Region's Business 25 April 2013

10 STEPS TO LEADERSHIP, LOYALTYBRING THE 2024 OLYMPICS HERE

WEATHERING CHANGE, FLANKED BY MONSTERS

A JOURNAL OF BUSINESS AND POLITICSPHILADELPHIA EDITION 25 APRIL 2013

STARTUP SUMMIT’S THEME: NO BETTER TIME FOR DOERS

REGION’S BUSINESS

$15M VIRTUAL SCHOOL GETS CONDITIONAL OK

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PENNSYLVANIA’S LONG, COMPLICATED ROAD TO

COURT REFORMTRANSPARENCY LOOPHOLE AT STATE’S UNIVERSITIES OVERDUE TO BE CLOSED

Despite increasing calls to change the way the state selects judges, the status quo is likely to remain in place.

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PRESIDENT AND PUBLISHER James D. McDonaldEDITORIAL DIRECTOR Karl M. SmithASSOCIATE EDITOR Terrence CaseyCONTRIBUTORS Brandon Baker, Michael Jacobs, Don Lee, Charles Gerow, Timothy Holwick, Erich BoehmPROOFREADER Denise GerstenfieldADVERTISING DIRECTOR Larry SmallacombeDIRECTOR OF BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT Deirdre Affel

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25 APRIL 2013

28 Weather Worries, Furry Friends, Seasonal Help! Sesame Place president Bob Caruso juggles them all at Bucks County’s largest tourist attraction.

11 Time to Close Loophole! The state’s universities need to be transparent.

20 Many Steps ! Voters would have severalchances to thwart, support reform.

21 Under Scrutiny! Mandatory judicialretirement faces opposition.

14 Theme From Summit! At a startup gathering the theme was simple - There’s never been a better time for “doers.”

5 Philadelphia: Olympic City! That’s the vision set forth by Mayor Michael Nutter, who believes the region would be a great host for the 2024 Summer Games.

6 Virtual School Gets OK! Tentative approval given for $15 million project.

CONTENTS

YEAR OF THE INNOVATOR

Your best thinking five years ago is your baggage today.”KEVIN HARRINGTON, ENTREPRENEUR

Road to Court Reform ! Despite growing calls for the way Pennsylvania picks its top judges, change will come slowly - very slowly, if it comes at all.

18

4 REGIONSBUSINESS.COM25 APRIL 2013

Karl Smith is the Editorial Director for Region’s Business. You can contact him at [email protected].

“Do you have kids?”The question caught me off

guard in between bites of a sand-wich at the Reading Terminal Market. Though I had been sitting amongst several people at the tables scatted around the market, everyone followed the standard protocol of fiddling with their smartphone or eyeing up their lunch.

But the gentleman had asked a question and invited me into a glimpse of his world.

After I told him about my kids, he expressed his concern over his son, who is in his late 20s and still trying to find his career.

Tony, as I came to know him, went o! on a lengthy tangent after telling me his son dreamed of being a writer. It seems that while in the Army, Tony had come across a particular poet and that the words had struck a chord.

“I didn’t need to go to college,” he said. “I learned everything I needed to know from reading those poems.”

Inspired, Tony poured out his heart into a journal and letters to his wife. When fellow soldiers came across them, they encouraged

him with praise.Tony so wanted to become an entertainer,

but took a more practical approach, especially after surveying the housing market in New York City. The only apartment he could a!ord had a bathtub in the kitchen, which was cov-ered to create the kitchen table.

He then went back to his son. He described him as a sports writer (though when I later spoke with the son, it turns out he writes about a wide array of topics) who also does website development (though I later found out he didn’t know how to code nor did he know HTML, but instead used the out-of-the-box WordPress platform).

He said his son had spent some time on the West Coast, doing some college radio and cast-ing about, looking for a regular gig that never really materialized.

His son came back home and was “this close” to landing a long-term position when some-thing went wrong with the paperwork (long story) and it fell apart.

“I know he wants to do this writing thing,”

Tony said plaintively, “but I told him it’s time to put that away and get himself a real job.”

We talked at some length about writing as a career, the pitfalls of the entertainment busi-ness and parenthood.

When we finished, I handed him a card and told him to have his son contact me. We shook hands and went our separate ways through the bustling crowd.

Aboard SEPTA’s R3 for the ride home, I mulled over the conversation several times. As children, we are often encouraged to do what we love and taught the adage, “do what you love and never work a day in your life.”

Maybe that’s true. Maybe.But as Tony learned long after the school-

room lessons faded away, life can be filled with challenging trade o!s. In his case, he felt he had to decide between doing what he loved and taking care of those he loved.

Like all good fathers, he wanted to pass on this wisdom to his son, something we all should do.

Will they listen? Only time will tell.

Encouraging Abandonment of a Dream

EDITOR’SDESK

5REGIONSBUSINESS.COM25 APRIL 2013

WEEKLYBRIEFING

VENTURE CAPITAL

Philadelphia VC Numbers Up in Q1 2013

$5.9BNational investments made

in the first three months of 2013, according to the MoneyTree Report from

PricewaterhouseCoopers and the National Venture

Capital Association, based on data provided by Thomson Reuters

863National deals made in Q1

2013

12%National decrease in

investment activity in terms of dollars

15%National decrease in

investment activity in terms of number of deals

33Companies in the

Philadelphia Metro area who made deals in Q1 2013, according to The

Philadelphia Inquirer

$142.4MMoney raised by

Philadelphia Metro area companies in Q1 2013

$54.5MMoney raised by

Philadelphia Metro area companies in Q4 2012

PRICEWATERHOUSECOOPERS

Summit Coming to Philadelphia

The international Beyond Sport Sum-mit is coming to Philadelphia in Sep-tember. Mayor Michael Nutter made the announcement last week.

The event focuses on using sports to address social issues and in addition to drawing big names — boxing legend Muhammad Ali, soccer megastar David Beckham, to name a few — it will serve as a major tourism boom during its early September run.

Eagles co-owner Christina Weiss Lurie, Beyond Sport founder Nick Keller and Philadelphia sports legends Dikembe Mutombo and Brian Dawkins joined Mayor Nutter for the announcement at City Hall.

More infor-mation can be found at BeyondSport.org.

Drexel Study Focusing On Youth Employment

Researchers at Drexel University are studying what could have caused the rapid decline in young workers in the Philadelphia area over the last decade, Newsworks reported recently.

25%Young people in the Philadelphia

area workforce in 2012

44%Young people in the Philadelphia area workforce

in 1999

JOBS

BEYOND SPORT

Mayor Nutter: Philadelphia Interested in 2024 Olympics

Mayor Michael A. Nut-ter sent a letter to the United States Olympic Committee (USOC), con-fi rming the City of Phila-delphia’s commitment to working with the USOC to bid on the 2024 Olym-pic Games.

The city also signaled its interest in the pos-sibility of becoming the U.S. Candidate City, and ultimately, the Host City.

“The Philadelphia region has enthusiastical-ly embraced the prospect of bidding on and hosting a future Olympic Games, and we look forward with great anticipation to the opportunity to work with the USOC on this project,” said Mayor Nutter. “The City of Philadelphia shares the USOC’s dedication to building a spectacular experience for the Olympic athletes, the Olympic family, and the watch-ing world.

“We have had great success partnering with other orga-nizations to host world-class events and we are committed to working cooperatively and e! ectively under the direc-tion of the USOC in the months — and hopefully — years ahead.”

The USOC wrote to the 25 largest cities in the United States, together with the cities that have previously expressed interest, to gauge interest in bidding to host the 2024 Olympic Games.

U.S. HOSTS

Summer Games1904: St. Louis, Missouri1932: Los Angeles, California1984: Los Angeles, California1996: Atlanta, Georgia

Winter Games1932: Lake Placid, New York1960: Squaw Valley, California1980: Lake Placid, New York2002: Salt Lake City, Utah

THE PHILADELPHIA REGION HAS ENTHUSIASTICALLY EMBRACED THE PROSPECT OF BIDDING ON AND HOSTING A FUTURE OLYMPIC GAMES.’— MAYOR

MICHAEL

NUTTER

FUTURE HOSTS

Summer Games2016: Rio de Janeiro, Brazil2020: (Candidate Cities) Istanbul, Turkey; Tokyo, Japan; Madrid, Spain

Winter Games2014: Sochi, Russia2018: Pyeongchang, South Korea


TRANSPORTATION

Cost of Driving Continues Climb

1.96%Increase in annual cost of driving your car, according

to AAA estimates

60.8The cost, in cents, per mile

of owning a car

$9,122Annual cost of owning a car

$6,967Annual cost of owning a

small sedan

$9,151

Annual cost of owning a medium sedan


minivan


large sedan


4WD or SUV

THE STREET

USP President Inauguration Scheduled

Helen F. Giles-Gee, the 22nd presi-dent of University of the Sciences, will be inaugurated Friday, April 26.

Ms. Giles-Gee, the school’s fi rst black and fi rst female president, is currently the president at Keene State College in Keene, N.H. She was o! cially named president March 19.

Ms. Giles-Gee was a student at Univer-sity of Pennsylvania for her undergradu-ate, master’s, and doctoral degrees, and then later as provost at Rowan University.

“It was based on the strong historic reputation that this University has, (its) dynamic reputation (for) the (Philadel-phia) College of Pharmacy since 1821, its expansion through the sciences, its core of liberal arts with skills development throughout the sciences and healthcare, its dynamism, and its vision for the future.”

HIGHER EDUCATION

Conditional OK Given For $15M Virtual School

BY JULIANA REYES

The School Reform Commission gave the School Dis-trict the green light to spend $15 million on opening a virtual school this fall. But it’ll only spend that money if 1,000 students enroll in the school this September and 1,200 in 2014.

The plan to open the school is both a “fi nancial necessity and an educational opportunity,” as Newsworks put it.

Right now, the district is slated to spend $60 million this year in per-student payments to cyber charters. If the district opens a virtual school, it’ll save $4,100 per student per year, according to Newsworks.

