New Jersey Nightly News; 05/21/1980

The state's Democratic chairman is slapped with a subpoena inspire watch them not only take a lead on the trans-Atlantic soccer Challenge Cup begins tonight with the summer season starting Monday while they get a series on The Jersey Shore. Thank Democratic chairman Richard coffee has been subpoenaed by the legislature's Ethics Committee to testify June 12th the ethics panel wants to know why coffee did not report an alleged $50000 bribe reportedly offered to him by FBI undercover agents during their Abscam operation. The ethics committee had previously requested coffee's appearance and even issued a subpoena. Coffee's attorney had asked for more time to work out an appearance before the committee. But I think the committee chairman Charles Yates said today Time had run out and the subpoena was delivered the coffee's office this morning.

Meanwhile the Trenton Times reported today Assistant Secretary of State George Lee has implicated coffee in grand jury testimony. The newspaper quoting quoting a confidential source said Lee told grand jurors coffee arranged the laundering of campaign contributions and then asked Lee to lie about it to investigators. Those campaign contributions came from a Cherry Hill cocktail party for governor Burns reelection campaign. Lee was indicted in March for failing to report seventy five hundred dollars raised for the compound pain. He's now on a leave of absence from his state post. And that indictment said Sixty five hundred dollars of the cash went to an unidentified person whose name was known by grand jurors coffee could not be reached today for comment on either the subpoena issue or the Trenton Times story. The Casino Control Commission today extended the temporary license of the boardwalk Regency casino but the commissioners did not set a date for hearings on the Regency permanent license. Those hearings will be held only after a new casino commission takes over. Steve Taylor reports.

It was our lame duck commission that got together today. Governor Byrd will be appointing four full time commissioners to replace press Farrow DiBona Alice Corsi Albert Merck and Kenneth McDonald who resigned three months ago. Only Joseph Laura died the full time chairman will serve on the new panel. Commissioner Merck talked to reporters during a break in the meeting today he said he saw a danger in the idea of full time casino commissioners. They might lose and get too close to the people who run the casinos. And of course if you get too close to the entities that you're meant to regulate you often not only get into bed with them but you also start getting a positively intimate with them. You say that's more likely to happen with a new commission. Yes I think they'll have to be very careful of it. Mark and his colleagues were careful not to step on the toes of the new commission they voted to extend the boardwalk regencies temporary license for four months so that the new commission will have time to decide whether the Regency should be a permanent part of Atlantic City. The rest of today's meeting concerned only routine matters. The commission that met today will meet again next

month and possibly in July too. By July Governor Byrne probably will have appointed some or all of the new commissioners and they'll most likely be taking over sometime in August in Trenton. I'm Steve Taylor. Meanwhile one of Atlantic City's lead Mark hotels for 76 years is expected to be demolished in just a few weeks. Major portions of the Chalfont hotel will fall to the records brought up to make way for one hundred fifty million dollar casino a Ross Holiday Inn Casino is running into some problems though at least three Chalfont store owners don't want to sell out yet another delay today in the great mob trial in Freehold. This time one of the defense lawyers was sick. And Judge Michael embryology ruled all the defendants should be represented. Cross-examination of the state's star witness Patrick bazooka has been delayed since Monday with legal maneuverings. Now illness a tractor traveling trailer traveling south on rain soaked wrote a 17 in Bergen County this morning jumped in the median divider and

overturned on to four cars. One driver was trapped in his car for almost two hours but he survived. Jack Hardy was on the scene and has more in this report. It could have. Happened at a worse time rush hour on Route 17 in Lodi now a four lane highway that handles more than 75000 cars every day. The truck had been heading south when the driver apparently lost control and flipped into the northbound lanes. What cars were caught under the truck. One driver a 70 year old Jersey City man was trapped inside his own harbor almost two hours. Miraculously he survived. Police fire crews got him free and he was rushed to a local hospital for treatment. The truck driver and another motorist suffered minor injuries but there was another big problem to the cleaning fluid in the tanker had begun to leak a corrosive kind of solvent flashing in the

minutes means right in the middle of danger. It's combustible. They don't want you to use one of Monica's one it can spread and I'm going to continue to CCNY. Then the business suits and the cleanup took most of the morning. Temporarily closed off the highway. Thousands of motorists were left in a massive traffic jam that lasted until the early afternoon. Police here have dubbed this section of Route 70 the death stretch. But fortunately this morning the highway did not play another one. In Lodi I'm Jack. Ashes from Mount St. Helens are traveling over New Jersey about 35000 feet into the air. But they were hardly noticeable today because of heavy clouds and rain. The National Weather Service however says the effects of the cloud dust will be minimal once the skies clear though sunrises and sunsets that should be spectacular. Now

here is the weather forecast for the state. Skies that should clear tonight with temperatures in the low to mid 50s tomorrow should be partly sunny and warm temperatures are expected in the upper 70s to low 80s. And the outlook for Friday sunny and warm. The time now here is Bill Perry on tonight's fourth report though. OK thank you Karen the first interstate driving competition opened up last night and wraps up tomorrow night

