March 24, 1983: The Tribune reported on its front page 40 years ago this week that the Township Council gave final approval to a municipal salary ordinance granting general increases of 7½ percent.The Council also gave final approval to an ordinance creating the new position of public defender to represent indigent defendants in Livingston Municipal Court.Two Livingston residents were arrested that week during unrelated drug raids in which Livingston police assisted Essex and Union County investigators.An unemployed Livingston resident with a history of criminal offenses, including burglary, injured five people the previous Thursday when he drove a pick-up truck through a group of marchers and bystanders in New York City’s St. Patrick’s Day parade.Livingston Police Chief Albert Fachet reminded local residents that the use of studded snow tires was not allowed on NewJersey roadways after April 1.The Board of Education tentatively approved a transportation plan to lower the walking limits for the 1984-85 school year and to stagger the times at which the schools start and close each day.In addition, Mt. Pleasant Junior High School’s Home and School Association was sponsoring a forum to discuss the school district’s newlyadopted middle school organization.In other front page news, construction had begun on the 150,000 gallon Edgemere Road water tank. It was the second high service storage facility for the Riker Hill water district.In his single editorial this week, entitled “A Change in Attitude,” Tribune editor and publisher Kit Cone discussed recycling. “The state Legislature is now considering enacting a ‘bottle bill’ which would require a five cent deposit on all soft drink and beer containers, including aluminum cans, plastic bottles and the more traditional glass bottles,” he wrote. “The bill is seen as a contribution to the statewide recycling program, although some people who are now active in recycling feel that it may hurt the salvage effort by taking a lot of material out of their projects… Hopefully, the bottle law would do something, however small, toward reducing Livingston’s litter problem.”He concluded, “The source of all the litter will probably not be controlled by a bottle bill, either. What is needed cannot be legislated: it is a change in attitude from the ‘discarding society.’ In a poor society nothing, is discarded. But we cannot blame our wealth for our litter, either, for many affluent countries such as the Netherlands or Sweden are spotlessly clean. Somewhere there is an answer in motivational research;
