Their dedication to environmental stewardship led them to be leading members of the New Jersey Angling and Hunting Conservation Caucus. In fact, Burzichelli championed Sunday Bow Hunting and was instrumental in the bill being sent to Governor Corzine. Sunday Bow Hunting was signed into law.

Claire was at 1971 graduate of Gloucester Catholic High School and a 1976 graduate of Niagara University where she played basketball for both. She taught at St. Casimir’s School for over 20 years until it closed and presently she was the director of the Moorestown Friends School ESF Camp and also employed by the Philadelphia Phillies. Claire played, taught, coached, refereed and umpired sports her whole life.

She was the beloved mother of Matthew Thomas, loving daughter of Claire A. (nee Mesmer) O’Leary and the late Thomas J. O’Leary II, dear sister of Thomas J. O’Leary III, all of Delran, also surviving are many aunts, uncles, nieces and nephews.

Interment Private.

PHOTO: Arthur B. \”Art\” Erdman Jr

Art proudly served our country in the U.S. Army. He started in 1973 working as a Camden County Sheriff’s Officer. In 1978, Art started with the Camden County Park Police and retired in 2001. He belonged to the Fraternal Order of Police, German American Police Association of Philadelphia and the New Jersey Retired Police Association.

Relatives, friends, Camden County Park Police , Camden County Sheriff’s Department and All Police Organizations are kindly invited to attend his viewing Thursday Evening from 7 to 9 pm and Friday morning from 9 am to 10 am at the McCANN-HEALEY FUNERAL HOME: 851 Monmouth Street, (at Brown Street) Gloucester City. Methodist Service 10 am in the funeral home officiated by Pastor Gary Brennan of Westville United Methodist Church.

The piano is in good shape, fairly well-tuned, and has a matching bench. The organization that is in need of it would have to move it to their site. However, since we live close to the school it would only be a matter of loading it onto a rolling platform and moving it down the street. We would be willing to help with this operation.

If your school is interested in obtaining this piano please contact me at 856-349-2508. The Gloucester City News and Cleary\’s Notebook would like to write a small article on its final destination. Also, my husband and I would love to \’visit\’ it, once in awhile! 

Sincerely,
Dawn and Dan Watson

Gloucester City has gotten rather good at staging celebrations, parades, festivals and public gatherings of every kind. In fact, in the recent past, we\’ve had car shows, farmers markets, a Shamrock Festival, a Rock n\’ Roll street party, river cruises, Gloucester Day, an Arts Festival, the Heroes-to-Hero Run, parades and fireworks.

Our very own Freedom Pier would be a natural as the perfect site for a lot of these festivities, especially since an engineering study in the 1990s showed the pier to be sound enough, structurally, for foot and vehicle traffic, but not for building construction. This view was reinforced in a recent conversation with Mayor James, who said the pier would remain \”open\” to public access, with no construction on it. Then, it happened.

I read in last week\’s City News that, at the last Planning Board meeting, a request was made for a survey to subdivide the pier for a walkway around it. A phone call to City Administrator Jack Lipsett advised me that a restaurant was planned for construction on the pier itself. This would be in addition to nearly 80 parking spaces, 29 private homes, and a pastel of retail stores that someone has also planned for the site.

It appears, then, that all the archaeological and structural engineering concerns have been resolved in one month that could not be addressed for nearly 20 years. I fail to see how this could possibly happen.

I am sure, however, of one thing: Once we have turned over the first shovelful of dirt on the Freedom Pier, we will have buried our last chance to create the nicest small-city, public festival-marketplace-port-pavilion complex on the Delaware River.

Steve Roche, Gloucester City