The Philadelphia Inquirer from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania • Page 2

2-B Saturday, Aug. 20, 1977 Philadelphia Inquirer METROPOLITAN: Blue Cross asks $13 million boost The Scene By Connie Langland wjuirer Staff Writer Blue Cross of Greater Philadelphia yesterday asked the State Insurance Commission to approve rate increases ranging from 9 to 35 percent, "and affecting 225,400 insurance contracts. Hie rate increase, totalling $13.7 million, would go into effect Dec. 1 if approved, and would mean higher premium payments for subscribers in non-group and small-group than 30 contracts) categories. About 20 percent of Blue Cross' 2.3 million subscribers in the five-county Philadelphia area are in those two groups, whose rates were raised most recently in August 1976.

Subscribers in the 65-Special and group-business plans would not be affected by the proposed increases. If the request is granted, average, monthly premium payments for individuals not in a group plan would increase from $20 to for families not in a group plan, the payments would increase from $50.50 to $55.05. Average monthly premium payments for individuals in the small-group plan would increase from $15.45 to for families in the small-group plan, the payments would increase from $47.60 to $55.80. Bruce Taylor, president of the firm, blamed the need for the rate increases on soaring hospital costs and a rapidly increasing deficit in those two categories. Without a rate adjustment, he said.

Blue Cross would suffer a million deficit in 1978 in the two categories. According to Blue Cross surveys, hospital costs per patient per day have increased from an average $125 in 1974 to an average $200 this year. By 1979, the cost is expected to increase to almost $265. Taylor said Philadelphia-area hospitals would spend about $880 million operating costs this year and he predicted that total hospital costs would exceed $1 billion next year. Blue Cross also asked approval of broadened benefits for subscribers affected by the rate increase who use hospitals not under contract with the organization.

However, Taylor said there were few non-member hospitals in the area. In Philadelphia and its suburbs it i.ijij.piiiy, i.gWMpj;" iiismijiBBtw Lawson ordered to trial Philadelphia Inquirer EDWARD J. FREEMAN A bike becomes a burden for this Pine Street traveler By Francis M. Lordon Inquirer Staff Writer Gordon F. Lawson the former Atlantic Gty postmaster accused of helping in the $1 million robbery of his own post office, was ordered yesterday to stand trial Oct.

3 in Camden. Assistant U. S. Attorney Robert B. Kurzweil said that two other persons -James B.

Parsells, 46, of Somers Point, N. and Owen L. Gallagher, 39, of Wrightstown, N.J. were scheduled to be tried with Lawson. U.

S. District Judge John F. Gerry set the trial date for Lawson, who is charged with conspiracy, theft of government property and assault upon a postal employe with a deadly weapon. Two other men David Allen Egan. 43, of Secane, and Kenneth J.

Perry, 36, of Essington, have pleaded guilty to conspiracy charges in connection with the robbery. Lawson, 37, of Ocean City, N. and Wyndmoor, is accused of having given the four other men a key to the post office vault and a floor plan of the office to help them carry out the robbery. The indictments charge that Egan, Perry and Gallagher, wearing ski masks and carrying automatic rifles, entered the main branch of the post office in Atlantic City on the morning of Feb. 27, handcuffed a guard to a basement railing, opened the safe and took $1,052,000 in stamps, cash checks and stocks.

Parsells allegedly stood guard outside the building. All but about $25,000 has been recovered. Lawson, who was sworn in as Atlantic City postmaster in December 1974, started his postal career at the age of 17 as a temporary letter carrier in Flourtown, Montgomery County. Later he was postmaster in Horsham and Ambler. Bus hijack suspect pleads innocent Associated Prett NEW YORK Luis Robinson, accused of the July 4 bus hijacking that left two persons dead at Kennedy Airport, has pleaded innocent by reason of insanity to charges of murder and kidnaping.

Robinson was arraigned Thursday before State Supreme Court Justice Leo Brown in Queens. Brown denied a request to release the sailor from Somerset, N. on his own recognizance and ordered him held without bail at Kings County Hospital. Robinson will be able to change the insanity plea if he wishes during another hearing Aug. 25, when a second psychiatric report on him should be available.

In the first report, doctors at Kings County declared him competent to stand trial. Associated Press THEY CRASHED THE FUNERAL of Elvis Presley, first by arriving in a florist's van, then by posing as reporters. Actually, they were just two of the millions of Elvis fans. They are Dana Miletta (left) and Dana Christian of Bridgeton, N. Politics: Wade wades in upstate The only member of Gov.

