Murtha's Widow Urged to Run for Husband's Seat

USA Today

Joyce Murtha for Congress?

The Pennsylvania papers are reporting that the widow of Rep. John Murtha is being urged to run in the May special election to fill the remainder of her husband's term. The 77-year-old Democrat died a week ago of complications from gall bladder surgery.

Murtha spokesman Matthew Mazonkey told the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review: "While people have been mindful that this is a difficult time for the family, many have called to suggest Joyce as the perfect person to hold her husband's seat."

One possible candidate, former state treasurer Barbara Hafer, said she would support Murtha's widow.

"She would be a tremendous choice," Hafer told the Tribune-Review. "She is a wonderful woman, an excellent speaker. If that is what she wants to do, I would heartily concur."

Murtha will be laid to rest tomorrow at Grandview Cemetery in Johnstown, Pa. Former president Bill Clinton, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and Defense Secretary Robert Gates will be among those attending the funeral services, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported today. The White House will be represented by White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel.

About 1,200 mourners paid their respects Sunday at a funeral home in Westmont, Pa., the Post-Gazette reported. Among them were Ohio Democratic Reps. Zack Space and Charlie Wilson, and Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell.

Rendell -- who also served two terms as mayor of Philadelphia -- called Murtha "the best ally I ever had" in Washington.

"No one is irreplaceable, but he was the most impactful political figure in Pennsylvania for the last 50 years," Rendell told the Post-Gazette.

The Post-Gazette said Joyce Murtha "had no comment on politics Sunday as she concentrated on greeting the hundreds paying their respects to her husband."

Another Winter Storm Hits Philly

KDKA News

PHILADELPHIA (AP) ― Air travelers are being forced to make other plans with nearly all flights canceled at Philadelphia International Airport due to snow and ice.

The National Weather Service issued a blizzard warning for Philadelphia and its suburbs for all day Wednesday, as another 10 inches or more of blowing snow is possible.

Some detoured air travelers are flocking to Amtrak trains at Philadelphia's 30th Street Station.

Forty-year-old New Hampshire resident Scott Collins had been in the city for a sales meeting.

His flight back to Manchester on Wednesday night was canceled, so he was waiting for a train to Boston instead. He says he'll have to rent a car once he gets there and drive home.

Virtually all flights at the airport have been canceled through Thursday morning.

29th Annual Philadelphia Home Show Preview

philly 2 philly

Got the Winter Blues and looking to spruce up the bathroom, redo the kitchen like you've always wanted, or maybe even venture into green technology at the house?

If so, the 29th Annual Philadelphia Home Show is the perfect place to find answers, advice and fresh ideas.

The show, which starts Saturday and runs though Jan. 24, will be held at the Pennsylvania Convention Center  and is a great place to find out what's new in home decor, remodeling trends and more.

Over 500 experts in fields related to inside and outside of the home will be on hand to offer information and more than a thousand examples of the latest products will be shown including everything from pools and spas, greenhouses, fencing and landscaping, to window treatments, interior design, antiques and carpeting.

"More so than any year before, the 2010 Show offers a variety of design experts, giving Philadelphians access to virtually every element of home design," said Alyson Caplan, show manager of the Philadelphia Home Show for Marketplace Events. "Here you have access to all you need for any home improvement project and the expert knowledge you can't find anywhere else."

The annual show is one of 27 consumer home shows, Marketplace Events puts on throughout North America, which attracts a total of 14,000 exhibitors and one million attendees in all.

This year's event will feature some of the stars seen on the popular home makeover shows including Philadelphia-born Paul DiMeo of "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition" and John Gidding of HGTV's "Designed to Sell" and "Curb Appeal."

DiMeo will be kicking off the nine-day exhibit on Saturday from 10a.m. to 3 p.m. Not only will he be available to offer money-saving tips for home and bathroom remodeling in Pennsylvania, but he'll be sharing some behind-the-scenes details of the popular show during afternoon sessions.