Nearly 6,000 students attend cyber charters. Every budget line counts because, as has been well-reported, the school district is in dire fi nancial straits, with a $300 million budget defi cit.

This move comes a few months after Superintendent William Hite expressed concern about the growing costs of cyber charters. By 2017, cyber charters could cost the district more than $75 million a year, he said. It’s also a matter of giving students a choice, Mr. Hite

said. The virtual school plan calls to mind Chief Education

O! cer Lori Shorr‘s words, when she said that, because of all the new educational options, the district has to adapt to new technology or risk becoming obsolete. (Though she wasn’t directly referring to the district opening a virtual school.)

Despite rising enrollment numbers, cyber charters have not been without controversy: two of the biggest state cyber charters are currently involved in federal corrup-tion investigations and none of the state cybers met their federally mandated academic performance targets.

This article was originally published by Technical.ly Philly at TPhilly.com.

CYBER CHARTERS

Enrollment In Philadelphia Cyber Charter Schools

Total Enrollment: 5,991

Agora Cyber Charter — 3,051 studentsCommonwealth Connections — 935PA Cyber — 447PA Virtual — 421PA Leadership — 272Solomon — 162Achievement — 158Education Plus — 150ASPIRA Bilingual — 140Esperanza — 11921st Century — 61ACTS — 39PA Distance Learning — 34STREAM Academy — 1Susquehanna Cyber — 1

NEWSWORKS

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Leaders of Change To Continue After School Closings

The annual Leaders of Change intern-ship program will continue to run even after the doors are closed at University City High School, through which the program has run.

Organizers are currently looking for a new location for the program, ideally at the University of Pennsylvania.

According to The Daily Pennsylvanian, Penn’s student newspaper, 40 to 50 Sayre High School students and 40 to 50 West Philadelphia High School students will join the program this year.

The program, which was historically reserved for rising seniors, will also be open to rising sophomores and juniors.

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Resilien-C To Host Daylong IncubatorPhiladelphia risk management firm ResilienC will host the 2013 ResilienC Symposium – an incubator for new ideas on how we effectively build safer communities, properly assess and eradicate threats to public health, and equip communities and individuals for the future.

Time: 8 a.m. to 3:30 p.m.Date: Tuesday, May 14, 2013Where: University of Pennsylvania’s Houston Hall, 3417 Spruce Street, Hall of FlagsTickets: Early Bird Registration: $75; Regular Registration: $80Details: resilienc.com.

The day-long Symposium will cover a variety of safety, security, public health, and innovation topics, including:

— Crime prevention through environmental design— Food deserts and their affect on community safety and public health— Living within mixed income communities and it’s affect on safety— Applying the idea of evolution to best empower individuals and institutions, educate our children, and build safer communities— The future of Urbanism as it relates to safety, emergency preparedness, and building sustainable communities

Providing the keynote address will be Jeremy Nowak, one of America’s leading practitioners and thought leaders in urban development and civil society. He is the President of J Nowak and Associates, LLC, a consulting firm.

AC’s Trump Plaza $20M Sale On Hold

California-based development firm Meruelo Group said it cannot purchase Atlantic City’s Trump Plaza Hotel and Casino for $20 million because Trump Entertainment has not been released from its mortgage by a “senior secured lender,” the Associated Press reported.

The deal was originally planned to close by May 31.

Judge: Revel Casino Can Remain Open Through Bankruptcy

A bankruptcy court judge approved Revel Casino’s $250 million temporary financing plan last week, allowing the struggling Atlantic City casino to remain open while it is under Chapter 11 bank-ruptcy protection.

“We are very pleased with the progress of the case, and we’re looking forward to exiting from bankruptcy in mid-May,” said Dennis Stogsdill, Revel’s chief restructuring officer, according to a Courier-Post report.

As part of the bankruptcy plan, Revel cut 83 jobs last week as well, The Phila-delphia Inquirer reported. The jobs com-prised about 2.5 percent of the casino’s workforce, interim chief executive Je!rey Hartmann told the Inquirer.

GAMING

What’s In The Neighborhood? Queen Village & Bella Vista

Once considered working-class suburbs, the tree-lined South Philadelphia neighborhoods

of Queen Village and Bella Vista have spent the past decade establishing themselves as some of the city’s most stable and vibrant places to live, work, dine, shop — and generally hang out.

Small, mostly historic townhouses and a mix of new and well-established businesses make up these side-by-side neighborhoods.

Residents both new and old are passionate about maintaining pocket parks and patronizing independent merchants and restaurants.

The districts’ busiest byways are the open-air Italian Market on South 9th Street and the west-to-east-running South Street, which needs its own neighborhood overview.

Directly south of Old City and Soci-ety Hill, Queen Village consists of the blocks between Front and 6th Streets and Lombard Street to Washington Avenue.

Just south of Washington West, Bella Vista, a traditionally Italian neighbor-hood that’s now ethnically mixed, includes 6th to 11th Streets and also stretches from Lombard Street to Washington Avenue.

Philadelphia’s Italian Market offers an array of produce, meats, cheeses and spices. R. KENNEDY FOR GPTMC

WHAT’S IN TOWN?

Di Bruno BrothersNarrow and jam-packed, this circa 1939 gourmet shop draws lines out the door and down the street for its unparalleled selection of international formaggio, plus cured meats and myriad other gourmet groceries. The family has a newer location near Rittenhouse Square, an outpost in Ardmore and a to-go spot in the Comcast Center. 930 S. 9th Street, (215) 922-2876, dibruno.com

Ralph’s America’s oldest Italian restaurant, this two-floor tribute to old-school Italian-American fare still packs in the crowds, more than a century after opening its doors. Patrons go for the basics — sausage and peppers, mussels red or white — and usually go home with doggie bags. 760 S. 9th Street, (215) 627-6011, ralphsrestaurant.com

CochonFrench for “pig,” this one-room, open-kitchen BYOB is justly known for its hearty offerings, with an emphasis on the pork. Must-tries include bacon mashed potatoes, grilled spare ribs and, from the Sunday brunch menu, deep-fried oysters with bacon mayo. 801 E. Passyunk Avenue, (215) 923-7675, cochonbyob.com

GPTMC

ANTHONY QUINTANO

WEEKLY BRIEFING


Corbett Welcomes Horizon Lines to PhiladelphiaLed by Governor Tom

Corbett and political and business leaders from across the region, the Packer Avenue Marine Terminal last week welcomed Hori-zon Lines, Inc., one of the nation’s premier container-ized cargo shipping lines, to Philadelphia.

The arrival of Horizon Lines, which has relocated its Northeast port of call from Elizabeth, New Jersey to Philadelphia, marks yet another milestone for the Port of Philadelphia. Under terms of the agreement between Horizon and Packer, reached with the assistance of Governor Corbett and other Com-monwealth o!cials, Horizon will call Packer 52 times a year, providing weekly service between the Northeast U.S. and San Juan, Puerto Rico.

“Today is a great day for the Port and

for the people of Pennsylvania,” said Governor Corbett. “I am delighted to welcome Horizon Lines to Philadelphia.

“Horizon Lines is a terrific new addi-tion to the Port of Philadelphia and the Packer Avenue Marine Terminal,” con-tinued Corbett. “Horizon will expand opportunities for Pennsylvania business-

es throughout the Caribbean region. What’s more, the arrival of Horizon demon-strates the progress we can make when the public and private sector work together for the good of our port and our region.”

The Horizon relocation to Packer from Elizabeth, New Jersey will create an estimated 400 full-time direct and related jobs at the Port, which will generate a projected $3.0 million in tax revenues for the City and the Commonwealth.

“This is a big win for our Port and our region,” said Tom Holt, Jr., President of Astro Holdings Inc., the lessee for Pack-er Avenue Marine Terminal in South Philadelphia. “Packer provides Horizon Lines with excellent and e!cient service, allowing Horizon to serve its customers more e"ectively.

City To Borrow, Refinance $1B

Philadelphia and Mayor Michael Nutter last week invited about 150 bond marketers and investment firms to discuss the city’s e"orts to either borrow or refinance more than $1 billion throughout the next nine months, according to The Philadel-phia Inquirer.

The move is in response to financial issues over pensions and public school costs, as well as labor negotiations and the economy of private business, according to the report.

Philadelphia has the lowest credit rating of the United States’ largest cit-ies, according to the report.

Included on the panel were Greater Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce chairman Daniel Fitzpatrick and Comcast Executive Vice President David Cohen.

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WHO TO FOLLOW

@scottrdavisScott R. Davis

The infrastructure engineer for @PennLive (PennLive.com) tweeted results of the 2013 Pennsylvania

Straw Poll conduced at the 24th annual Pennsylvania

Leadership Conference held in Harrisburg last weekend.

RT @scottrdavis: The #PATCOT Favorite

#POTUS choice for ‘16 @ChrisChristie (5%) @RickSantorum (6%) @

tedcruz (16%) @marcorubio (18%) & @SenRandPaul

(39%)

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POLITICS

Universities’ Transparency Loophole Closure Overdue

HARRISBURG — It’s been 18 months since the abuses of Jerry Sandusky at Penn State University first came to light, setting o! a very public call for more transparency and openness at Pennsylvania’s largest public institutions of higher education.

This week, the state House finally took the first step towards closing the most glaring loophole in the state’s Open Records Law.

Sure, it took a while, but no one would ever mistake the members of the General Assembly for Usain Bolt or Chuck Yeager.

A bill approved on Monday by the House State Government Committee would require Penn State, Pittsburgh, Temple and Lincoln universities — collectively known as the “state-related universities” because they get state tax dollars but are not state-owned

— to submit to the state Open Records Law in the same way as all state and local govern-ment agencies, including Pennsylvania’s 14 state-owned colleges and universities.

It’s a good move, and long overdue.When the Open Records Law was crafted

in 2008, the four state-related schools were exempted from it because they expressed concerns about how the law might apply to information about private donors and research data.