Meadowlands drivers had the home track last night tomorrow night the action shifts to Roosevelt points awarded according to finish in four races of the big game last night and the Meadowlands holds a 116 111 edge in the second of the four races the big games Jack Parker Jr. one of Lord meadow Hugh Parker was the top point getter overall with 31 points. Kiwi BORMANN But coming on his medal you to challenge those two or three up on the rest of the field in thirds. Now joined by a bunch to me. And coming on it is that you go to our taking command as Meadow Hugh and drawing on Meadow you in front and drawing out. In the final race The began picked up 11 points with the first second fourth to take the lead to try to hold it at Roosevelt tomorrow night at Giants Stadium tonight it's the first of three games for the cosmos in six days as the trans Atlantic Challenge Cup Series begins. It's an international tournament with two NASL teams meeting two foreign teams around robin format tonight the cosmos face Manchester City of England starting at 9 and you will remember this guy with the header coming up. It's dentist to work the former housing loan now playing for Manchester

City Also tonight in Vancouver. The NASL white caps meet the Roma Saturday the cosmos hosts Roma Vancouver hosts Manchester City then on Monday Memorial Day at Giants Stadium. The two foreign teams meet and then it's the white caps and Cosmos. The tournament title will be decided on a European point system. The team gets two points for a win one for a tie and none for a loss the newest cosmos Francoise than where else out of Belgium will play tonight. He is expected to improve the cosmos punch boxing and ice well tomorrow night the ESPN regional tournament continues one accused Bobbie will make his third pro start and trends can Bogner a lightweight will make his pro debut but the headliner will match the state's welterweight champ Nino Gonzales against Giovanni benzine no relation of any bacci Giovanni's an up and comer from vine when he was 11 and two as a pro you know from day on his 15 into his last outing was against right Poppy Davis last month and you know one sixth round to tell you how to retain a state championship. Tomorrow night's fight is a non-title fight shares will meet New York storm swept Wagners opponent is Robert Johnson also Patterson's Mike Fisher.

Dave Bird that's one part of the ESPN 20. It's a light heavyweight bout. I want you to listen to this sound. Are we going to hear the crack of the bat after tomorrow night that was Rick's around last night Yankees lose to Detroit. 12:8 lose of the baseball strike takes place. Negotiations continuing today in New York but all concerned say expect a strike maybe just maybe something will be worked out before the midnight deadline tomorrow night but right now it doesn't look good. Negotiations as I said in New York all day today. No word on any progress on that. Thank you Bill. Vice President Walter Mondale paid a campaign visit to New Jersey today. Mondale cheerfully told Carter supporters the president is just about wrapped up the Democratic nomination having now captured almost all the delegate votes he needs. SANDRA KING reports. It was a confident Fritz Mondale who arrived in New Jersey just two weeks prior to

the state's primary and his campaigning seemed at least as geared to November as did you know overwhelming numbers of living down there and I think really what I think. And Mondale spent the rest of the day in North Jersey at events like this fundraiser for the boys town of Italy. So what those reasons are claiming great Carter administration strides in domestic and foreign policy. He defended Carter's actions on cities and locks denying all responsibility for the tensions still steaming in Miami and in a state with a Cuban population that's heavy and barely growing Mondeo also heated up the White House attacks on Fidel Castro. What we've suffered now is the results of a very cynical and cruel policy by Castro where he is literally and urging the emptying of their criminal persons or mental hospital in the name of reunifying families which is contrary to American law

and contrary I think the minimum civilized behavior. Mr. Vice President does the President have any plans to continue it later at a West Orange junior high school where the questioners were in the press but the kids and with questions that had been scripted and screened long before the Mondale arrival there were no slips and no surprises reception it was really him. Why because of the television cameras. Because my. Vice President. That is. Right in this election. Let me. Never. Forget. My nails. No decision. Yet. On that. Meanwhile President Carter's son Chip was in Trenton today shaking hands with local people and asking them to vote for his father. In a brief news conference outside the governor's office the younger Carter told reporters his father now has fifteen hundred seventy nine delegates not including the 12 to 15

