Stratford

Police raided two Stratford massage parlors Thursday that are suspected to be part of a prostitution ring with connections to New York City. Shortly after 1 p.m., officers swept into Heavenly Hands Massage on Yale Avenue and then the Natural Massage Center on West Laurel Road, arresting two employees at each place. Detectives had been investigating the establishments for a month after receiving reports from neighbors of men parking down the street and walking to the establishments, said Stratford Police Chief Ronald Morello.

The Stratford Borough Council unanimously agreed last night to notify Cupid's Corner, an adult bookstore, that its merchant's license would be revoked if it did not comply with borough mandates. The notice, to be delivered today, requires the bookstore's owners to remove coin-operated devices and private booths in the store, keep areas clean in front of and behind the store, and make certain that patrons do not consume alcohol inside the store. The borough said the bookstore had five days to comply.

Stratford voters will be asked to approve a $4 million plan to construct additions to two elementary schools and a new administration building. School board members voted unanimously last night to present the proposal to voters in an effort to relieve overcrowding at Parkview and Yellin Elementary Schools. School Superintendent Gene Iannette said the board would schedule a referendum vote for early next year. If the plan is approved, Iannette estimated, the owner of a home assessed at $40,000 would pay $102 extra per year in taxes over 15 years.

About 100 Stratford residents attended a public hearing last night on the proposed $3.9 million school board referendum to construct a new administrative building and additions to the district's two elementary schools. A referendum on the bond issue will be held Feb. 18. The district wants to build an administrative building and additions to the Parkview and Samuel S. Yellin Elementary Schools. Most residents spoke in favor of the plan, but some expressed concern that inclusion of the administrative building in the plan could cause the referendum to be defeated.

More than a week after the election, one local recount has been ordered and another seems likely in two disputed elections in Camden County. A state Superior Court judge this week directed Board of Elections workers to recount the ballots in the Haddon Heights Borough Council race. Early results had former Council President Jack Merryfield, a Republican, narrowly besting Democratic newcomer Kenneth Hamburger for the second available seat. But after absentee and provisional ballots were counted, Hamburger led by two votes, 2,160 to 2,158.

The $5.7 million operating budget that the Stratford school board approved for placement on the April 7 ballot retains two teaching positions that had been slated for elimination. But other cuts, such as ending classroom field trips, the integration of the gifted and talented program into regular classrooms and the elimination of one of three music positions are still included in the plan. State aid to the school district dropped to $2.65 million from $2.74 million. The proposed budget for 1992-93 includes $2.51 million to be raised by local taxation.

Head coach Matt Sheehan needed an explanation when he showed up to practice a few weeks ago at the Stratford swim club with a brace on his left leg. So, Sheehan thought to himself, what would sound cool to a group of teenage swimmers? "I told them I got bit by a shark while surfing in Hawaii," Sheehan said as he prepared his team for its first Division C season in the Tri-County Swimming Association. Most of the swimmers knew the fish story was not believable. But Sheehan still did not tell them that the injury happened when he was jogging with Sadie, his boxer puppy.

Stratford recently won the D Division of the Tri-County Swimming Pool Association, and the main reason for that was the leadership of its oldest swimmers, the 18-year-olds. This year, Stratford had five graduating swimmers, and all played major roles in the team's 5-0 record. (In the Tri-County, swimmers compete in categories from 8-and-under to 18-and-under.) "Our graduating swimmers totaled 58 years and 300 swim meets for us," coach Matt Sheehan said. "We're really going to miss them.

Stratford school superintendent Gene Iannette takes pride in looking toward the future. When he accepted the district's top administrative post three years ago, Iannette recalled, his main concern was improving the school buildings. And if things go according to his plan, those improvements will begin this spring. "When I took this job, I was very impressed with the educational programs in Stratford," Iannette said. "What concerned me was the district's facilities. Hopefully, in the coming budget year, we will begin making the improvements needed in our two schools.

LONDON - It was called "outcast London" for its squalid slums in Victorian times, has a dubious reputation as the haunt of Jack the Ripper, and one of Britain's most polluted rivers runs through its long-derelict shipyards and warehouses. It's no wonder that for a long time, east London has been all but ignored by tourists who stick to the West End, the home of blockbuster musicals, royal palaces, Harrods, and Oxford Street. This year, those prejudices are likely to change as the Olympics inject huge investments into changing the face of the East End. Massive redevelopment works in the area have already given it a dramatic makeover.