Another special guest, and one who works with fashion of the body more than fashion of the home, is Christopher Straub of Lifetime's “Project Runway” who appeared in season six of the show. Straub will be at the Home Show on Jan. 22 from noon to 4 p.m. to offer ways to incorporate fashion into home decorations.

And Gidding, who has experience in both architecture and urban design, will be making two appearances toward the end of the event, on Jan. 23 and Jan. 24.

Another highlight this year, includes the Designer Rooms set-up, where attendees can walk through and be inspired by staged rooms to see how some of the city's media personalities would decorate their homes as they team up with Pennsylvania home remodeling experts.

For example, 6 ABC's Jamie Apody  will have an eco-friendly living room to explore, while Comcast Sportsnet worked with Klazmer-Eiseman Interiors to design a room that the Philly sports fans will love.

Keeping up with the growing trend of "Going Green" a special area of the exhibit will be The Green Zone where some of the latest eco-friendly products from local companies will be featured.

The Marketplace is a new section this year -- an area in which shoppers can find products for the home at good prices.

Every day of the Home Show will be filled with seminars to help bring inspiration and innovation into the home. Starting this weekend, some of the sessions include how to harvest rainwater for the garden, getting started on kitchen remodeling, and lessons on furniture restoration.

Aside from samples of cabinets and floor tiles, there's also some tasty treats from local vendors. Tony Luke Jr. will be showing how to prepare his cheesesteaks on Tuesday, and Chaddsford Winery will be offering samples on Wednesday and Thursday.

Admission for adults is $12 or $9 when purchased online. Tickets for kids ages 6 to 12 are $3 and those 5 and under are free.

The World Meets In . . . Pittsburgh

From eTaiwan News

When leaders from the Group of 20 nations met in Pittsburgh on Thursday, they found a city that has resurrected itself.

From the roof of the city's convention center - one of the G-20 venues - the dignitaries look out on the Allegheny River and perhaps see kayakers on a waterway that used to be a dumping ground for industry. And if the visitors are able to walk the streets, they might hear jazz or Mozart - without a smoke-belching stack in sight.

Yes, even though the football team is called the Steelers, city officials want the world to know that steel is no longer Pittsburgh's raison d'etre. The city with a sooty past is now exporting its medical technology. In rivers where waste used to abound, bass tournaments are now held.

Even as the United States struggles to exit the recession, the city boasts it has 25,000 unfilled jobs.

"People hear 'Pittsburgh,' and they think an older town; they think a dirty town," says Mayor Luke Ravenstahl, who proudly calls himself the youngest mayor of a major U.S. city. "And, of course, that's not the case."

High-tech innovation

In a statement Sept. 8, President Obama explained why he wanted to hold the G-20 summit in Pittsburgh. "As a city that has transformed itself from the city of steel to a center for high-tech innovation - including green technology, education and training, and research and development - Pittsburgh will provide both a beautiful backdrop and a powerful example for our work."

Obama knows the city well, having visited it often last year during Pennsylvania's Democratic primary, which he lost to then-Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton. While campaigning in Pittsburgh, Obama got a tour of the David L. Lawrence Convention Center, proudly touted by city officials for its LEED Gold certification from the U.S. Green Building Council.

The facility, which hosts G-20 meetings, uses natural light to illuminate much of the floor space. It can turn off the ventilation and let in outside air for about 50 days of the year.

Most of the building's components were built within 500 miles of Pittsburgh. Yet another green feature: a rooftop herb and vegetable garden, which is used by chefs preparing food for events in the facility.

"This building was intended to be an example and a catalyst for future green efforts in the region," writes Mary Conturo, executive director of the Sports & Exhibition Authority, which owns the center, in an e-mail.

On Thursday, the visiting dignitaries dined at Phipps Conservatory and Botanical Gardens, an elegant greenhouse that melds glass artwork with exotic plant life.

It was built in 1893 by Henry Phipps, one of Andrew Carnegie's business partners. The facility is described by its executive director, Richard Piacentini, as "an excellent example of the old Victorian mind-set that there were no limits to the amount of resources we could use and the amount of pollution we could produce."