delegates Carter won in yesterday's Utah Democratic caucus. Six hundred sixty six are needed to go over six hundred sixty six more on June 2nd. And New Jersey is going to put us over on that day. So we think we have the nomination fairly well in hand that he will do very well there. Our goal is to try to work as hard as we can in the next two weeks to show the American voters that we can win in New Jersey. Carter also added his father is looking forward to taking on Republican Ronald Reagan in a series of debates before the November election. Gov. bird flew to Bermuda today to speak to the New Jersey savings league so he was unable to welcome the vice president and Carter and next month Burton plans to head to china paid for and at the invitation of Seton Hall University. The trip is billed as an educational exchange program between Seton Hall and the People's Republic of China. The governor hopes to open the door to future business ventures between New Jersey and China. School officials in Allentown High School in Monmouth County say they will not forbid a male

student to bring another man to the senior prom. The 17 year old unidentified senior has reportedly invited a 30 year old men active in the gay rights movement. The invitation has caused a furor among some students and local residents. School Superintendent Steven Sokolow says his decision could change depending on a forthcoming federal court ruling in a similar case in Rhode Island. The former professor from Glassboro State College who wants to sail the Atlantic without any instruments has made it halfway. Marvin Kramer of Pittman reached the coast of Africa this morning after traveling forty five hundred miles from Atlantic City. Kramer and his three man crew set sail on April 11th in this thirty nine foot sloop. The purpose of the trip is to show sailors how to navigate in case of a shipwreck. So far the crew has used only the sun and the stars to guide them. They arrived in Africa today just 170 miles off course the return trip is scheduled to begin in a week. This year there is a real primary fight in the 15th Congressional District for the first time in nearly two

decades. Five Democrats are vying for the seat of retiring Congressman Edward Patton. Representative Middlesex County and two towns in union Mariam are also has the story. No story about the 15th district can begin without a mention of this man Edward J Patton. Eddie Patton has been the 15th district congressman for as long as there's been a 15th District since 1962. Some call him a clown and he's been known for doing things like wearing a napkin on his head throughout a White House breakfast. But Patton is an old school politician who knows how to work the Polish wakes the hungry in weddings in union picnics. In this working class ethnic district the people loved him and kept re-electing him. When this year he and the party bosses decided he should retire. The floodgates opened and a torrent of Democrats poured out for his seat. Run and wire is the official organization candidate as Senate majority leader and the former mayor that is and wires got the deepest political roots of any of the candidates. But he seemed hesitant about running early on so he hasn't been campaigning as long and hard as some

of the other candidates. Assemblyman David Schwartz has been appearing at senior citizen breakfast like this one plant gates dinners you name it. Campaigning round the clock in February he is a liberal who has relentlessly pursued and Octane the support of some particularly powerful groups long supported when they do labor and women veterans. Schwartz has labeled himself the anti organization candidate that's a closed party that's a close race that's a clique rather than a party when party bosses tried to knock him out of the assembly in the primary last year. He won an upset victory an indication probably of both his own strength and the waning influence of the once powerful Middlesex County Democratic machine. The hungry to prove the machine wrong again. George the Dora was the photo genic she candidate whose campaign literature shows him on the

bill bogs talk show running in the New York Marathon and campaigning with this stunning blonde wife. But oral has never been elected to any office but he served as attorney to a number of citizen action groups renegades Patton 178 in the primary. And both he and Schwartz are spending a lot of money on this primary. Seventy to eighty thousand dollars each. Richard puji says he's probably the most conservative Democratic candidate he's aiming at Middle America middle class America the people who are holding down two and three jobs and their families are having a difficult time to survive. He's a business administrator of Perth Amboy and has a powerful political base in the town. North syphilis is the least known of the candidates. She's the director of development of Felician college in Lodi. Well so a conservative and so she thinks her ethnic roots her husband from Gary and she's Polish will help her in the district. There have been some mudslinging she's made an issue of the fact that while insurance firms sells policies to Middlesex County government and other candidates have pointed out that quote she

doesn't really live in the district. His family lives in Monro but it looks as if this is not so much a contest of the issue as much as one of geography and power bases. And although just about all the candidates say their polls show them ahead. It's a question of how the voter pie will be split on primary day. There are two Republicans running as well. Charles Riley has run against Patton in the last two elections but this year he does not have the party endorsement and on the ballot his name is way over under the Stephan column so his chances don't look too good. Bill O'Sullivan is the party's choice. He worked with Senate candidate Jeff Bell in 78 and his name is right under Reagan's. He's helping coattail politics will give him not only the nomination now but the congressional seat in the poll. I'm Mariama ROTO. There may be no more attractive resource in New Jersey than its miles of shore. And

with the hot weather coming many of us will be taking advantage of that resource but few of us stop to think about the community whose beach we visit. Like many parts of the state those communities are often misunderstood. Not all of their year round residents look forward to the summer hordes of tourists and shore communities are usually more sensitive than others to problems such as inflation or development. South Jersey reporter Don Torrance has been looking into three very different but Representative shore communities. Here's the first of his three part report. Standing like this with my back to the ocean and facing inland it's a little bit difficult for you to know exactly where along the New Jersey shore I am. The Ocean of course one thing the shore communities have in common the man haven't been able to alter the face up at least not yet. Shore communities have their own identity their own personalities. But like good friends or partners in a business each tends to borrow a little of the other's personality from time to time. This by the way is the beach at Cape May.