They continue to make those same claims as they fight the renewed e!ort to bring them under the law.

But in the wake of the Sandusky scandal, those concerns should be trumped by the far more important right of the public to know how the schools are using tax dollars.

After all, the four schools got more than $514 million from the taxpayers of Pennsyl-vania during the current budget year and are tentatively penciled in to receive at least that much again in the new budget year that begins on July 1.

For that kind of investment, the state’s taxpayers have a right to know how the dollars are being used.

The arrogance that the heads of the four universities have shown on this issue — particularly Pittsburgh’s Chancellor Mark

Nordenberg and Penn State’s President Rodney Erickson — has been truly astound-ing.

During a hearing with the Senate Appro-priations Committee in February, Norden-berg had the audacity to claim that the four schools “all believe in transparency” and that they were “already subject to a significant level of disclosure.”

That disclosure is an annual report to the state that lists the salaries of the 25 highest-paid employees at each school and a little information about spending that is painted with broad strokes.

But would he support ending the excep-tion in the right-to-know law? No, Nor-denberg said, because the four state-related schools have special circumstances that should give them preferential treatment compared to all other state-funded entities.

This week, state Rep. John McGinnis, R-Blair, delivered a straightforward answer to the schools’ concerns about falling under the Open Records Law: comply with it or stop taking state funds.

“I think it is incumbent upon the state-related universities, if they want to accept state tax dollars, that they be accountable to the taxpayers,” Rep. McGinnis said.

I’d suggest only that perhaps the formula should be reversed. Unless the schools agree to become more transparent and the General Assembly closes the Open Records loophole, Penn State and the rest should not be granted a single dollar in taxpayer funding next year.

The state lawmakers have the final say in all of this, regardless of the universities’ caterwauling.

Eric Boehm is bureau chief for PA Independent, a project of the Franklin Center for Government and Public Integrity

CONTRIBUTE

Send comments, letters and essays to [email protected]. Opinions expressed by guest writers do not necessarily reflect those of Region’s Business.

IN MEMORIAM

Former Congressman Edgar Dies

BY KEEGAN GIBSON

Former Congressman Bob Edgar, who served the 7th district for six terms and later went on to lead one of the nation’s top govern-ment reform organizations, has died. He was 69. He passed away unexpectedly in his home Tuesday morning.

“We are deeply saddened and shaken today by the passing of Bob Edgar,” said Common Cause Board Chair Robert Reich in a state-ment. “Bob will be remembered for his decency, kindness, compassion and humor.

“His deep commitment to social justice and strengthening our democracy is his greatest gift to Com-mon Cause and the nation. Our hearts are with Bob’s family, his wife Merle, and sons Andrew, David and Rob, and their families.”

Mr. Edgar was a Methodist minister and when elected during the post-Watergate wave of 1974 became the first Democrat to hold the 7th district in 36 years. He left the seat to challenge Sen. Arlen Specter in 1986.

After his tenure in Congress, Mr. Edgar served 10 years as President of Claremont School of Theology in California. He went on to lead the National Council of Churches, a sizable ecumenical group that advocates for progressive social policies and has particular focus on eliminating poverty. In 2007, he took the reins of Common Cause which is one of the largest government reform organizations in the country. He was president and CEO.

The group describes itself as “a nonpartisan, grassroots organization dedicated to restor-ing the core values of American democracy, reinventing an open, honest and accountable government that serves the public interest, and empowering ordinary people to make their voices heard in the political process.”

Mr. Edgar is survived by his wife, three sons, and grandchildren.

This article was originally published on PoliticsPa.com.


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CONTRIBUTE


Council to Extend Homestead Exemption DeadlineAt the April 18, 2013

Philadelphia City Council weekly meeting, City Council members introduced legislation that would extend the deadline for residents to apply for the Homestead Exemption under Philadelphia Actual Value Initiative (“AVI”).

Feeling that not enough eligible citizens had applied for the exemption, Council reasoned in the legislation that more time was needed to conduct a better outreach program.

AVI is a massive real estate tax reform currently undergoing implementation in Philadelphia, which provides for new property assessments and tax rates for almost all Philadelphia property owners.

The Homestead Exemp-tion allows for Philadelphia homeowners to reduce the taxable portion of their prop-erty assessment by $30,000

beginning in Tax Year 2014. The only requirement for

eligibility is that the taxpayer owns the property and it is their primary residence.

However, the taxpayer must take action to apply for the exemption, and Council feels not enough eligible taxpayers have done so.

The proposed legislation would move the application deadline from July 31 to September 30, thus giving the Philadelphia City Government an additional two months to inform people of the exemption

and encourage them to apply if they believe they are eligible.

According to the legislation text, Mayor Michael Nutter’s Administration and City Council have determined that approxi-mately 347,777 properties would be eligible for the exemption.

About only 180,000 applica-tions for the exemption have been approved, which amounts to slightly more than 50 percent of the eligible properties.

Taking this data, City Council mapped the properties that were likely to qualify for the exemption, but have not yet been

approved. According to the bill, the maps

show that these properties are in areas of high concentrations of low income, elderly, and non-English speaking residents.

Council intends to use the extra two months to allow for targeted outreach at these specifi c populations.

As AVI became more unavoid-able, Council has continu-ously sought to at least increase fairness and information to the public.

AVI could not happen without their approval, but Philadelphia was due for a fair and compre-hensive property tax reform.

The Homestead Exemption is but one protection built into AVI to help ease the fi nancial impact for Philadelphia homeowners, and Council is now doing all it can to make sure everyone is taking advantage of it.

Timothy Holwick is a freelance writer covering Philadelphia government. Find more coverage at citycouncilmatters.com.

THE HOMESTEAD EXEMPTION IS BUT ONE PROTECTION BUILT INTO AVI TO HELP EASE THE FINANCIAL IMPACT FOR PHILADELPHIA HOMEOWNERS’


POLITICAL COMMENTARY

CONTRIBUTE


Nation Running Out Of Time To Balance BudgetAfter all the palaver over sequestration,

the world has continued to spin and the wheels of government have continued to turn. And government spigots have not gone to a trickle in most places.

The Obama Administration cynically shut down White House tours, wrecking the plans of many families — especially those from great distance who won’t get another opportunity to see the capital — but it didn’t curb spending on its own travel.

Vice President Joe Biden recently had taxpaying citizens drop more than half a million bucks for a one-night stay at a ritzy Parisian hotel.

The good news was that his night in London only asked $459,000 and change from the taxpayers.

Those million-plus dollars would no doubt pay for a lot of White House tours for little kids visiting Washington, D.C., with their families or schools. But that’s not the point here.

There’s much more outrageous spending that increases daily. As Ronald Reagan once famously observed, “ The nearest thing to eternal life we will ever see on this earth is a government program.”

The most galling abuse of taxpayers’ money is the waste and abuse that is identified year after year but is allowed to continue and increase.

The fiscal watchdog organization Citi-zens Against Government Waste (CAGW)

annually publishes a comprehensive list of suggested “prime cuts” to the fat in the federal budget.

CAGW’s recently released 2013 version contained nearly 600 recommendations that, if enacted, would save taxpayers nearly $2 trillion over the next five years (more than $580 billion in the first year alone).

They call for elimination of subsidies for sugar which cost consumers about $3.5 billion each year. Not coincidentally, these subsidies also cost Americans their jobs.

More than 125,000 of our neighbors have lost their jobs over the last 15 years in sugar-using industries like Pennsylvania’s candy manufacturers.

Subsidies for dairy and peanuts should also go, says the report, along with the Market Access Program. That program has funneled billions of hard-earned tax dol-lars to giant agricultural organizations so they can market their products in foreign countries.

One example of how that tax money is used was the $20 million that went to the Cotton Council International (CCI) which, in turn, created an Indian reality TV show, ostensibly to promote cotton in India.

It didn’t, apparently, take into account that India is a cotton exporter itself and pro-duces twice the amount of cotton as the U.S. Meanwhile the CCI gobbled up nearly $170 million from hard working wage-earners.

All of that only takes into account the

Department of Agriculture. But there are duplicative, unnecessary and politically created sacred cows across the spending landscape.

Included are such noble sounding but dubious-worth line items as the Robert Byrd Honors Scholarship Program, the Edward Byrne Memorial Justice Assistance Grants, the State Justice Institute and Susan Harwood Training Grants.

Then there’s the Neighborhood Reinvest-ment Corporation or “NeighborWorks America.” The CBO has concluded that NeighborWorks duplicates many programs that already existed in HUD when it was created. And the GAO found that Neigh-borWorks supplied grants to the infamous ACORN organization accused of voter fraud and other scandals.

In 2008 candidate Barack Obama prom-ised to go through the federal budget line by line to identify and cut waste. That sounded great to voters looking for “hope and change.”

Sadly, President Obama hasn’t gotten around to doing much of that. Meanwhile, the economy continues to founder, and the debt has skyrocketed to nearly $17 trillion with more than $6 trillion added during his watch.

Cutting waste is merely a starting point. Reigning in the out-of-control spending that insatiable political appetites in Washington have allowed is the true, crying need.

We’re running out of time.

Charlie Gerow is CEO of Quantum Communications, a Harrisburg-based public relations and issue advocacy firm.

Perspective. Delivered Weekly.

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Steadily, but almost quietly, Philadelphia has become a hotspot for entrepreneurs. The combination of great ideas, available capital and a welcoming environment have set the stage to make 2013 a breakout year for innovation and new businesses.

To Learn More ...For more information on sponsorship opportunities or to suggest story ideas, call our main office at 610-940-1656.The web: RegionsBusiness.comFacebook: Facebook.com/regionsbusinessTwitter: @RegionsBusiness

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2013: YEAR OF THE INNOVATOR

QUOTABLE

Philly Student Startup Summit

“If cities are serious about open data, we need to put

the full force of law behind it.” — Mark Headd,

Chief Data Officer, City of Philadelphia

“I wanted to become a VC because I thought it was entrepreneurship without

the hard work.” – Jake Stein, RJ Metrics

“The rise of entrepreneurship [in recent

years] has meant people want to do startups for the

wrong reasons.” – Apu Gupta,

Curalate

“I want to be a successful tech company, not a

successful Philly tech company.”