Police raided two Stratford massage parlors Thursday that are suspected to be part of a prostitution ring with connections to New York City. Shortly after 1 p.m., officers swept into Heavenly Hands Massage on Yale Avenue and then the Natural Massage Center on West Laurel Road, arresting two employees at each place. Detectives had been investigating the establishments for a month after receiving reports from neighbors of men parking down the street and walking to the establishments, said Stratford Police Chief Ronald Morello.

Dwayne Tribbett was a wanted man, suspected of robbing a bank and a jewelry store in recent months. In the end, he vowed to die rather than be caught. "He said, 'You're not going to take me alive,' " recalled Candice Vasquez-Reyes, who saw him brandishing a gun Monday just before a Lindenwold police officer shot him after a short car chase in a stolen getaway vehicle. Tribbett died later at a Camden hospital. It all started about 9 a.m. in Stratford, when Tribbett, 31, whose last known address was in Woodbury, and Dorelle Wallace, 21, of Stratford, tried to rob a check cashing business as it opened, said the Camden County Prosecutor's Office.

Camden County authorities say a Lindenwold man accused of robbing two banks Saturday has also been charged with two bank robberies in June. Christopher Edwards, 40, was arrested about 10 a.m., shortly after a bank in Brooklawn was robbed. County Prosecutor Warren Faulk said a police officer in Mount Ephraim saw a car fitting the description of the robber's vehicle and detained Edwards, who was subsequently charged with robbing a bank in Stratford earlier Saturday. Further investigation led to charges in two other Stratford bank robberies, one Thursday and one June 17. No weapon was displayed in the robberies, said Faulk, who would not disclose how much had been stolen.

Leo M. Smith, 74, of Medford Lakes, a South Jersey business owner known as Santa Claus to many patients at area hospitals, died of pulmonary fibrosis on Wednesday, Jan. 12, at his home. As owner of Stratford Tire & Auto, Mr. Smith wanted to be involved in the community where he worked. "He was a very honest business person," said his wife, Frances. "Everybody loved him. " Mr. Smith was active on the Community Advisory Board at Kennedy University Hospital-Stratford for many years.

Alfred P. Mattera, 85, of Haddon Heights, an osteopathic physician who made house calls until retiring a few years ago, died of complications from a lengthy disease on Tuesday, Aug. 3, at Kennedy Memorial Hospital in Stratford. Whether delivering newborns in his Stratford practice or driving to check on elderly patients who could not get to his office, Dr. Mattera took care of hundreds of South Jersey families for 40 years. "He was a good old-fashioned [doctor] dedicated to his profession," said Christine Kimler of Stratford, a physician who had worked for Dr. Mattera for several years.

He is easily this season's most produced playwright - 16 productions on 14 professional stages throughout the Philadelphia region. At the estimable Arden Theatre in Old City, his swept-away lovers ended in a tragic tableau of death. The younger Curio Theatre rolled out his case of mistaken identities against the backdrop of an enormous pipe organ inside a church. This week, the new Temple Repertory Theater births itself with his look at ruthless justice in old Vienna, and later this month in Clark Park in West Philly his giddy midsummer lovers will romp through the night.

Construction noise is loud and constant these days on Laurel Road in Stratford Borough. A four-building, 23-acre site, dating to 1844, is getting a half-million dollar makeover, thanks to the Stratford Classical Christian Academy. The academy purchased the property, once a sawmill, maternity hospital and later the Stratford Military Academy, in August from its most recent owner, the Camden County YWCA. It sought to accommodate an enrollment outgrowing its home at nearby Stratford Orthodox Presbyterian Church.

The federal monitor who spent two years exposing fraud and corruption at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey - and whose investigation led to the indictment of State Sen. Wayne R. Bryant - will wrap up his work at the end of the month. U.S. Attorney Christopher Christie informed UMDNJ's president and board chairman of that decision in a letter dated yesterday. "We are confident that at this time law breaking has ended at UMDNJ," he wrote. The school, which describes itself at the country's largest public-health-sciences university, agreed to the federal monitor in 2005 to avoid prosecution on Medicaid fraud.