Milton J. Shapp's cabinet who has been travelling to the hinterlands of Pennsylvania to give fire-and-brimstone lectures on the evils of deficit spending and the salvation, albeit painul, of a tax increase is James N. Wade, secretary of administration. Where others have been hitting the dirt on the tax issue, Wade has kept a high profile, stressing the needs of Philadelphia to less-than-sympathetic audiences in Wilkes-Barre and Erie. Wade is gladly walking point for the administration in order to prove that he can make a viable statewide candidate.

He has been not so subtly mentioning that he would make a great lieutenant governor. Offbeat: Please, spare us the jimmies Here's an item guaranteed to make your eyeballs hurt. There will be 50 people on the Steel Pier in Atlantic City tomorrow who will try to set a new world record for ice cream eating. The present record is 11 pounds in 8 minutes. The contestants will man their spoons at 2 p.m.

The audience will be treated to ice cream cones. You may have heard about the four college students from Staten Island, N.Y., who were pushing a bathtub from the Empire State Building to Atlantic City. Well, the crew pooped out about half-way, near Freehold, N. Wednesday night. But in the noble tradition of the U.

S. mails "Neither rain nor sleet nor barking dogs the tub must go through. And indeed it did, thanks to Bertha and Bathsheba. Bertha and Bathsheba are a pair of Belgian mares who pulled the bathtub from Freehold to Atlantic City. The horses belong to the Lazy Stables, Oceanville, and they made the trek in about 22 hours, entering Atlantic City with a police escort about 1 p.m.

yesterday. The bathtub, by the way, has a practical purpose. It's being used for a fish bowl in an Atlantic City motel. Hey, would we make that up? Calendar: Is that like the areen apvle quick step? One of the groups playing today at Penn's Landing in the free folk-rock concert is the Aztec Two Step. The group should not be confused with another intestinal disorder known as Montezuma's Revenge.

On the Street: Remember the three G's We spotted this engaging bumper sticker on the back of a van the other day: GOD, GUNS AND GUTS MADE AMERICA FREE That'll look great right below the rifle rack of our pickup truck. Cities: I'd rather be in 10th place Better Homes and Gardens magazine took a survey of its millions of readers to find out which American cities they would like to visit. The results were obvious and surprising. Obvious: San Francisco ranked first. Surprising: New Orleans ranked second.

Of the top 20 cities, Philadelphia was smack in the middle in 10th place. The cities in order of preference, were: San Francisco, New Orleans, Washington, New York, Denver, Boston, Los Angeles, Seattle, Miami, Philadelphia, Phoenix, San Diego, Atlanta, Dallas, Houston, Chicago, Minneapolis, St. Louis, Memphis and Detroit. Doing Good: Softball for charity The Aqua String Band is taking on WFIL Radio in a Softball game Sundav at 2 p.m. to raise money for the Muscular Dystrophy Association.

The game will be played at the Max Meyers Recreation Center, Bustleton and McGee Streets, in Northeast Philadelphia. The Phillies, Eagles, Flyers and 76ers have donated items to be raffled. Clark DeLeon Watch it! That 1st step is a lulu Crossing Fourth Street was either hard or easy yesterday, depending on one's frame of reference. It was hard compared to the way it was in spring, before SEPTA workers tore up the Route 50 trolley tracks and started to install new rails. On the other hand, it was a Cakewalk compared to the way it was a week ago, when a Saturday monsoon made the mud knee-deep.

Those pessimists who insist on finding Fourth Street a trial can be consoled by the fact that the mess will be cleaned up soon. This fall, it will be a smooth ride across the tracks for motorists and bicyclists and an easy stroll for pedestrians, who will be able to keep their shoes clean. The biggest beneficiaries, though, will be riders on the trolley. For them, the shakes, rattles and rolls of Route SO will be nothing but an unpleasant memory. Little levity brightens the jobs for SEPTA workers Metropolitan Area News in Brief Drivers are buying less gasoline on the Garden State Parkway.

The reason, state Highway Authority officials said yesterday, are that prices are too high and service is too slow at Parkway stations. "We've been trying to bring this to the attention of the gas companies," said Authority commissioner Julian Hoffman, "but we have been totally unable to get a response." Gasoline sales have dropped 17 percent in the last 18 months, despite an increase in Parkway traffic. Prices range from 65.8 cents a gallon for regular to 70.9 cents for premium, officials said. said that Weiner, who had been on the police force for three years, was shot in the left wrist and right thigh. Police have charged Joan Trinkner, 19, of the 100 block of Lake Front Avenue, Mount Ephraim, with atrocious assault and battery-.

She was released on $10,000 bail. The shooting took place in the home of a mutual friend in the 100 block of Sixth Avenue in Mount Ephraim, police said. Princeton University loses its radioactivity. Radioactive material in the floors of two offices and a storeroom in Palmer Hall, the university's physics building, was removed Thursday and is on its way to burial, officials said yesterday. Floors were contaminated by experiments early in World War II that led to the development of the atomic bomb in Project Manhattan.