Cape May at the state's southern tip is a community that works hard to steep itself in its own history its Victorian homes and hotels raided a national historic designation at one point it was estimated that 30 percent of its year round residents were descendants of Mayflower pioneers. Of the shore communities we'll look at. Cape May is the least likely to willingly change character under pressures like the economy development or pollution. Speaking of characters Kate may has Cappy Roberts one of many. Gabby insists he's 80. He's one of the few left who can do this redeco wooden sailing vessel. Jake May has been his lifelong home that is when he hasn't been at sea. Seems pretty nice as nice quiet you don't have no problems. Now in the wintertime you can shoot a cannon off the boardwalk in one hit so somewhere in there that you see FEMA but they they have a card game and the guy that loses and he got to go around or have the name shot that is your

out present they have that lets him out when Cappy Roberts was born in Cape May was the summer watering hole for the nation's gentry presidents and industrialists came here to let the sea breeze cool down their troubles to rock on front porches surrounded by well-heeled friends and rich gingerbread architecture. That tradition has a lot to do with the crowd Cape May gets these days. It remains a genteel town even if most of the rich have moved on. Eighty percent of the summer residence for families who stay for a week or more despite inflation driving prices up. This summer looks like a good one for Cape May at least real estate agents think so. Rentals are already hard to get. Properties that we do have rented 70 or 80 percent. We have less available and we've had him for years but those that we have or pretty much taken the task facing the people of Cape May is to preserve this highest concentration of wooden Victorian structures in the US while catering to some of clientele. So far they've been pretty successful. This is the physical state one of the finer examples of Victorian architecture here in Cape May. It's being

restored right now and will be available for tourists. The charm of places like this of course a great selling point for take me. But it wouldn't be completely accurate to characterize me as a living museum like any other shore community that has some problem. One of them is beach erosion. This was the beach at Cape May 60 years ago broad enough to Park Row upon row of moderately Franklins. If you could park on the beach today there are sections where your back bumper would hit the sea wall while your front bumper gets wet. The usual solutions have been tried sea walls and Jet ease but the Cape's position makes the problem nearly impossible to solve. It's a peninsula i watched by both the Atlantic Ocean and the Delaware Basin. The beach is according to geologists are going to change. People are going to have to be ready to change with them. Another problem is development pressure. Most take me residents feel more able to manage that. The pressure comes from two sides. Restrictions on building in the pine lands to the north means of Belgian development to the Cape and the explosion of development in Atlantic

City also affects Cape May. It's going to be like. Taking a balloon and pushing it down I want to place you know pop out somewhere out and have to pop out along the shore communities which means a lot of the tourist vacation house and housing would be converted to year round. The projections are that Souter is you have to it will have to accommodate anywhere from a half a million to a million additional people. Because of the casino industry. And I thought a lot of people a lot of housing. And with very strict Pine Land plan. And a good portion of South Jersey. The other ports in the South Jersey will have to absorb. That. As we'll see different shore areas attract different clientele. Cape May gets lots of Philadelphians and Canadians. Seems an awful long way to come especially when your own country is miles of seacoast. The real estate agent Richard Owen asked a Canadian about that once the reply for central Canada. Just as for a drive to the ocean in New Jersey it is the ocean in Canada. And the other

fellow that I asked about it he asked me if I'd ever put my foot in a Canadian lake in July. Apparently your water is much warmer down here than it is a bit. Of that area. Tomorrow night I look at a shore community with a vastly different appearance and appeal as Berry park. It's once again our top stories. State Democratic chairman Richard coffee has been subpoenaed to testify before the legislature's Ethics Committee and vice president Walter Mondale and Chip Carter both made campaign swings to New Jersey for the president today. Finally this what a difference three days make. They could have made a Demaris resident $50000 richer. John back discovered he had a winning lottery ticket for the drawing of May 10th 1979 and he had exactly one year to make his claim but he failed to call the state's lottery commission until this May 13th. Lottery Director Gloria Decker says more than five million dollars in lottery winnings go unclaimed every year. So double check those drawers and pockets.

That's the news for Bill Perry. I'm Karen. Good night for the New Jersey nightly news. New Jersey Nightly News is a joint presentation of New Jersey Public Television and their team. The program is broadcast weeknights at 6:30 p.m. on Monday Channel 13 and at 7:30 p.m. on New Jersey Public Television. There was a repeat broadcast at 10:00 p.m. on New Jersey public television and at seven the following morning on Channel 13. And pre recorded.