– Jake Stein, RJ Metrics

Startup Summit Theme: No Better Time for Doers

BY CARY CARR

If you want to continue the momen-tum of the attract and retain con-versation around college entrepre-

neurs, you need students to be a part of it.That’s why last fall a group of aspiring

undergrad entrepreneurs from Drexel and Penn came together to form nvigor, an organization dedicated to connecting Philadelphia students to the technology community to help them gain roots here.

After partnering on a healthcare-focused hackathon earlier this month, Nvigor hosted its first annual Philly Stu-dent Startup Summit 1.0 at University of Pennsylvania’s School of Engineering and Applied Science as part of Philly Tech Week 2013.

The eight-hour day included a full breakfast, speakers, a discussion panel, lunch, afternoon discussions, two work-shops and a closing keynote from Whar-ton alumnus Josh Kopelman of First Round Capital.

The summit welcomed young entre-preneurs and students from all over the city, and including students from Drexel, Penn, Temple and more, some 150 reserved a spot and nearly that many cycled through the day-long event

On the chalkboard of the auditorium was written a message that has become something of a calling card for the young organizers — “There has never been a better time to be a doer in the city of Philadelphia” — which, agree or not, speaks to what is motivating the group.

Dias Gotama, an information technol-

ogies system student at Drexel University and cofounder of nvigor explained why the summit was important for young entrepreneurs to understand the growth of Philadelphia’s entrepreneurial scene.

“We just want to highlight what we have in Philadelphia right now because a lot of students are unaware of it,” Mr. Gotama said. “We’re hoping those who signed up for the summit today will see how many successful and great startups there are here and how many of us are same-minded.”

Attendees took part in an open discus-sion panel with Dan Shipper and Patrick Leahy, the co-founders of Firefly, Alex Rattray of Emerald Exam, Isaac Sukin from the Dorm Room Fund team and Deepa Ghandi, co-founder of Dagne Dover Handbags.

The panel provided the audience with brief backgrounds and then they opened the floor to questions. They talked about successes, failures and the drive neces-sary to achieve their ventures and start-ups as young entrepreneurs. It was a student-run conversation.

The afternoon continued with talks from other successful Philadelphia entrepreneurs and breakout workshops.

Mr. Gotama plans to make Philly Student Startup Summit 1.0 an annual event so young entrepreneurs can con-tinually connect, share ideas and build relationships within the growing tech and business community.

This article was originally pub-lished by Technical.ly Philly at TPhilly.com.

A panel of early stage Philadelphia startups, including Apu Gupta of Curalate, Jake Stein of RJ Metrics, Michael Raybould of Artisan, moderated by Technically Philly cofounder Christopher Wink.

ABHIROOP DAS/TECHNICAL.LY PHILLY


PHILLY TECH WEEK

Philly Tech Week Signature EventHead to the Navy Yard and URBN’s awe-inspiring headquarters for a tech expo masquerading as a cocktail soiree. Key points of interest: an open bar and robots! Plus, registrants for the evening event can tack on afternoon events at the Navy Yard for free. Afternoon talks covering Mobile, Marketing or Ecommerce Trends and Entrepreneurship & Investment in Philadelphia begin at noon.

When: April 26, 6-9 p.m.Where: Urban Outfitters Headquarters, 5000 S. Broad StreetCost: $30

Make & TossBrooklyn-born coworking space 3rd Ward will open in Kensington early this summer, but come out on April 27 for a preview.

When: April 27, 8 p.m.-midnightWhere: 3rd Ward, 1227 N. Fourth StreetCost: Free

Future of MusicTo close out the week, WXPN and Little Giant Media present an amazing lineup at Underground Arts to examine The Intersection of Music and Technology. The schedule includes DJ sets by Dave Pianka of Making Time and DJ Phsh, a one-hour Q&A with Ahmir ?uestlove Thompson, followed by additional presentations by digital groups and live performances by POW POW, Khari Mateen and Lush Life.

When: April 28, 5-9 p.m.Where: Underground Arts, 1200 Callowhill StreetCost: Free UWISHUNU.COM

Benjamin’s Desk continues to do its name-sake proud, joining the League of Extraordi-nary Coworking Spaces this month and con-tinuing to pump up its events calendar.

See, in their words, just what the Center City coworking space has in store for members (and non-members) leading into Summer 2013:

We have a lot of exciting things going on within our coworking space and community at Benjamin’s Desk.

We have just been accepted into LEXC, the League of Extraordinary Coworking Spaces, and are proud to be the first space in Philadel-phia to be part of the organization!

LEXC is the leading nationwide network of coworking spaces in North America. All mem-bers of Benjamin’s Desk will now be welcomed at the 23 innovative and exceptional cowork-ing spaces within the LEXC network includ-ing NextSpace, which has six locations in the San Francisco Bay Area and Los Angeles, and WorkBar with locations in Boston and Cam-bridge, Mass.

Being a part of LEXC adds a lot of value to our coworking community. We are happy to give our existing and future members the opportunity to work at any LEXC space across the country where they can have preferred access to reserve work and meeting space when visiting other cities using the online reserva-tion platform, LiquidSpace.

We are kicking o! Startup Grind Philadel-phia from 6 to 9 p.m. May 1. Startup Grind is a global organization with a mission to educate, inspire and connect during monthly program-ming consisting of one-on-one fireside inter-views with the city’s most influential entrepre-neurs, touting war stories of both successes and failures.

During the inaugural event, we will welcome Wayne Kimmel, a venture capital firm Artists and Instigators founder and managing partner — the firm that has invested in startups like Dwolla, Seamless, Indiegogo, ReverbNation, Zaarly and Nutrisystem, to name a few. (Tick-ets can be purchased at startupgrind.com/philadelphia/.)

Startup Grind Philadelphia events will be held at Benjamin’s Desk, 1701 Walnut Street, 7th Floor, on the first Wednesday of every month from 6 to 9 p.m.

June’s event will be June 5 with Gabe Wein-berg, CEO and founder of search engine, DuckDuckGo.

In Their Words: Benjamin’s Desk

Joins LEXC


Painting A New Career In A Decorative Industry

BY BRANDON BAKER

Rich Wilson of CertaPro Painters epito-mizes the Cinderella story.

A college kid of the ’80s, he enrolled in Dickinson College paying a tuition of $10,000 — a sum he could barely a!ord at the time — and continued trudging through academia even as tuition hiked to $17,000 in his senior year.

Aspiring to be a lawyer but unable to pay his tuition, he had two options in front of him: Join a fishing operation in Alaska, ala “Deadliest Catch,” or wield a paintbrush with CollegePro Painters. Not keen on the demands of fishing, he chose the latter.

Obviously, he never did become a lawyer.Mr. Wilson cites the entrepreneurial

spirit of the trade as what drew him away from law and into the world of residential and commercial painting, where he sits as president and minority owner of the largest franchised company in the paint-ing industry.

“CollegePro, they taught you how to paint and got you through the process, but [business] wasn’t guaranteed by any means,” Mr. Wilson said. “I managed to make $17,000 in my first year, as some people didn’t make anything, or actually lost money. Trying to make payroll as a 19-year-old was stressful, but I got very excited about being an entrepreneur and

being responsible for my own income.”Mr. Wilson joined CertaPro in 2003

after 10 years of work as a painter. Under Mr. Wilson’s leadership, the Oaks, Pa.-based company has not only come out of 2009’s recession with 2012 sales of $212 million. CertaPro currently employs 53 full-time workers, along with 340 fran-chisees who, Mr. Wilson said, employ between 5,500 and 6,000 other people.

Within the next five years, Mr. Wilson hopes to boost CertaPro’s sales numbers to $600 million. In the meantime, CertaPro is glued to the Philadelphia region.

“What’s great about the franchise model, is that it doesn’t matter where our home o"ce is,” Mr. Wilson said. “And, you know, I’m a huge Eagles fan. So I’m staying put.”

DIARY OF A STARTUP

TRYING TO MAKE PAYROLL AS A 19-YEAR-OLD WAS STRESSFUL, BUT I GOT VERY EXCITED ABOUT BEING AN ENTREPRENEUR AND BEING RESPONSIBLE FOR MY OWN INCOME.’

—RICH WILSON, CERTAPRO


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Reinventing Flattering Fitness Performance Wear

Business: DEVIGIFounder: Nadine Gelberg

Contact: [email protected]

BY BRANDON BAKER

Nearly two decades ago, Nadine Gel-berg went for a run on the beach and noticed those running with her looked

more frumpy than brawny. Puzzled, she looked at herself in the mir-

ror, doing a before-and-after glance-over, and noticed she looked much better wearing normal clothing than fitness wear. This moment gave birth to her January-launched fitness perfor-mance-wear company, DEVIGI.

“I knew I had to combine the idea [of normal clothing and fitness wear], and I knew there had to be a way to make more flattering fitness clothes for those who want to work out on a regu-lar basis,” Ms. Gelberg said.

DEVIGI — a name derived from the Esperanto

language that means “to compel” — uses bamboo fabric that drapes over the body without being too tight. And though Ms. Gelberg takes pride in the amount of research she put into developing the online-available clothing constructed with bamboo fabric, she’s not married to the idea of strictly using bamboo in future DEVIGI lines.

“The biggest challenge was finding the right fabrics. We had to evaluate the feel of the fabric, and put some research into the property,” Ms. Gelberg said. “And that’s still our biggest chal-lenge — we’re still looking at di!erent fabrics and how they perform.”

For the moment, Ms. Gelberg is focusing on further fabric research, building the DEVIGI brand and collecting advice from been-there, done-that businesspeople with experience in distribution.

Her long-term goal, she said, is to build the brand into something as recognizable as Under Armour.

“Our slogan is to reach for intensity. We don’t want you to ‘just do it,’ we want you to be com-pelled to pick up your workout.”


