Courier-Post from Camden, New Jersey • Page 15

3B COURIER-POST, Thursday, July 19, 2001 SOUTH JERSEY. ill National groups want cement plant shut Report due soon on Scarduzlo's death WOODnURY- Gloucester County Prosecutor Andrew Yurick said Wednesday he expects to determine by the end of next week whether Anthony Scarduzlo's death was a suicide. "I would love it to be sooner," Yurick said. Scarduzio, the former executive director of the Camden Parking Authority, died July 9 from a shotgun blast By LAWRENCE HAJNA Courier-Post Staff CAMDEN At least a dozen national environmental, civil rights and public interest groups have filed legal briefs supporting an attempt to shut down a South Camden cement pliint. The briefs filed this week in Philadelphia set the stage for arguments in about two weeks before the U.S.

Third Circuit Court of Appeals. The court will determine whether St. Lawrence Cement can continue discharging dust into a mostly black and Hispanic nelghboituxxl Among the groups filing briefs on behalf of the South Camden Citizens in Action, which opposes the discharging, are the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the American Civil Liberties Union, the Natural Resources De fense Council and the Sierra Club. "If nothing else, (the briefs) show the national importance of this case In terms of legal precedence," said Olga Pomar, an attorney for the South Camden group. "National groups are watching because It will affect civil rights cases across the country." Several community organizations, Including Concerned Citizens of North of Environmental Protection did not consider the ra-clal makeup of the community before Issuing a permit A Third Circuit panel subsequently ruled the plant could operate pending a final decision.

National business groups have filed briefs supporting the Montreal-based company, arguing a decision to shut the pliint would have a chilling effect on corporate investment in urban areas. Camden, tho Greater Camden Unity Coalition and the South Jersey Campaign for Peace and Justice, filed a Joint brief supporting the citizens' group. The Natural Resources Defense Council brief maintains dust from the cement plant and exhaust from trucks serving it "would add to local environmental health burdens." Camden County's sewage treatment and trash-burning facilities are in the same neighborhood as the cement plant. The ACLU brief notes, "At stake In this case Is tho ability of Individuals to seek redress for state-sponsored nice discrimination." In a landmark ruling April 19, U.S. District Court Judge Stephen M.

Orlofsky barred the opening of the million plant, built to grind limestone sing into a component of cement He ruled the Department A Lucy the elephant turns 120 Friday with public bash A Down tiie Shore tomans 1mm ai By WILLIAM H. SOKOUC Courier-Post Staff MARGATE Lucy celebrates a birthday Friday. Her 120th. That the country's most celebrated elephant lasted this long is testament to the tenacity of her owners, the good fortune to survive coastal storms, and grassroots efforts by Margate residents. Their work even resulted in Lucy's designation as a National Historic Landmark, one of only 2,329 In the country.

"She Is the only one like this in the world," said Richard Helfant, executive director of the Save Lucy Committee, which operates the attraction. She's certainly the only fabricated animal designated a national landmark, said John Sprinkle, a historian for the agency that approves such designations. She contains 4 tons of bolts and 12,000 square feet of tin; each ear weighs 2,000 pounds. The elephant was built in 1881 by Philadelphia-born engineer and inventor James V. Lafferty Jr.

as a promotional gimmick to sell land in what was then called South Atlantic City. The six-story pachyderm has served as a hotel, tavern, real estate office, home and tourist attraction in her 12 decades of life. JOSE F. MORENOCourierPost Natasha Constlna Robinson (center) Joins LEAP Academy students for a last-minute graduation picture on Wednesday. More than 300 people attended the graduation for Camden's first charter school.

LEAP Academy graduates first class On Friday, the public is invited to Lucy's birthday party, which runs from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.; it will feature balloon and T-shirt giveaways and birthday cake. A local radio station will broadcast live from her howdah (the seat on her back) between 2 and 4 p.m. Almost 20,000 people visited Lucy last year. "We hope to grow those numbers substantially," Helfant said.

"We're not even scratching the surface." Josephine Harron, who formed the committee to salvage the elephant after it deteriorated over time, says Lucy's popularity stems from her uniqueness. "No one else has a six-story elephant you can walk through and come out alive," she said. "Little children stand with their mouths open, saying, 'Oh my To date, Lucy's restoration by the committee has exceeded $1.5 million. Plans call for an addition to the gift shop to house a museum, with artifacts and other mementos from her past. fiiyflrFWl By VANESSA COLON Courier-Post Staff CAMDEN The boys wiggled around in line and the girls balanced on their high heels.

