate income housing low cost housing part of the original presentation made by the developer to know what he projected was

a high intensity use which is townhouse or condominium use and they were projected to me and market approximately fifty to sixty five thousand dollars per unit which by no stretch of the imagination can you consider to be low or moderate. O'Brien says the township zoning laws are the same as when they were first and acted in 1947 and in a month or so will be changed to allow two family dwellings and he admits that have the development been smaller and are really aimed at lower income residents. The township might have made a favorable decision in the first place. The real reason for the zoning O'Brian says is that there isn't enough underground water to serve higher density housing and that was supported by expert testimony during the court hearings. There has been no move like Glen View development to appeal the court's decision. Of course that recent court decision didn't say absolutely no to the development. It just said not right now. And Franklin Township officials know that

10 or 15 years down the road that answer will probably change to yes in Franklin Township. I'm Phelps talk of. The weather forecast. Cold and wet. Well first have some possible freezing rain or sleet tonight changing to rain after midnight. Under cloudy skies the lows will be in the low 30s. A little warmer in the southern part of the state. Tomorrow we'll probably see the year end with a little rain with highs in the upper 30s to low 40s in the north a few degrees warmer in the south. The outlook for Monday New Year's day is cloudy and mild with more rain likely. Oh. Join us this winter for another exciting basketball season featuring 21 games. Hi

everyone I declared this in New Jersey public television sports is once again happy to bring you college basketball at its best from Wales through February. We have scheduled games featuring Princeton Rutgers Seton Hall St. Peters and others. It's our Southern Season of collegiate basketball and we hope you'll join us. Check your TV listings for time and game. St. Peters of Princeton tonight at 8:00. Bill Perry is back from vacation and here he is with Bill thank you Sandy. Good to be back it will be Rutgers and Ohio State in the finals of the ECAC holiday basketball festival at Madison Square Garden tonight Rutgers scratched its way into the finals by beating St. John's 70 to 61 last night that came after top ranked Duke fell to Ohio State 90 84 in overtime. Duke in White played super in the first half year's all-American gems out of Jersey City. As a matter of fact do. I look like the nation's best team in the first 20 minutes the Blue Devils led 39 25 at

intermission. And the second half Duke opened up a 17 point lead spy narco was on his way to a game high 30 points on 10 of 14 from the field and 10 of 11 from the line. Ohio State's big Herb Williams starting asserting himself the Big Guy had 23 points in the Buckeye started to come back when Number 14 Calvin Ransey hit this jumper Duke led by just 65 59 ran to score 20 secs. Ohio State got within two and might get a jumper from the free throw line to make it seventy one sixty seven Duke. Williams hooked over to cut it down to two again at 76 74. Finally Ohio State's hided Ransey had a long jumper 76 all duke had a chance to win it in the final seconds of regulation but you ments be fired an air ball on the hook. 76 into overtime and why did Ohio State went. Simple listen to Jim's binocular. They played better than us in the overtime. That's why we lost. We just didn't play our game.

And we can get offensive movement. Full body movement that led toward the awful right there. We're not going to get down over your loss I know that we're ranked second and we finished second in the country last year we had five or six losses. I want to be number one in the country all season long and finish up there but that's the more most important thing to finish up number one in the country. So you know it's not for me to decide who's number one in the polls but you know we'll just worry about that in the end of the season and hopefully we'll be up there. Rutgers trailed St. Johns much of the way in the night cap it was a struggle until midway through the second half St. Johns maintained a lead of anywhere from 1 to 6 points until James got it going for the Scarlet Knights. Off the inbounds made it forty eight forty seven records eight forty nine. James gave Rutgers a three point lead to want to have two minutes later they haven't had a game high 26 points at Rutgers up for 16 for Strickland and everything was going right for Rutgers freshman Darrius Griffin had a honey of a drive the lead was a 60 to 50 2 with 4 0

7 left. Tonights coasted in from there to 170 to 61 Paul Butler and talk with Rutgers coach Tom Young after last night's game Young was savoring this one. After some rough going up to now you know you just have really some frustrating games and it just seems that every time we went to get the lead some ironical thing would happen we missed an easy shot or whatever but we couldn't get the lead for so long and we've had games this year where we can't do anything right. You know we might be working hard but I felt that as bad as we were playing not that we were playing it that we just couldn't get some things going it eventually was going to happen and we were fortunate to be in the game as long as we were with the missed shots and a few things were doing that. I felt once we got going we could beat him and that's what happened in the finals it's Ohio State would you rather have a chance to play Duke and knock them off rather than of Ohio State to attend I tell you after watching both them play. It's just a look at the floor. As to who is the better team and I honestly obviously once again give them the credit but let me tell you Bill you're both physical teams. We would be kind of a strange thing to lose the jersey classic and