CAPITAL SEEKERS

SUBMITTED


10 Critical Steps To Improving As A LeaderThe best leaders are people who know how

to listen, can make a promise and deliver on that promise, and have stepped up to the plate and made the necessary investment to success-fully engage their employees. They motivate, inspire and energize people by connecting the organization’s vision, values, purpose and busi-ness goals to individual values and needs.

Here are some of the top actions for people seeking to improve their success as a leader:

1. Develop Your Vision. Make sure you have a vision with the purpose and values to make it real. State where you are going clearly. State your purpose simply.

2. Identify Your Leader Type. Knowing what type of leader you are helps you and others identify where, when and how to best behave and act to focus their energy to achieve the goals and objectives you set out for them.

3. Track Your Leadership Development Progress. Keep a leadership log to document what you do and what happens. Review what happens regularly. Reflect on what you are learning and how you are changing.

4. Recruit and Retain the Right People. Identify what makes individuals successful in your culture, and recruit for those skills. The culture will keep them loyal and happy, and exceed all expectations. Improve your inter-view and listening skills so you can hear what your employees are saying.

5. Engage, Empower and Enrich Your Employees. Invite employees to become part of your vision. Empower them to be a force of change and be enriched by your culture. Make your employees part of the solutions, by giving them a role and the responsibility for imple-menting solutions to major business issues.

6. Create a Work Environment that Fos-ters Creativity and Innovation. Go beyond simply improving the physical environment. Focus on how people feel to work there. Evaluate the energy when you walk the floors. Ensure the work environment fuels objectives.

7. Appreciate, Reward Your Employees. Develop and deploy a schedule that regularly and meaningfully rewards employees to create a culture of appreciation. Assess and improve

the way you reward people so that you are sen-sitive and responsive to the di!erences in age, education, maturity, and demographics.

8. Focus On the Things That Inspire Your People. Identify what inspires you and your employees. Do they need more education and training, more creative time and cross-training opportunities or wellness programs to promote less stress and better health, or a sabbatical? Develop and improve the key pro-grams that your people need to stay engaged and loyal.

9. Improve Most Important Things First. Identify the most significant of your short com-ings head-on. Identify what is impacting your own progress and what is holding you back. Then take action to get help, fix your problem, and improve your own performance.

10. Visualize the Future. Identify where you see yourself in 10, 20 or even 30 years. Describe the way you will balance your per-sonal life and that of your organization and its people. Document how you will build loyalty and trust with your leadership.

CONTRIBUTE


Dianne Durkin is author of the “The Loyalty Factor: Building Employee, Customer and Brand Loyalty.”


RegionsBusiness.com

Perspective. Online.

REGION’S BUSINESSA JOURNAL OF BUSINESS & POLITICS


TEXT BY MICHAEL JACOBS | ILLUSTRATION BY DON LEE

ennsylvania Supreme Court Justice Joan Orie Melvin’s downfall strengthened calls to change how the commonwealth chooses judges, but that e!ort is a long way from success.

Justice Orie Melvin was convicted in February of four felonies and two misdemeanors related to the use of state-paid o"ce sta!ers in her elec-tion campaigns, and she announced her resignation March 25, e!ective May 1.

“What she did only could have happened in a system in which we elect judges,” said Lynn Marks, the executive director of Pennsylvanians for Modern Courts. “I think the challenge then for people who are promoting changing the way we select judges is to help people connect the dots.”

For more than two decades Pennsylvanians for Modern Courts has advocated choosing judges through an appointive system called merit selection.

“Judges seeking statewide o"ce have very low voter recognition,” said Thomas Wilkinson Jr., a Philadelphia lawyer with Cozen O’Connor and the president of the Pennsylvania Bar Association, which has supported a switch to appointed appellate judges for more than 60 years. “Voters have no idea who they’re voting for or why.”

The commonwealth elects judges in parti-san elections. Judges who want to stay on the bench then stand in nonpartisan, yes-or-no retention elections every 10 years.

“It’s a totally partisan process for a posi-tion that should be nonpartisan,” Ms. Marks said. But unlike governors and legislators and other elected o"cials, “judges don’t have platforms or constituents. … It makes sense they would be selected di!erently.”

But Scott Cooper, a lawyer with Har-risburg firm Schmidt Kramer and the president of the Pennsylvania Asso-ciation for Justice, the state’s trial lawyers group, said campaign-ing is valuable because judges travel the commonwealth, meet people and see the diversity.

Appellate lawyer Dean Phillips of Blue

COURT REFORMPENNSYLVANIA’S LONG, COMPLICATED ROAD TO

P


The Pennsylvania Supreme Court has operated with only six justices for nearly a year, but deadlocked deci-sions have been rare so far.

“We’re down one justice, and it’s going to cause some serious problems for us being able to process our cases,” Chief Justice Ronald Castille said after Justice Joan Orie Melvin announced her resignation in March.

According to online court records, two cases decided since Republican Justice Orie Melvin was suspended May 18, 2012, have produced 3-3 rulings, thus leaving a lower court’s decision in place:

vs. the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. The state was appealing a Commonwealth Court decision on a tax resettlement order.

-sylvania vs. Patrick John Gehris, who was appealing a Superior Court ruling that he was subject to lifetime registration as a sex o!ender.

Neither case produced a partisan divide. In the All-state case, Republicans J. Michael Eakin and Justice Castille and Democrat Seamus McCa!ery backed the lower court, and Democrats Max Baer and Debra McCloskey Todd and Republican Thomas Saylor wanted to reverse it. In the Gehris case, Justices Todd, McCa!ery and Eakin were on the a"rmative side, and Justices Castille, Saylor and Baer preferred reversal.

The Supreme Court had five 3-3 decisions between the time Justice Orie Melvin joined the court in Janu-ary 2010 and her suspension after being charged with nine criminal counts related to using state-paid sta! to do campaign work. She was convicted of four felonies and two misdemeanors Feb. 21 and announced March 25 that she would resign May 1.

In four of the 3-3 cases — a Feb. 21, 2012, ruling finding a search warrant invalid; a Dec. 22, 2011, rul-ing allowing a mother’s emotional-distress lawsuit against Chester County Hospital and a radiologist; a

involving a fatal crash of a single-engine airplane; and an April 28, 2011, ruling on an appeal of a Geico motorcycle insurance case — Justice Orie Melvin recused herself.

The fifth case, in which Nationwide Mutual Insur-ance was suing former agents, was argued before she was elected, but the decision was issued Jan. 29, 2010. Before that case, the Supreme Court had four 3-3 deci-sions in nine years.

Still, the court has not filed rulings in all cases it has heard with only six justices, and judicial deadlock remains a worry with cases such as legislative redis-tricting, the statute of limitations in medical malprac-tice lawsuits and the mandatory judicial retirement

“Because it is important to lawyers and litigants

that the Supreme Court return to its full complement of seven justices when hearing cases as soon as pos-sible, it is the Pennsylvania Bar Association’s hope that Governor Corbett and the Pennsylvania Senate will act quickly on the appointment of a duly qualified interim justice,” PBA President Thomas Wilkinson Jr. said in a statement March 25. Mr. Wilkinson also had urged the Supreme Court last June to appoint its own interim justice.

Gov. Tom Corbett has 90 days after May 1 to submit a court nominee to the Senate, where confirmation requires a two-thirds vote, meaning at least some Democrats will have to join the Republican majority.

Mr. Corbett has said he will submit his nominee as soon as possible. A Corbett spokeswoman declined to discuss how he will pick the nominee, but Ron Ruman, the Department of State’s press secretary, said the governor may use any process he wants.

Mr. Ruman said the Senate will have 25 legislative days to act on the nomination. If Mr. Corbett doesn’t submit his pick well before the General Assembly takes its summer recess after passing a budget in June, the deadline for Senate action could be as late as December.

The interim justice will serve until January 2016, and the seat will be up for election in November 2015.

Interim justices usually do not run for election, but there’s no legal obstacle to doing so, Mr. Ruman said.

Split Decisions Rare ... So FarThe Pennsylvania Supreme Court chambers. PHOTO FROM FLICKR.COM/MAT_THE_W


Any nonemergency amendment to the Pennsylvania Con-stitution must go through the following steps, according to Article XI:

Senate.

which lawmakers voted yes and which voted no, in at least two newspapers in every county in the commonwealth three

which lawmakers voted yes and which voted no, in at least two newspapers in every county in the commonwealth three

The governor’s signature is not required, so he has no formal role in amending the state Constitution.

The process does give voters two chances to stop an amendment. If an amendment passes the General Assem-

the amendment and replace them with opponents of the

proposal. If the amendment passes the legislature twice, voters can say no themselves.

The procedure also forces proponents of an amendment

of educating new lawmakers and shoring up support for the second session.

“That’s why it’s drafted that way,” Rep. Bryan Cutler, R-Lancaster County, who is leading the merit selection

The result is that compared with some states, Pennsyl-

since 2003, when two amendments to criminal procedures passed, one getting 68 percent support, the other almost

The only measure that didn’t get at least a two-thirds

ment after the census; it passed with 60.7 percent of the votes.

Bell fi rm Elliott Greenleaf, a former Penn-sylvania Supreme Court law clerk, agreed. “My mentor, former Supreme Court Justice

ence to talk directly to and get to know and understand people from all 67 counties in the commonwealth.”

Merit selection for Pennsylvania’s Com-monwealth, Superior and Supreme courts

eliminate the initial partisan elections,

millions of dollars.

people have to cast votes, fundraising is the core concern.

Most of the money comes from lawyers and potential litigants, Ms. Marks said.

“You have many of the same people who

of the Quality Judges Initiative at the Insti-tute for the Advancement of the American Legal System in Colorado. That situation

she said.Sen. Anthony Williams, D-Philadelphia,

said the Orie Melvin case and other court controversies have “rattled the confi dence

amending the Pennsylvania Constitution to enact merit selection.