After a few nervous moments, the group of eighth-graders walked proud. They were the first graduating class of the city's first charter school, the Leadership, Education and Partnership Academy. More than 300 people showed up Wednesday evening at the Gordon Theater at Rutgers-Cam-den to watch 52 children graduate from the school, which emphasizes science and mathematics. The kindergarten-to-eighth-grade school has an 11-month academic year and 500 students. The city's second charter school, the LEAP University High Charter School, will open in September.

It will have 216 students in the ninth-through-12th grades. MATT HURFFFor the CourierPost FHty-two eighth-graders graduated from the LEAP Academy on Wednesday. Burlco forum addresses community policing to the head. The county medical examiner ruled that Scarduzio committed suicide, but Yurick has not yet concurred. The results from ballistic tests are pending, Yurick said.

Minutes before he was found dead, Scarduzio shot and nearly beat to death onetime friend Joseph Bowen, who blew the whistle on alleged corruption at the parking authority, where he worked. Scarduzio was the primary target of a state Attorney General's Office investigation into the parking authority. The probe continues, but doesn't appear to extend beyond the authority, said Emily Hornaday, spokeswoman for the state Division of Criminal Justice. Search finds no clues to missing woman CINNAMINSON Detectives have found no sign of a missing township woman a week after they began to search through the county dump. More than two months have passed since Kimberly Szumski, 36, disappeared.

Her husband, Thomas, was found dead July 4 in their Buttonwood Lane home of a heroin overdose. The Burlington County Prosecutor's Office began combing the landfill in Florence on July 11 by looking for any evidence of Kimberly Szumski's whereabouts. A week of sifting through the 9-foot-deep pile of trash has turned up no clues, authorities said. Meanwhile, investigators await tests of possible bloodstains found on the Szum-skis' carpet and in Thomas Szumski's truck. Police also continue to seek a woman who visited Thomas Szumski at his home the night before he died.

Her identity remains unknown, though investigators said they would like to talk to a Port Richmond barmaid with whom Thomas Szumski spoke to that night N.Y. man held for possessing fake bills WESTAMPTON A New York state man was behind bars Wednesday after police found him in possession of 56 counterfeit $20 bills, authorities said. Timothy R. Kear, 39, of Yorktown, was arrested by an off-duty Willingboro policeman, Sgt Roger Conrad, who was standing in line behind the suspect at the KFC restaurant on Burlington-Mount Holly Road about 6 p.m. Tuesday.

Kear tried to buy $3 worth of food with a $20 bill, which the clerk immediately returned to him as fake, police said. Kear then handed the clerk a $5 bill and left the store. Kear told police he got the bill and three others from someone in Pennsylvania. But police said they found 52 additional counterfeit $20 bills in his car. Charged with fraud, Kear was being held Wednesday at Burlington County Jail in lieu of $7,500 bail.

Discarded tires taken from wildlife preserve FRANKLIN Assisted by a Gloucester County Clean Communities grant, members of the county Nature Club on Saturday collected 350 discarded tires from White Oak Wildlife Management Area here. Water-filled tires are potential breeding grounds for mosquitoes, which carry the West Nile virus. Clean Communities summer employees on Monday loaded the tires on a county public works truck for removal to a recycling center. The program provided a $.100 grant for the cleanup. Courier-Post staff ren Stull, the valedictorian and an honor student On the other side of the theater, parents stood up to take pictures and applaud after every speech.

"I'm proud. It's great They have a lot of courses here that the middle schools in Camden don't have. It's preparing them for college," said 45-year-old Kenny Horsey, the father of honor student Kyle Truitt "The education here is good. If you are in the eighth grade, teachers teach you ninth-grade stuff," said 14-year-old Israel Castro, who graduated Wednesday and plans to attend the high school in September. The charter school opened in September 1997 and moved to its permanent location at 7th and Cooper streets in September 1999.

