The Herald-News from Passaic, New Jersey • 9

Sunday, August 29, 1993 The North Jersey Herald News A 10 Opinion The North Jersey Herald News Battered remains RICHARD J. VEZZA President and Publisher DAVID M. LEVINE Editor and Vice President DIANE HAINES Managing Editor 988 Main P.O Box 1019, Passaic, N.J. 07055 "We are not afraid to follow the truth wherever it may lead, nor to tolerate any enor so long as reason is left to combat it." Thomas Jefferson. KENNETH O.

PRINGLE Editorial Page Editor ROSALIE LONOO WES POLLARD Senior Editors ANTHONY ROSELLI Advertising Director MARC FRIEDMAN Circulation Dirgctor JOHN MULHOLLAND Production Manager The Herald News is a member of North Jersey Newspapers Company, The Newspaper Network. 1 jjjjjjj Peace and quiet vs. jobs and bucks Today is the one day of peace for residents of Elmwood Park, Fair Lawn, Maywood, Rochelle Park, Hackensack and Paramus. Those Bergen County towns comprise the heart of Shopping Central, a land of mega-malls, mini-malls, strip malls, discount stores, restaurants, fast food outlets and shops selling everything and anything under the sun. It is there, at the intersection of Routes 4 and 17, that shoppers from all over the Tri-State area come to do their shopping.

It is also there that residents living on the suburban side streets and county roads that connect the shopping districts have no peace except on Sundays. And the only things standing between peace and chaos are the blue laws. Bergen County has maintained the laws, once a regular feature of American life, which ban the sale of clothes, furniture and appliances on Sundays. It is the last county in the state to maintain Mercedes Ross-OattonSpeciat to Trie Herald News The William S. Mitchell, an old dredger that served as a museum, is now a wreck sitting downstream from the Paseo Bridge in Kansas City, Mo.

The Paseo was one of four bridges it hit on a wild ride down the Missouri River during the recent flooding. Like the William S. Mitchell, the Midwest proved no match for the Great Flood of '93. The cleanup has begun, but neither boat nor Midwest will ever be the same. alone.

The cresting Missouri also tore up huge chunks of the interstate highwaysthat loop around Kansas City. Contractors currently are working feverishly 15 hours a day, seven days a week, to get them repaired in the 100-degree humidity and heat. KANSAS CITY, MO. The mangled vessel remains anchored just east of the sprawling Paseo Bridge, an erie reminder of the devastation the mighty Missouri River heaped on this part of the heartland during the Great Flood of '93. Once a historical museum, the William S.

Mitchell, a former dredging vessel built in 1930, is now a twisted mass of metal, its huge stacks sheared off at the base and sprawled Once again, the push is on to repeal Bergen County's blue laws. The arguments don't change, only their presentation. blue laws, despite periodic pushes by business interests to repeal them. The push is on once again. On Thursday, a group of county business leaders presented the county clerk with a petition containing 10,000 signatures calling for Crime, lawyers and Constitution It is unfortunate that a U.S.

citizen who utilizes the freedom of speech given to him by the Constitution would take such a position as Tom Watterson did in his letter to the editor about Adolph Galluccio on Aug. 12 much irony in speaker The letter made reference to a photo printed in The North Jersey Herald News of Galluccio speaking to a crowd of people outside Paterson City Hall about street safety. Watterson's contention that Galluccio is a criminal attorney who defends "rapists, murderers, armed robbers, and the like," is certainly his right to express. After all, he is given the right of free speech by the Constitution. The Constitution also gives all persons charged with a crime the right to a lawyer and fair trial.

Galluccio and defense attorneys around the country are instrumental in seeing that our carefully constructed legal system is carried out. The fact that he is a part of this system does not take away his right to speak out against crime. If anything, I think it is admirable that a man who does in fact make his living defending alleged criminals would take an active and vocal position in preventing crime. Galluccio is my father, and I find Watterson's insinuation that taking a stand against crime is in any way sinister or unjust no matter who you are or how you make your money insulting. Rather than focusing his energy on public derision, Watterson might want to do a little research on the many contributions Galluccio has made to the Paterson community.