As proposed in Mr. Williams’ legisla-

of fi ve recommended candidates for each

of those names to the Senate, which would

would face a statewide retention election, with future retention elections every 10 years.

Supporters of merit selection note its

recommendations to U.S. senators, who

For Mr. Cooper, those parallels are not positive.

“It’s a whole political mechanism,” he

ing up votes and trading appointments and nominations happens in the dark.

with vacancies. The U.S. District Courts

43 seats, according to the Federal Judicial

Here’s What Needs To Happen For Court Reform

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court chambers.PHOTO FROM FLICKR.COM/MAT_THE_W


The mandatory retirement age for Pennsyl-vania judges faces attack on multiple fronts, creating the possibility of changing the court system while the judicial selection process remains under debate.

The House Judiciary Committee held a hearing April 18 on legislation to amend the state constitution to raise the retirement age from 70 to 75.

A member of that committee, Rep. Bryan Cutler, R-Lancaster County, said the testimo-ny generally favored the legislation, although he’s not sure the commonwealth would gain much with the change.

Retired judges can hear cases on a reduced docket as senior judges, more than 100 of whom are serving with the Common Pleas Courts, said Philadelphia lawyer Thomas Wilkinson Jr., the president of the Pennsyl-vania Bar Association.

He testifi ed before the Judiciary Commit-tee but said the bar has not yet taken a posi-tion on the retirement age.

On the positive side, the change would refl ect increases in life expectancy in the past 45 years and be similar to the federal courts, where judges often serve well past age 70, Mr. Wilkinson said. Plus, “we want to retain good judges with experience and wisdom.”

On the downside, he said, “we don’t have a performance assessment system for judges as they age.”

Because the legislation is a constitutional amendment, it must pass in two consecutive General Assembly sessions, then go to the voters, which couldn’t happen before 2015.

Pennsylvania voters already are facing the election of two new Supreme Court justices that year.

The seat being vacated by convicted Jus-tice Joan Orie Melvin will be on the ballot in November 2015 because the interim justice’s term will end in January 2016.

In addition, if Chief Justice Ronald Cas-tille wins retention this fall, he will have to retire at the end of 2014 because he turns 70 in March. A constitutional amendment enacted in 2003 gives him the extra nine months; previously, a judge had to retire on his 70th birthday.

Whoever is governor in 2015 would be able to appoint an interim justice for a year, and the voters would select the permanent replacement that November.

All of that assumes mandatory retirement survives two court challenges.

In the fi rst, six judges led by Senior Judge Benjamin Lerner of Philadelphia are suing in U.S. District Court to topple the retirement age as a violation of their 14th Amendment rights. The named defendants start with Gov. Tom Corbett.

Federal Judge John E. Jones III has stayed that case for 90 days because the Pennsyl-vania Supreme Court has agreed in May to hear a similar lawsuit brought by Montgom-ery County Judge Arthur Tilson against the same commonwealth defendants.

Judge Tilson argues that the constitution-ally mandated retirement age itself violates the Pennsylvania Constitution’s equal-rights guarantees.

The Tilson case has personal repercussions for the justices who will hear it. In addition to Justice Castille, the 70th birthday will come in 2016 for Justice Thomas Saylor, 2017 for Justice Max Baer, 2018 for Justice J. Michael Eakin and 2020 for Justice Seamus McCaf-fery. Justice Debra McCloskey Todd has until 2027.

Mandatory Retirement Age Comes Under Scrutiny

I THINK IT’S IMPORTANT THAT I STAY. NOT ME PERSONALLY, BUT BECAUSE OF THE EXPERIENCE THAT I HAVE’—RON CASTILLE, CHIEF JUSTICE OF

PENNSYLVANIA’S SUPREME COURT,

ON ABC27.COM

Center. The White House has made nominations for three of those openings, one of which is almost 4 years old.

“Hopefully, it would move more quickly than the federal system,” Mr. Wilkinson said.

Both Mr. Cooper and Rep. Bryan Cutler, R-Lancaster County, who introduced last year’s House merit selection legislation and plans to do so again this year, said the details of the proposed system are crucial.

As presented in Mr. Williams’ legislation, the governor would select two lawyers and two non-lawyers from four di! erent coun-ties for the 15-member Appellate Court Nominating Commission, and the speaker of the House, the House minority leader, the Senate president pro tem and the Senate minority leader each would pick one nonjudge lawyer from a di! er-ent county.

The General Assembly would enact a process to pick the other seven commission members, meant to include lawyers and non-lawyers representing various public groups.

Uncertainty about how to choose those members has opened merit selection to criticism. The Quality Judges Initiative advocates fi xing the commission selection process in the state constitution to avoid politics.

But Mr. Cutler said the consti-tution should avoid specifi cs that could become outdated, and he will introduce a companion statute to spell out those specifi cs. “The details are best left to legislation so they can be updated a little more regularly.”

One of Mr. Cooper’s problems with the commission would be part of the constitution under S.B. 298. The legislation says that if the Senate rejects three nominees for a judicial opening, the commission picks one of the two remaining names to fi ll the position without further action from the governor or Senate.

Such are the details bedeviling Mr. Cutler’s e! orts in the House. He hasn’t presented his new legis-lation because he’s trying to resolve the issues that stopped last session’s H.B. 1815 on a 13-12 vote in the Judiciary Committee.

“General concerns of simply

moving political venues from elec-tions to Capitol politics” contrib-uted to the tabling of that bill, Mr. Cutler said. Opposition came from groups as di! erent as the Pennsyl-vania Pro-Life Federation and Mr. Cooper’s trial lawyers group.

“You’re going to replace one political system with another, and it’s no better and potentially worse,” Mr. Cooper said.

The fact that the legislation addresses only appellate courts and leaves intact elections for the Common Pleas Court is itself an example of a compromise to broaden support, Mr. Cutler said.

“I think Common Pleas is an election where voters do have the time and ability to do a lot of research on the candidates,” he said, so it makes sense not to change that system. If the appellate courts get merit selection and the public likes it, the legislature could revisit the local court elections.

Mr. Cooper, however, said voters can make the same judgment for statewide judicial candidates that they make for local courts. After all, he said, most of the people running for appellate courts are moving up from the local courts.

Those local courts also are a pipe-line to the federal bench. According to the Federal Judicial Center, 37 active judges and 25 senior judges hear cases in U.S. District Court in Pennsylvania, and 14 of the active judges and 17 of the senior judges — 31 of 62 overall — previously served as common pleas judges.

“It is signifi cant that half of the U.S. District Court judges in Penn-sylvania were previously Pennsylva-nia Common Pleas Court judges,” Mr. Phillips said. “The Pennsyl-vania appellate bench includes many high-quality jurists who exercise appropriate restraint and do not allow personal and political factors to dominate their decisions.

“I have handled cases in the Pennsylvania state and federal courts for 30 years, and I am con-fi dent in saying our elected state appellate judges on the whole are as good as our selected judges in the federal system. It is speculative whether we would get a better-quality appellate bench or less political judges if the selection of judges was left to the governor and the General Assembly.”


Party a!liation isn’t the only 3-3 divide left on the Pennsyl-vania Supreme Court after the resignation of Justice Joan Orie Melvin. There’s also an even divide between those who have law degrees from the University of Virginia and those who don’t.

Chief Justice Ronald Castille and Justices Thomas Saylor and Debra McCloskey Todd have degrees from the flagship law school of that other common-wealth. Justice Castille got his J.D. from Virginia, while Justices Say-lor and Todd got master’s degrees in 2004 from the law school’s LL.M. program.

They are among 36 judges across the country who sit on states’ highest courts, the Uni-versity of Virginia said. Three U.S. District Court judges in Pennsylvania, William Standish (J.D.), Arthur Schwab (J.D.) and Richard Barclay Surrick (LL.M.), also have Virginia law degrees.

A big reason for the heavy Virginia presence on the nation’s courts is the Graduate Program for Judges the law school oper-ated from 1980 to 2006.

It brought in select classes of 30 “judges on the way up” to spend two summers in Charlottesville to update and deepen their knowl-edge of legal history and econom-ics and social sciences in the law and to learn from one another, said Virginia law professor George Rutherglen, who taught in the program and directed it from 1995 to 2001.

Mr. Rutherglen was not involved when Justices Saylor and Todd participated in 2003 and 2004, but he said any judge who attended showed great moti-vation, intellectual curiosity and dedication to the judicial craft.

“It shows there’s someone who’s a judge who’s willing to learn,” he said. “Everyone came with an open mind. It’s a great plus for a judge.”

He said the participating judges came from federal and state courts at all levels across the country, some elected and some appointed, ranging from conser-vative to liberal. Justice Saylor, a Republican, was on the Supreme Court, while Justice Todd, a Dem-ocrat, was a Superior Court judge when they attended.

“I don’t think any judge who came through the program radically changed their view,” Mr. Rutherglen said. But the judges saw a broader range of legal argu-ments so they didn’t take their own positions for granted.

“We appreciated all the judges who came here from all the states,” Mr. Rutherglen said, add-ing that the law school is happy to see its graduates on the Pennsyl-vania Supreme Court.

Pennsylvania universities natu-rally have a strong presence on the high court as well.

Justices Castille and Saylor are the only members who didn’t get their undergraduate and initial law degrees within Pennsylvania. Justice Castille graduated from Auburn before getting his Virgin-ia law degree, and Justice Saylor earned his bachelor’s from Vir-ginia and his J.D. from Columbia.

The academics for the others:-

graduate and Pittsburgh law.

Franklin & Marshall undergradu-ate and Dickinson law.

undergraduate and Duquesne law.

LaSalle undergraduate and Pitts-burgh law.

As for Justice Orie Melvin, she got a bachelor’s from Notre Dame and a law degree from Duquesne. A sentencing hearing May 7 will determine whether she furthers her education in a di"erent kind of state institution.

Ms. Marks said merit selection would improve quality by widening the candidate pool. Under the current system, she said, many top-flight law-yers don’t seek judgeships because they can’t raise the money or don’t have the political connections.