Most of the grad uating children will enroll in the high school. Several city and county officials attended the ceremony along with Roger Dennis, the provost of Rut-gers-Camden. Some of the students were enthusiastic about graduating. "I have worked so hard to get where I'm at I want to thank God. I want to thank my friends and family," said 14-year-old Ka By JASON LAUGHUN Courier-Post Staff WESTAMPTON Dozens of Burlington County officials gathered Wednesday at a conference designed to demonstrate the effectiveness of community involvement in fighting crime.

The county prosecutor's office hosted the event to promote a philosophy dubbed "community justice," Prosecutor Robert Bernardi said. 4 Camden vendors charged in music, film piracy situations. "There are a lot of different agencies doing a lot of great things they're just not doing them together," said guest speaker Ray Massi, a Camden police captain. Massi emphasized the success of Camden's community policing efforts with the city's young people. More than 100 law enforcement officials, mayors, religious leaders and school employees attended the conference.

Police who attended the conference were given a homework assignment: Complete a survey about how they would like to see community justice instituted in their communities and consider such programs as youth summits, after-school activities and community cleanup efforts. Courier-Post staff wood and Philadelphia; and Victor Newman, 40, of Philadelphia. Mohammed also was charged with aggravated assault on a police officer and resisting arrest. The Recording Industry Association of America and the Motion Picture Association of America cooperated with police in the raid. which opened in area theaters last week, and Pearl Harbor, Swordfish and Lara Croft: Tomb Raider.

The four people charged with piracy are Preston Davis, 38, of the 2500 block of North 45th Street, Pennsau-ken; Saifuddin Mohammed, 35, of the 500 block Stevens Street, Camden; Dramane Bamba, 35, who has addresses in Black Transportation Center. Police said the investigation of vending tables set up by the suspects turned up hundreds of pirated items: 1,376 compact discs, 105 cassette tapes and 1,659 video cassettes. The confiscated materials are valued at $103,875, authorities said. Among movies being offered were Cats and Dogs, "It's a proactive approach to try and problem-solve and prevent incidents from happening," Bernardi said. The community justice approach is that crime is most easily prevented with cooperation between government and law enforcement agencies that pinpoint potentially troubling CAMDEN Police arrested four street vendors accused of pirating videotapes, compact discs and cassette tapes worth more than $100,000.

The arrests occurred Tuesday after a raid in the 100 and 300 blocks of Broadway, near the Camden McGreevey proposal would give towns power to control sprawl i.n.i.i....i i i mi ipiW ii wyuiiifBj 'ipi'M 'wwwnwy. Kfm mwm" up1 "wmmwwj Mi ww wnmw -s Ws -x 1 I WMiWIIWMMiM MIHMW MlllilHUiWlM i Hmm i lawsuits by developers. As well, he proposes creating four university-based regional land-use and redevelopment help centers for municipalities. "We need to break the cycle of unmitigated, uncontrolled sprawl," said McGreevey, who did not say how the proposals would be funded. "It's time somebody is thinking about what we're going to be destroying in the future," said Calvin Snyder, a Monroe resident who has proposed limiting new housing development in areas of the township that are home to threatened or endangered species.

"This is exactly the type of assistance we've needed for a long time and were unable to get," said Monroe Mayor Mary Mazza Duffy. served. "To spur economic growth, a lot of our suburban communities have permitted certain developments that outstrip infrastructure. In certain instances, we are jamming more workers onto already crowded roads that lead to over-densely populated office parks," McGreevey said. "We have failed to preserve our open space within our suburbs and our cities." McGreevey also plans to strengthen a municipality's right to preserve water supplies.

He would also ensure that they receive more more information to make decisions on large developments. McGreevey also proposes providing municipalities with legal assistance so they are not "outgunned" in By GENE VERNACCHIO Courier-Post Staff MONROE Standing in front of farmland off Radix Road that soon will sprout houses, Democratic gubernatorial candidate Jim McGreevey talked about his proposals to curb suburban sprawl. McGreevey said his plan would give municipalities more power to control sprawl by establishing a statewide Transfer of Development Rights. The program, which is already being used to a limited extent in Burlington County and in the Pine-lands, would allow developers who buy development rights to build higher-density housing in some areas, while others "would be pre AL SCHELLCourieMost Monroe Mayor Mary Mazza Duffy Joins Jim McGreevey, Democratic candidate for governor, at a press conference Wednesday at which he addressed suburban sprawl. McGreevey has been campaigning hi South Jersey..