Karen Galluccio Paterson. FDU-Rutherford is for learning As an alumnus of the Rutherford campus of Fairleigh Dickinson University, it is with great sadness that I learned of the decision to close the campus. As an undergraduate student I was afforded a first-class quality education in a small-campus setting with the benefits and resources of a large university. I attended FDU during the troubled '60s, graduating in 1968. My years at FDU-Rutherford are treasured remembrances of friendships with fellow students.

Even 12 years later, when I returned to campus as a graduate student, I found this same feeling of closeness to exist. It is inconceivable to even think that this setting is to be sent into oblivion that its status as an educational historic site is considered unimportant. Even more disturbing is the total disregard that this beautiful campus can no longer serve as a center of earning within the framework of FDU. I was disappointed to read The North Jersey Herald News editorial in support of this decision past meets its future," Aug. 18), but you are entitled to your opinion and this must be respected in our society.

However, this does not diminish my anger and frustration. If there are other Rutherford alumni who feel as strongly, I would like to her from them. We cannot allow our alma mater to become anything but a center of learning. Allen G.Gennis North Arlington. across the upper deck.

The engine room now is a gaping hole with the doors wide open. With rotting shingles, the old boat has a ghostly abolishment of the laws. If certified, a referendum will be placed on the November ballot. It is not a clear-cut issue. Proponents say the extra day of sales would increase business and create jobs; opponents claim it would further strain police and emergency services in the affected towns.

Backers say changing work and leisure habits make Sunday shopping desirable; detractors claim today's busy lifestyle make a single day of peace each week all the more important. Already the two sides are gearing up for major advertising campaigns to sway voters. The anti-blue law group is especially well-armed with the money and expertise of major retailers and the county's largest newspaper, which would benefit from the additional advertising dollars the extra day of sales would bring. The pro-blue law forces are less organized and have quantitatively less to gain. After all, how do you measure millions of dollars in revenue against peace and quiet? ROSEMARIE ROSS "SOME CLINTON AIDE came here a few days ago with a bunch of TV guys and cameras trailing behind him," said Jim Price of Clarkson Construction, which is trying to close a huge rumbled.span of northbound Interstate 635.

The highway is the access road from the airport to Kansas City's favorite suburban spot, Johnson County. "This guy was a joke," Price said of the presidential aide. "He got out there in the dust to make it look good, but stayed just long enough to have his picture taken. So what's he going to report back to Clinton?" At least the railroad could be seen running again a few hundred yards away. For days, the tracks that snake along the river were several feet under water, with the trains stacked up and dormant several miles away.

Nearby, the old frontier town of Parkville, now a quaint tourist spot about 20 miles north of downtown Kansas City, was one of the hardest hit around here. Papa Frank's Pub and Restaurant, just up thehill on Main Street, once a cozy night spot, is now a rotting mess of plaster, wood, and steel stoves. "The basement filled up first," said Jay Nielspn, a former cook here, as he hammered away at the crumbling plaster. "We started to have it pumped, but firefighters came and told us the building could collapse if we pumped it all out and we stopped." "The next morning, the water was up past the top of the bar," he said. "All the other guys took off.

Me, I felt sorry for the owner, Jim McCall. I figure I keep sticking around to give him a hand. But, looking at this mess, I don't know how anything can be saved." On July 10, with the river rising, the giant boat tore loose in the River City section of Kansas City, at the confluence of the Missouri and Kansas rivers, and was hurled 3Vn miles downstream. It crashed into four bridges along the way Broadway Bridge, Hannibal Bridge, Heart of America Bridge and the Paseo before finally coming to rest where it had once been anchored and left to rot many years ago, thus adding yet another bizarre twist to its turbulent odyssey. The vessel will be repaired and returned to River City eventually, said Ted Chapman, a River City spokesman.