But the actual quality of the judges isn’t the problem, Mr. Wilkinson said. “Most of the time, it’s just a matter of perception. … Pennsylvania has hundreds of fair, impartial judges, all elected.”

A 2010 Public Opinion Strategies poll com-missioned by Pennsylvanians for Modern Courts backs up Mr. Wilkinson’s opinion that campaign contributions “create at least a perception of unfairness.” Of the 500 people polled, 76 percent said campaign contributions influence judges’ decisions.

“The hope is to begin to have a much more public conversation about the people we put on the bench,” Mr. Williams said.

The basic premise of the merit selection leg-islation won’t change, Mr. Cutler said, but the makeup and operation of the selection commit-

said none of the governor’s appointees could be lawyers; Mr. Williams’ bill calls for two of them to be members of the bar.

Discussions continue about the changes neces-sary to move the bill, Mr. Cutler said, as do e"orts to rebuild a bipartisan group of lawmakers to work on passage. He said the 2012 elections removed supporters and opponents from the House.

“Every session is a clean canvas,” he said. “I haven’t picked an issue yet where I got through on one term.”

That clean canvas makes the entire constitu-tional amendment process more di!cult. If both legislative houses pass the same bill this session, they’ll have to repeat the process in the 2015-16 session, after voters have a chance to reward or punish lawmakers in the 2014 elections.

Pennsylvanians for Modern Courts is working with Mr. Williams and Mr. Cutler “to develop a proposal that is good public policy and appeals to the most people,” Ms. Marks said. “Regardless of what changes are made, the overall concept is the same: Get judges out of the campaigning and fundraising business and focus on qualifications.”

Chief Justice Ronald Castille supported that goal in an interview with Harrisburg’s WHTM-TV in March. “You’re just like a regular politi-cian when you’re running. You get funding. You get support. You know, you go on TV. Let’s say that doesn’t seem like a real good way to pick a Supreme Court justice.”

Merit selection for appellate judges also has the support of Gov. Tom Corbett, spokeswoman Janet Kelley said. “We are a long way from decid-ing how that will be accomplished, but the gover-nor looks forward to working with the legislature on this important issue.”

Mr. Wilkinson is prepared to testify if the leg-islation comes up for hearings, but it’s not the bar association’s priority. “It’s a long road, and there-

fore we really can’t devote a lot of resources to it on a day-to-day basis. It’s a perennial issue.”

Mr. Williams said the Senate Judiciary Com-mittee hasn’t scheduled any activity on his bill, and he is focused more on other legislation, espe-cially education issues.

The bill might come up in the fall, but as for its chances in the Senate, Mr. Williams said, “it’s too early for me to tell.”

In the House, Mr. Cutler is trying to keep the momentum going until the House Judiciary Committee takes up the issue again, which he

the language to get the necessary votes.”Mr. Cooper is doubtful. “I don’t think it would

pass in the foreseeable future in either chamber, if it even came to a vote. It probably won’t even come to a vote.”

If the legislation gets through the General Assembly once, it will face some new legislators when it comes up for its second approval. But Mr. Cutler said the second time probably will be easier.

Second approval from the legislature would put the issue in the hands of voters.

The 2010 Public Opinion Strategies poll found that 73 percent don’t believe that the best candi-dates win judicial elections and that 62 percent want to switch to merit selection.

“The polling data clearly indicate there’s a desire to move in a di"erent direction,” Mr. Wil-liams said, so he thinks the constitutional amend-ment would win if it reached the voters.

Still, he understands the opposition. “There are people who feel like they always want to have the right to vote for judge.”

Even if a ballot measure failed, the e"ort would be worthwhile for generating discussion on how to reform the courts, Mr. Williams said. “My concern is not enough of a constituent focus on judicial elections.”

Mr. Phillips, however, wishes reformers focused more on the quantity of judges. He said the Supe-rior Court is one of the busiest appellate courts in the country, with 7,807 new appeals last year and 5,815 appeals pending as of Jan. 1, 2013. “This is an impossible workload for 15 commissioned judges and a handful of senior judges.”

Another form of court reform could come to the mandatory retirement age, which forces judges to retire at the end of the year in which they turn 70. Proposed legislation would amend the constitution to raise the age to 75, and two court cases would throw out the retirement age.

Regardless of any changes, the system won’t be corruption-proof.

“Whether judges are elected or selected,” Mr. Phillips said, “we need to have e"ective judicial supervision and oversight, and the Judicial Conduct Board and Court of Judicial Conduct must make it their highest priority to deal with the infrequent but highly damaging situations where judicial ethics have been seriously com-promised.”

Virginia Supplies Strong Influence on Supreme Court


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REAL ESTATE

Delicate Demolition at 22nd and Market

BY ALEX RUDINSKI

It was reported back in March that several build-ings along Market Street, including the infamous Forum Theater, were facing the wrecking ball.

That ball got rolling quickly on the Forum, which was leveled in less than two weeks, but crews are taking a more delicate approach on one of the other structures.

Last week, workers at the site were dismantling the elegant façade of the gutted two-story commer-cial building at 2134 Market Street piece by piece, the better to preserve its noteworthy architectural flourishes.

Using small saws and practiced movements, the workers were cutting the stonework between the first and second story into small pieces when this reporter stopped by.

The building had some very intricate, old stone work, which clashed markedly with the building’s latest use as an adult film emporium.

Steve Shellenberger, the owner of Architectural Antiques, is the man running the crew deconstruct-ing the façade, and he said the whole building is going to be carefully disassembled and stored in a warehouse.

Mr. Shellenberger will then sell the package of architecture to another buyer, like a developer or decorator who’s looking for something unique.

Considering the visual continuity of the façade, it’s likely to stay together rather than be parceled out. As such, the historic legacy and appealing architecture will be preserved and made useful again, even as its old, somewhat seedy home is leveled.

This article was originally published on the Philadelphia Real Estate Blog at PhiladelphiaR-ealEstate.com.

PHILADELPHIA REAL ESTATE BLOG

AWARDS

ACE Program Honors PIDC, Navy YardOn May 29, The ACE Mentor Program of Eastern Pennsylvania will host members of the architecture, engineering, and construction communities for an annual breakfast to recognize industry leaders and give out scholarships for regional high school students.The ACE Mentor Program of Eastern Pennsylvania is known for its engagement of high school students to consider careers in the design and construction fields through mentoring, scholarships, and grants. The annual Philadelphia scholarship breakfast brings together more than 400 members of the design and construction community, who join the ACE Mentor Program board of directors and mentor volunteers to celebrate the completion of the academic year’s projects and honor regional industry leaders and student participants.

Time: 7:30 a.m.Date: Wednesday, May 29Place: Crystal Tea Room in the Wanamaker Building

2013 Honorees:

Community Leader of the Year:John Grady, President, Philadelphia Industrial Development Corporation

Project of the Year:GlaxoSmithKline, Five Crescent Drive, Navy Yard

Lifetime Achievement Award (posthumous):Gerald M. Cope, FAIA, RIBA, Founding Partner, Cope Linder Architects

PHILADELPHIA REAL ESTATE BLOG


SUNNYBOB CARUSO’S

The president of Sesame Place, Bucks County’s most popular tourist attraction, juggles a large seasonal workforce and an evolving marketing strategy along with the impact of our sluggish economy, all done with oneeye on the weather forecast.

DAYS

A&Q

@SesamePlace SesamePlace.com SesamePlace 866.GO.4.ELMO866.464.3566

What’s the elevator pitch for Sesame Place?We’re a children’s theme park soley based on the

Sesame Street characters and the only one in the world based on the Sesame Street characters.

Can you talk a little about having that unique selling proposition?

It’s the prominent feature about the marketing of this particular park and I think any successful theme park or entity, it’s really about branding. And, certainly, the Sesame Street brand is iconic, it’s cherished.

You’re the number one tourist destination in Bucks County, but Bucks County has changed alot over the past 10 or 20 years, so there’s more competition for dollars. Is it a benefi t to be in an area that’s growing so fast?

I think it’s a benefi t, certainly. I’ve lived in Bucks County for about 25 years and I’ve seen tremendous growth. It’s brought a lot more people, which means a lot more potential guests to come to the park.

How wide of net do you cast for guests?Well, we only advertise, as far as radio and tele-

vision, in the Philadelphia market and the New York market. Those are our two primary markets and about 80% of our guests come from those two markets and it’s pretty evenly split, actually between the two. We also draw people from New England -

Boston, Connecticut, Rhode Island, that’s another market for us, and certainly, Washington, D.C. and Baltimore and that’s about as far as we reach, north and south ... about 25% of the nation’s population is within a fi ve-hour ride to Sesame Place.

Can you talk a little about having a largely seasonal workforce? Much like the Shore, you do most of your business in the summer months.

We call it The Zone, that time period basically between Memorial Day and Labor Day is basically the time when you have the crush of visitors and certainly the majority of your revenue, there’s no doubt about it. But where we’ve been able to grow revenue is actually on those “shoulder seasons” [i.e. events during Halloween and Christmas]. That’s where we’ve seen some growth. ...

[Back to the seasonal workforce] You don’t want them to come here and not think they aren’t part of a team. You want to make sure from Day 1, when they are going through the interview process and the orientation process and department training, that they feel like they are part of this team. And that they have a big impact on the success of the operation and we try to drive that home.

Your park is somewhat restricted geographi-cally. How does that effect your efforts to increase revenue?

I’d go back to the “shoulder season” strategy, we certainly look at that. Another option is ... we’ve been taking out some of the original attractions that are somewhat dated now. When the park orginally opened, it wasn’t well-themed or even character-driven. In fact, we didn’t have characters here until 1983 and the park opened in 1980. So each year when we look at the park and say, “where can we go?” we look at the park and say “what’s original? How much is it used? Is it meeting the guardrails that we have?” And if it’s not, we focus on maybe replacing that with something that’s more heavily themed or more closely related to what the show is doing today.