when the holiday festival. It might be strange about your love. We've already lost a classic So you know Austin I wrote last night 83 73 in double overtime in the first round of the Rochester classic The hall is now six up and three down Agra one for only the second time in eight starts Niagra will meet North Carolina for the Rochester title tonight Seton Hall gets Dartmouth in a consolation and C beat Dartmouth 86 67 last night tonight at 8 on New Jersey Public Television St. Peters plays at Princeton pro ball the nets watch the Kansas City last night 137 126 Nets have lost four straight. New Jersey plays in Cleveland tonight this afternoon the Knicks beat Kansas City 1 12 1 0 8. And a New Jersey gent of the women's pro league beat the Minnesota Phillies 84 77 today. I've seen this numerous times today but isn't it incredible Still last night what do you haze the volcano erupted again what do you see. Ohio State team was turned away by Clemson 17 15 in the Gator Bowl as a result of this despicable act. Ohio State fired Hayes who had been on the job for 28 seasons the Buckeyes had a chance to win but a final drive was

thwarted by an interception by Charlie Bauman earlier this week. Hayes received some consideration in a poll by The Star Ledger which asked fans to select their choice for the new Giants coach. Well now what he has is a valuable but he doesn't deserve a single vote by the way Lou Holtz now at Arkansas is said to be the man to replace Hayes at Ohio State. NFL playoffs today AFC Pittsburgh beat Denver big 33 10 NFC it's a good one Atlanta and Dallas 20 20 in the third and Sandy. That's it for sports. Thanks Bill it's nice to have you back. Anyone with $500 and a thousand signatures can run for president of the United States at least in the New Hampshire primary. And two of the early candidates are from New Jersey. Rawlinson is a 57 year old Democrat from Columbia New Jersey. He calls himself the poet of Yonkers and he's running on the honest man take it in Cliff would be to candidate Gerard Himmelman is a serious candidate who says he wants to design a practical low cost government. Himmelman so Republican. Forty five years old. Both candidates are on the ballot in the opening

round of the New Hampshire primary. And remember they say Jimmy Carter didn't stand a chance. Candid is humorous and energetic to whiten and John Dowd are just two of the fine skaters coming to Boston for the annual PBS skating spectacular. An evening of championship skating. Tomorrow with a New Jersey Public Television. In New York City workers are threatening to strike their face with a series of layoffs announced by Americanah Gibson to ease a budget crisis there. Well look at the Newark situation and

developments this week in New Jersey with Rebecca Sobel. There's been a lot of heat concerning the new work layoffs but not much light was shed this week the result. The police and education layoffs stoppable this week the New York City Council tried to step in and appropriate money to avert the police cutbacks. But whether it did any good. We'll discuss that and other stories of the week. We'll get a fresh perspective from John McLaughlin political writer for The New York Daily News who's covered New Jersey and knows it well. And John colas are the Sunday editor of the Trenton Times. It seems the next move is up to Mayor Newark Mayor Kenneth Gibson. John can he survive this cutback. Oh sure I think so I went. When Gibson was first elected in what became a rather famous quote he said where were emergency these are going. Newark will get there first. And. You know I think from his point of view he does not want to. Take the work where Cleveland got him.

Was there any chance that it's going to go that way though it seems today. I think it's illegal in New Jersey to go that way anyhow I don't think you can do the things in New Jersey that Cleveland did to get in its fix to default. To default you can't you can't borrow money to pay your own expenses and New Jersey's laws. But. New Jersey law does force the cities to make decisions now and that's what's happening in New York it's happening in other cities too but they're not in as bad shape as North if in fact the layoffs or the layoffs go into effect as they're supposed to. Is that going to undercut any power the unions could possibly have in this. They. Are still going to have a membership with still be able to fight through to get these employees back if and when the federal government comes through with some more money. I don't really know how powerful they are. It's a very poor city with very serious problems and. Residents were very highly taxed. If you could focus on. The three major things that are causing the problems because you and I had discussed that before what would you say they were.

All that. The main major problem is of course the cutback in federal funds and. The administration in North did what every administration has done across the country they took the 10 and a half million dollars and. Countercyclical farms which were designed to. Get the city through some hard times during the recent recession and folded it into the budget. No one ever told the city the money will be renewed each and every year in fact the city noted that some point is going to be cut off. So now they're stuck. Do you think that it is realistic of Mayor Gibson considering the recall movement that's being launched by the teachers union against him. He says he wants to run for governor. I don't think this puts him in any worse position to run for governor. Than he was before mayors of cities and cities in bad shape like New York don't have a strong platform for running for governor anyway. And but I think this harms him. Outside of the city got a contrary I think if politicians are pretty much required at least in their own. Self-interest to cut budgets to

keep taxes down to lay off people when voters seem to like that it might look better because of the budget cutting which wasn't his idea really. He doesn't want to do it I'm sure. Is it possible that there's a lot of work and it can because. While. Every school system the school system in Newark is notoriously overloaded with employees that it doesn't need administrator is that it doesn't lead and indeed in years back it was also notorious for the amount of graft that went on you know we're going to get calls from all right. So sure and I mean the tests show the quality of education is rather low. Despite the fact that a great deal of money is spent on these people in your school system. So I would say that. You can lay people off there's going to be a lot of human misery. People lose their jobs. But I don't think the quality of education will suffer drastically. Well there isn't much quality of education in an Ork school system as far as anyone can