The level of radioactivity, caused by traces of uranium, was not considered dangerous, officials said. A daylong search fails to find a drowning victim. Burlington County scuba divers and rescue squad members using grappling hooks yesterday were unable to find the body of an Atlantic County man believed to have drowned Thursday night in the MuIIica River at Lower Bank. State Police reported that Nathaniel Wiggins, 33, of Old Mays Landing Road in South Egg Harbor, apparently drowned while swimming with friends near a bridge on county Route 542. Two are arraigned on kidnaping charges.

Kalani Lopa, 26, of Centre Street, Trenton, and Thomas Heilman, 24, of Seminole Avenue in Oakford, Bucks County, were arraigned yesterday on two counts each of kidnaping a Bor-dentown, N. and his girl friend in an attempt to collect a debt. The two men, identified by police as members of the Breed Motorcycle Club, allegedly abducted club member John McGurk, 23, and Patricia McDevitt, 20, from Mc-Gurk's Lexington Avenue home Wednesday afternoon. Three others allegedly involved in the plot were charged Thursday with imprisoning Ms. McDevitt in Mercer County.

Bu-lington County Court Judge Harold B. Wells 3d ordered Lopa held in the Burlington County jail and ordered Heilman returned to jail in Mercer County. South Jersey Swimming conditions generally look good for a weekend at the shore. a The New Jersey Department of En-' vironmenital Protection gave a good rating yesterday to beach and surf conditions along the coastline. In its weekly advisory, the department said that ocean waters were clear of red 1 tide (algae) and contained no significant amounts of trash, seaweed or -other materials.

The only area of concern, officials said, is the beach from Monmouth County south to Atlantic City. Dissolved oxygen levels are low up to three miles off shore, officials said, and are being monitored to determine if the levels are low enough to kill fish. The shooting of an off-duty Camden I policeman is under inestigation. Camden County Detective Chief Vincent L. Buondonno said yesterday that the county prosecutor's office was investigating the shooting Thurs-; day night of Gary Werner, 25, a pa- trolman, at a house in Mount Ephraim.

Weiner was reported in satisfactory condition yesterday at Cooper Medical Center. Buondonno from a New Jersey state prison where he had been sentenced for bribing public officials, Zicarelli, 64, immediately was moved to another institution, where he is being held for refusing to testify before the State Commission of Investigation on what he knows about organized crime in New Jersey. "He gets out when he talks," a commission spokesman said yesterday. A Chester, patrolman is fired for refusing to work on his Sabbath. Otto Greenleaf, a Seventh-Day Ad-ventist, was dismissed Thursday by unanimous vote of Chester City Council, sitting as the Civil Service Commission.

Police officials testified at a hearing in June that Greenleaf had failed to appear for duty 22 times since last September. His absences were all between sunset on Friday and sunset on Saturdays, a period recognized as the Sabbath by that faith and several other religious groups. The hearing on violation of department regulations followed by a week a U. S. Supreme Court ruling that companies are not required to accommodate an employe's religious beliefs.

Because of the ruling, Greenleaf will not appeal the dismissal. His attorney, Charles Eusey, of Reading, said yesterday that Green leaf, 38, was training for a new job. "The Civil Rights Act protecting Sabbatarians doesn't exist anymore," Eusey said. A phantom aircraft might have caused a fatal plane crash. Investigators for the National Transportation Safety Board said yesterday that a survivor of the Monday night crash in Bucks County had told them that the single-engine aircraft plunged into a wooded area in Tini-cum Township after a wild effort to avoid another plane.

Chauncy D. Twine said Allan J. Nowicki, 25, of Ottsville, had told him that he had had a "quick glimpse of another airplane, mostly white, on a collision course" a split-second before the pilot, John F. DiPete 24, of Buckingham Township, made an evasive maneuver that sent their light plane into a spin. The accident occurred while the plane still was climbing, shortly after takeoff from Central Bucks Airport.

Twine said investigators were trying to locate aircraft that might have been in the area between 6 and 7 p.m. He said none had been reported. DiPete was killed in the flaming crash. Nowicki is reported in critical condition in St. Agnes Burns Center.

Region Joseph (Bayonne Joe) ZicareHi wants to live in Miami Beach. That is the message the reputed New Jersey rackets figure has given to Florida authorities. He has asked them for permission to move in with relatives so he can accept a part-time job at a Miami Beach hotel. Charles Lawson, of Florida's Division of Offender Rehabilitation, will make the decision when and if the alleged one-time leader of multimillion dollar gambling ring in Hudson County is released from prison. Paroled July 5.