But the damage is extensive and it will take time. "The marine surveyors have been on the boat and, as soon as the river drops a little more, we'll be bringing the Mitchell back to its original mooring facility here, start to clean up, assess the damage and start the restoration process," Chapman said in an interview. "It is a very unique boat. There isn't another one like it." Eventual ly, all the Midwest will be repaired. But it will take a lot of time.

Earth to The fate of the missing Mars probe may become one of pop culture's most talked-about unsolved mysteries. All NASA can say with certainty is that the spacecraft didn't crash into the Bermuda Triangle. In any case, the loss of the $980 million research unit should be kept in perspective. While cost is about equal to the sinking of an aircraft carrier, it still is less than the $1 billion Uncle Sam wasted bailing out Silverado Savings and Loan' in Denver or the $2 billion salvaging LincSln in California. The point is, the probe's disappearance is not the worst waste that the federal government has ever perpetrated not by a long shot.

At least NASA was trying to do something constructive for the American people and for the advancement of the human race. NASA still needs to do some soul-searching, however. After a recent series of mishaps and errors, the agency may need to stand down from all its active missions for a few months to make sure there isn't a common pattern connecting its woes. Additionally, the Clinton team and Congress need to assess whether they are putting too many demands on the space administration. Despite this huge workload, the American public still expects perfection from NASA, since the agency for many years has epitomized the nation's yearning to touch the edge of the boundless, final frontier.

Yet perfection is not demanded from far larger government departments which over the years have wasted much greater sums on silly projects, mismanagement and even fraud. NASA deserves a little sympathy. No one aches over the Mars probe's disappearance more acutely than its scientists and technicians. Congress should let NASA build a new machine to fulfill the still-useful Mars mission and one of the new spacecraft's tasks should be to find out where the devil the first one vanished. North Jersey A HUGE ORANGE marker on the street outside showed how far the Missouri crept beyond its banks and up the hill.

The Old Town Cafe next door looked lost and forlorn. There is no way to get flood insurance here because it is so close to. the river and merchants wonder if life will ever be the same. A quarter-mile away, the Missouri River once again looks peaceful. But the reminders of when it gushed way beyond its banks remain.

The once-luscious lawns that sprawled from the river banks to the highway turned to sand and dust by the high waters and now bake in that hot Midwest sun. For days, everyone officials and residents held their collective breath that the levees, especially the concrete ones built after the big 1951 flood, would hold as both the Missouri and Kansas rivers kept cresting, then receding, only to crest again many times over. Miraculously, they held and for that, everyone is grateful. But it will take many millions of dollars and much time to repair the ravages left behind. Yet the Midwest, like the William S.

Mitchell, will never be the same. Rosemarie Ross is a North Jersey Herald News columnist. sCompany "IOWA WAS FIRST hit and garnered the national media's attention and it kind of stayed there," said Andrew Smith, spokesman for regional headquarters of the American Red Cross in Kansas City, Mo. That office serves seven states (Western Missouri, Kansas, Iowa, Illinois, North and South Dakota, Wisconsin). "Then, of course, St.

Louis occurred and the media moved toward that area," Smith said. "In the middle of those two, it got lost how bad it got here in western Missouri and Kansas." The damage runs into many millions of dollars and has not been totally assessed yet. It was one of the most massive operations the Red Cross ever had to launch in that part of the country. The Kansas City Red Cross served more than two million meals to victims during the flood weeks in those seven states with a total 55,071 homes underwater, Smith said. The cost to the Red Cross alone for this area is expected to exceed $20 million.

In all, 137 shelters were opened for flood victims 10 remain, with one in the Missouri Kansas area. It is estimated more than 29,000 families will continue to need assistance from the organization in this seven-state area RICHARD J. VEZZA President and Publisher JOSEPH GIOIOSO Vice PresidentOperilions RICHARD F. HARKNETT Vice PresidentCirculation PETER E. LEDDY Vice PreiidentFinance ANTHONY V1GGIANO Vice Preident9le Marketing JE ANNETTE DO WD Vice PresidentClajsified.