measure it. And a lot of times when schools are forced to cut they're forced to do things in some cases which make education better in some cases teachers working with larger classes have to teach in a way which goes back to an old fashioned kind of teaching. And sometimes that's the only kind of teaching that can take place in those schools. There's been some criticism that because. Mayor Gibson strips the trips he's been taking that he's not. At least giving the appearance of dealing with a crisis that seems to be you know touching everyone. I would buy that. I would and I think that's all that's all hogwash. Fifteen hundred two thousand people are going to hang around there well you know Don I think you'd hang around for the PR effect but I don't think it's going to help make any difference. First of all Mayor Gibson is fundamentally a very adept politician. And. And that's. Really what mayors I suppose should be anyway and he does that. And you know you don't need to be there to go down over the line items and pick out people. How do you feel John for about his willingness to accept a 25 percent pay raise.

And not having been confronted with that situation recently I don't know what the. No but in light of what John's talking about is in light of this financial crisis I don't I don't think politicians should be should be taking these huge pay raises at the same time they're cutting budgets and they should at least wait to a more discrete moment. After. You know you should have they should raise their pay six months ago when the federal money was rolling in. Well kind of gives in to saying he wants to run for governor the current governor is denying reports that he'll step down for a federal job. And Governor restated his tough stance on casino development in Atlantic City. The governor in his last press conference of the year talked about Resorts International and I'm certainly not going to take a position on any individual case I'm taking a position. And stated pretty clearly I think an answer to the question.

Policy we're going to. Think you seen I was in Atlantic City we're going to Memphis you know. With the new year resorts may be holding its breath waiting for the Casino Control Commission to decide on its permanent license. John the governor said that he was disappointed that Atlantic City officials are supporting resorts as permanent license. Can we have casinos is that possible. Well clean is relative. I think it's it's possible for them to operate a clean. Casino situation down there in comparison to other casinos. Are you saying that we accept the fact that there's going to be a little funny business going on in any large gambling operation that are inevitable. You're starting out with the fact that people are going down you're going to lose money which you know the deck is stacked against him to begin with. That's accepted. You can keep people I think from walking away with the chips and. Skimming money off the top. And that sort of thing should be able to be possible.

John what do you think there's going to be a little funny business in any kind of human venture. I don't know that the indictment has been presented against Resorts International. It's the sort of thing that. Blows you out of your chair. There been some. Some sloppy bookkeeping and some money's been was that had ties with disreputable people in the past. But if you were operating as resorts Was it very difficult to mount an operation down there without rubbing. Elbows with somebody who rubbed elbows with Meyer Lansky. Neither one of you are muckraking today on the record I think the department believes there is enough sure to Chris what he wants to do if they think it's fair and. Proper thing to have a difficult time. Giving him a permanent license on the basis of challenging the attorney general. They'd have to be in a position of. Of waiving the kind of thing that these casino enforcers around the country look for. There's a lot of old

raking over of old things and I suppose the most damning thing in the report is simply that. Resource is one of some of these things seven or eight years ago for instance that their. Enforcement system down on the floor. Had some holes poked in it seven or eight years ago and they still continue to operate that way. At least that's what the that's what the attorney general's report says. And you would think regardless of whether the criticisms made seven years ago are right they would have followed him to look clean because they got money at stake. What do you think is going to happen. There has been talk that the state would take over resorts until some other disposition of the business could be found. That seems to me on tenable. I can't imagine the state doing that. I think you have to. Take it I'm not quite sure what words he would take over put in the hands of a receiver and you can do that with any company whether they put in the hands of a conservative or right who would run it in the interim would. Giving a fair rate of return to resorts and nobody has defined what that

return would be. And ultimately the state would then decide. To sell it to someone who could qualify for a permit license. I would imagine they could briefly do you think that that's going to scare off any future casino developers. No I don't because as resources proved you go you get a license to operate a casino in the city is a license to mine gold. It's worth so much money that it would attract. Somebody they're willing to gamble on gambling for. They've already won major competitor when they start. That's true. Well thank you very much and we'll be watching all the stories in the year ahead. We'll keep trying to get new perspectives on this week in New Jersey. Thank you both for joining us John McLaughlin of the New York Daily News the Trenton Times. Thank you. Recapping our top stories tonight. Motorists face higher insurance rates for their automobiles in the New Year. New Jersey has a critical blood shortage and supplies are needed. And housing figures show that more people were able to buy homes in the

past year. That's New Jersey Nightly News the Saturday edition will be back. The nightly news is a joint presentation of New Jersey Public Television and

their team on Saturday and Sunday. The program is broadcast at 6 p.m. both on New Jersey public television and on Channel 13. Why.