But today, this place is more about conservation with a drought-resistant lawn, natural heating and cooling, and the purchase of clean-energy offsets to account for all the power usage.

"We have tried to make the facility more sustainable within the historic nature of the building," Piacentini says.

Pittsburgh is developing an "emerging conscientiousness" on green issues, says architect Christine Brill, who works on urban design and landscape. For example, the city is starting to value open space, she says.

"The idea is to take back open industrial spaces and repurpose them - perhaps build greenways and trails so people can get around the city in a green kind of way," says Brill, a partner in Studio for Spatial Practice in Pittsburgh. "A lot of people have left the city. Greening might be a way to bring them back."

This is not to say Pittsburgh is the paragon of environmental correctness. According to a May report by the Brookings Institution in Washington, Pittsburgh ranked 34th among the 100 largest metropolitan areas in terms of its carbon footprint.

"While Pittsburgh is doing a lot of proactive things, is being creative with green-energy innovation and building a cleaner economy, you can't discount that their energy is coal-produced - and that elevates the carbon footprint of every household," says Mark Muro, a fellow for the Metropolitan Policy Program at Brookings.

Gateway to the West

Pittsburgh has a history of reinventing itself. In the 18th century, the city became known as the "Gateway to the West" because vessels could proceed down the Ohio River to the Mississippi, says Andrew Hannah, an adjunct professor of entrepreneurship at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) in Pittsburgh.

"But the opening of the Erie Canal changed that, since goods from Europe no longer needed to go through Pittsburgh," he says.

Instead, in the early 1800s, Pittsburgh became an industrial center, thanks to Carnegie and Henry Clay Frick. Industrial giants such as Alcoa and U.S. Steel flourished.

But in the 1980s, the U.S. steel and manufacturing industries crashed. Large Pittsburgh-based companies, such as Westinghouse, stumbled into bankruptcy. The city had been the third-largest hub in the U.S. for corporate headquarters, but after large employers such as Rockwell International moved out, it had fewer than 10 Fortune 500 headquarters.

In January 1983, unem-ployment in Pittsburgh was more than 18 percent, with some 212,400 people out of work.

"When the steel industry all but collapsed, we in this city had no choice but to reinvent ourselves," Mayor Ravenstahl says.

Now, Hannah is CEO of a company that's an example of the new Pittsburgh.

Plextronics makes an ink that can efficiently conduct electricity. The chemical can be used to make inexpensive solar panels or extremely thin light fixtures.

A CMU professor, Richard McCullough, devised the ink and teamed up with Hannah seven years ago.

Their company is in a research park that includes other companies spun off as a result of other professors' discoveries. "The universities today are driving industry," Hannah says.

This is not to say the "old Pittsburgh" has just gone away. One steel mill is still within the city limits.

And 100,000 manufacturing jobs are still in the region, points out Dennis Yablonsky, CEO of the Allegheny Conference, which encourages economic development.

But Yablonsky sees the G-20 meetings as an opportunity to showcase the city's progress and maybe entice more businesses. "We hope to attract corporate executives and say to them, 'Look at Pittsburgh,'" he says.

While Pittsburgh may show that cities can recover, Yablonsky says, it can't be done overnight. "In Pittsburgh's case," he says, "it's a 30-year transformation story."

Casino Industry Working For Pennsylvania, More To Open

Story from the Delaware County Daily Times

CHESTER — The new chairman and executive director of the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board gave their nearly three-year-old industry a clean bill of health during an interview Friday at Harrah’s Chester Casino and Racetrack.

The state’s ninth casino will open in Pittsburgh in August and the first casino in Philadelphia is expected to finally arrive in spring 2010, according to PGCB Chairman Gregory C. Fajt, 54, of Pittsburgh.

Fajt, along with PGCB Executive Director Kevin O’Toole and board Commissioner Gary Sojka, were given a tour of Chester’s casino by Harrah’s General Manager Vince Donlevie Friday morning.