The weather has to play a big part in your busi-ness. Do you watch the forecast and say, “please give us a clear, dry weekend?”

I watch every forecast, it drives my wife crazy and she says, “stop looking at the weather forecast!” Of course, I have every weather app on my iPhone. So, yes, you could have the greatest facilitiy, a brand-new attraction, market the heck out of it and if you had a bad weather year, you’re not going to have a good year. It’s pretty critical, especially with a short season. You feel like you’re a farmer sometimes. The year-round facilities have all year, but we’re open about 154 days, so it’s a bit more challenging.

REGION’S BUSINESS STAFF

Among the positions that Philadelphia voters will vote for

on May 21 are candidates for nine open seats on Common Pleas Court and Municipal Court.

How are you going to vote?

Regrettably, voters are often overwhelmed at the polls and usually have very little information on which to base their decisions about judicial candidates. As a result, they often make choices that are based on arbitrary factors.

Yet, the decision of voters is very important because of the role judges play in our justice system. Judges make rulings that can compel indi-viduals, companies and pub-lic agencies to take certain actions. Judges can review and overrule the decisions of other elected o! cials, halt strikes, and impose checks and balances to protect our freedoms as citizens. In fact, there is hardly an issue of importance to everyday life that doesn’t land in front of a judge at one time or another.

But voters can make an informed choice by electing candidates who have been found “Recommended” by the Philadelphia Bar Association.

The Philadelphia Bar Association’s independent, non-partisan 30-member Commission on Judicial Selection and Retention, and its 120-member investiga-tive division, complete an exhaustive study and investigation of each of the judicial candidates. The Commission spends countless hours reviewing the candidates’ backgrounds and experience before reach-ing conclusions about which candidates are qualifi ed to be judges.

Among the members of the Commission are community leaders, o! cials including the Chief Public Defender, City Solicitor, and the President Judges of Common Pleas

Court and Municipal Court, and representa-tives of minority legal groups and practice groups. The Judicial Commission has numerous women and diverse members and is comprised of lawyers and non-lawyers alike – representing a wide cross-section of viewpoints from the Bar and the community, providing invaluable input into the Commission’s ratings.

The investigative division represents the eyes and ears of the Judicial Commission. Investigative division members interview judicial candidates as well as lawyers, judges and others who are knowledgeable about the candidates. Additional time is also spent reviewing writing samples and other factors that bear on a candidate’s qualifi ca-tions. Candidates are also given in-person

interviews before the full Commission.

This is an enormous undertaking involv-ing many hundreds of interviews by the investigative division and careful review, consideration and deliberation by the Commission.

Candidates are evaluated based on qualifi cations including legal ability, experience, integrity, temperament, commu-nity involvement and judgment. Complete details can be found at philadelphiabar.org.

This prescription for good judges may sound like a tall order. These are high ideals. But, in seeking a top-fl ight judiciary, shouldn’t our aspirations be high? To be sure, few things are more important than justice itself and, with-out good judges, justice truly cannot exist.

The Judicial Com-mission is the only non-partisan body that evaluates the candi-dates this way – in a fair,

thorough, objective and unbiased manner. Moreover, the Commission is clear and

concise in its ratings. It fi nds judicial candidates either “Recommended” or “Not Recommended” for election.

Without these ratings, voters would have no objective guidance at all.

Every voter should be thinking about the kind of judges that we need. That’s why it makes sense for every voter to pay attention to the Judicial Commission’s ratings. Voters can visit the Philadelphia Bar Association’s website at philadelphiabar.org to print the Judicial Commission’s list of “Recommend-ed” and “Not Recommended” candidates.

Nothing less than the quality and inde-pendence of the judiciary is at stake.


Kathleen D. Wilkinson, Esq., a partner at Wilson Elser Moskowitz Edelman & Dicker LLP, is Chancellor of the 13,000-member Philadelphia Bar Association.Send E-mail to:[email protected].

CONTRIBUTE

Send comments, letters and essays to [email protected]. Opinions expressed byguest writers do not necessarily reflect thoseof Region’s Business.

Bar Association Works to Educate Voters on Candidates

© JSTUDIO

Regrettably, voters are oftenoverwhelmed at the polls andusually have very little information on which to base their decisions about judicial candidates.

OPINION


Red Tape Obscures Need for Judicial Selection ReformPennslyvania’s system

for selectiong judges at the highest level is the

800-pound gorilla in the com-monwealth. Everyone knows that the system is bad and needs to be fi xed, but there appears to be little chance of that actually happening.

The system for placing and retaining judges on the state Sur-peme Court and Commonwealth Court was set up with the best of intentions. Instead of allowing partisan politics to pollute an executive nomination process and a legislative approval process, the task would fall to the voters, who could select the top judges in nonpartisan elections.

And instead of jobs for life, those judges that earned a seat on the bench were put up for a simple Yes/No retention vote every 10 years.

The premise is a solid one with an altruistic core: Keep partisan politics out of the judiciary system, especially at the highest levels.

Like so many well-intention e! orts, this one has failed and failed miserably.

Partisan politics are not only a part of the judiciary selection process, they dominate it. But not in the overt, in-your-face manner that voters see in legislative and executive branch elections.

The system is riddled with problems, but there are two that are most obvious.

First, these elections generate little voter interest. Candidates are restricted on what they can reveal

about themselves, so voters go into the booth rather blindly.

This leads to the second problem. Since the vote essen-tially hinges on name recognition, candidates must raise millions to build their recognition with voters. To do that, they take contributions from people, businesses and lobby-ists that will likely fi nd themselves in front of the bench.

In essence, the system is rigged toward creating a confl ict of interest.

Despite the blatant and detrimental fl aws built into the system and despite the loud cries for reform, which increased in the wake of the conviction of Supreme Court Justice Joan Orie Melvin, there seems little chance of change.

It should be simple, but it is not. The steps necessary to enact a signifi cant and meaningful change in the judicial selection process are numerous, cumbersome and draconian. It would take years of sustained political persistence to give reform even a slight chance of success and once those steps are broken down, it is easy to see why calls for reform will go unanswered.

With all the high-profi le priorities facing the state - a wob-bly economy, a looming pension crisis and the privatization of liquor sales, the lottery and the turnpike, room needs to be made on the agenda for judicial selection reform and the long, arduous road it will take to accomplish that.

REGION’S BUSINESSA JOURNAL OF BUSINESS AND POLITICS

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BLUE BELL, PA 19422610.572.7112 | WWW.REGIONSBUSINESS.COM

EDITORIAL BOARD

CEO and President James D. McDonaldEditorial Director Karl SmithAssociate Editor Terrence Casey

HOW TO CONTRIBUTE

To contribute, send comments, letters and essays to [email protected]. Opinions expressed by guest writers do not necessarily reflect those of Region’s Business. We reserve the right to edit all submissions for content, style and length.

Infrastructure Funding Takes Unfair Approach I had no doubt, when the plan was announced on how Pennsylvania would pay for our infrastructure, that the burden would fall on those of us who can least afford it. And that is exactly what the plan consisted of. We will pay more for our gas at the pumps, and we would see increases in our vehicle registration fees and drivers’ licenses fees.

JACKIE WILSON ON PENNLIVE.COM, 22 APRIL, 2013

Public Works Can Help Stimulate Our EconomyOne way to build jobs is to funnel money into public works. Roads and bridges need work. When I was 15, I was in the U.S. Youth Conservation Corps. We took care of parks and median strips.

More of this kind of spending gives youth purchasing power, bolstering small businesses. It got youth outside and out of trouble. We need to support programs like the Civilian Conservation Corps and the Youth Conservation Corps.

GRANT STEVENSON ON MCALL.COM, 20 APRIL, 2013

Government Protections: More Harm Than Good... unlike Wall Street bankers, none could confiscate a trillion of your dollars and give them to their cronies. Believe me: If Al Gore could have done that, he would have.

Politicians accuse those of us who advocate limited government of being heartless when we say that government should not protect us against loss. But government efforts to “protect” us create a moral hazard that just makes our problems bigger over time.Politicians say, “Yes, we can!” But don’t be fooled: “No, They Can’t.”

JOHN STOSSEL ON FOXNEWS.COM, 10 APRIL 2013

COMMENTARY FROM ACROSS THE WEB

@GovernorCorbettOn #pabudget “Weneed #pensionreform sowe can increase fundingto education in the future”@DomShow121022 APRIL 2013

OPINION


BY THE NUMBERS

1Number of women who have been featured on a

U.S. currency note. Martha Washington was featured

on the $1 Silver Certificate in 1886, although other women

have appeared in artwork on currency.

4,578Metric tons of gold held in Fort Knox. The New York Fed has a larger stash,

some 7,000 metric tons.

55%Percent of the nation’s poor

who live in the suburbs.

53%Percent increase in the

number of suburban poor since 2000.

109%Percent increase in the

amount spent by Americans annually on gas since 2000.

709%Increase in the American prison population since

1980.

38.6%Increase in the American

population since 1980.

1980Year Sesame Place opened in

Bucks County.

1,700Number of seasonal workers employed by Sesame Place

annually.

55Acres used for Sesame

Place.

15Acres in the footprint for

Lincoln Financial Field, home of the Philadelphia Eagles.

1,000,000Number of visitors to Sesame

Place annually. It is the largest tourist attraction in

Bucks County.

553,152Number of attendees to

regular season Philadelphia Eagles games in 2012. PHOTO BY R. KENNEDY FOR GPTMC

1904Year Richard Blechynden introduced iced tea at the Worlds Fair in St. Louis.

1908Year Thomas Sullivan

introduced the first tea bag.

1915Year Thomas Lipton

incorporates the Lipton Tea Co.

65Billions of servings of tea consumed by Americans

in 2010.

3.4Number of cups of coffee consumed by the average American coffee drinker

daily.

90%Percentage of tea

consumed by Americans that is black tea. There

are 1,500 varieties of tea found around the world,

85%Percentage of tea

consumed by Americans that’s iced tea.

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Region's Business 25 April 2013

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