Fajt, a 54-year-old from Pittsburgh, served as Gov. Ed Rendell’s chief of staff for two years before taking control of the state’s gaming board. Fajt said that even in its infancy, the state’s casino industry has greatly benefited Pennsylvanians.

“The gaming industry overall has generated $1.5 billion over the last two years in property taxes,” Fajt said. “It’s generated 8,000 living-wage jobs for Pennsylvanians.

“It’s created another 7,200 jobs in construction for the eight casinos that are up and running right now,” he said. “It’s given millions and millions of dollars to the host communities that have the casinos within their boundaries.”

Regarding the latter, he cited the 200-300 employees at the Chester facility who are city residents and others from surrounding areas.

Fajt said the industry has been a tremendous boon to the horse-racing industry. With the increased purses coming from slot machine revenue, people have come to the state to both breed and race their horses here because the purses are higher, he said.

“So we think that gaming when properly regulated — and we have set that regulatory bar very high in Pennsylvania — we think it’s a win-win-win for our citizens.”

Gov. Rendell signed the bill legalizing casinos in July 2004. The state’s first casino at Mohegan Sun at Pocono Downs in Luzerne County opened Nov. 14, 2006, with harness racing.

Harrah’s Chester Casino has raked in a ton of cash since it opened in January 2007, although in recent months there have been declines in revenue.

For the fourth month in a row, the gross terminal revenue of the waterfront racetrack/casino on the former site of a shipyard is down. In May of this year, it declined 6 percent compared to May 2008, but so did that of two other casinos: Mount Airy Resort & Casino, which saw a 9.7 percent decrease, and Presque Isle Downs & Casino, where revenue was off 4.5 percent.

Revenue at Harrah’s Chester was down 2.47 percent in April compared to the same month last year. In March, Harrah’s took in 7.36 percent less revenue. In February, revenue dropped 1.89 percent.

Even so, slot machines in the state generated $178.4 million in May — a nearly 18 percent increase over revenue generated by gaming in May 2008.

The casino ranked third in gross terminal revenue this fiscal year to date among the eight current casinos with $301.4 million. Philadelphia Park in Bucks County had the most revenue with $335.5 million and The Meadows outside Pittsburgh finished second with $245 million.

The total gross terminal revenue for all casinos for the fiscal year to date is $1.6 billion, according to the latest PGCB figures through June 8.

In wagers received for the fiscal year to date, Philadelphia Park again topped the list with $4.7 billion, followed by Harrah’s Chester, $3.7 billion, and The Meadows, $2.9 billion.

The PGCB chairman said the casinos, like many other segments of the economy, haven’t escaped the effects of the recession.

“As with all businesses, the gaming business is not recession-proof,” Fajt said. “Gaming is entertainment for people and just as restaurant, cars, movie theaters feel the pinch when there’s a recession, so does the gaming industry.”

But the overall picture for Pennsylvania gaming is “a great picture” and revenues are up, he said.

“It’s happening the way we thought it would happen,” Fajt said. “We are taking money away from border states. People aren’t going to Atlantic City — they’re staying in Pennsylvania. They’re not going to New York, they’re staying in (Pennsylvania). They’re not going to West Virginia, they’re staying in western Pennsylvania.

“The governor when he was pitching this bill said there’s no reason for Pennsylvanians to fund education in New Jersey, or roads and bridges in West Virginia,” Fajt said.

“Let’s keep that money home; let’s use the money for property-tax relief — and that’s exactly what’s happening,” he said.

As the economy tightens, people don’t want to travel as far, instead of traveling to Atlantic City, he said.

With the opening last month of the Sands Casino in Bethlehem, Northampton County, and the proposed opening of the Sugar House and Foxwoods casinos in Philadelphia, there would be five casinos in the four-county region. When asked whether this would siphon customers away from Chester or vice-versa at the other locations, Fajt said the market will dictate whether there’s too many casinos in this area.

In these tight credit times, there are people out there lending money to these casinos, Fajt pointed out.

“And they are a lot smarter than you and I on the financial side of things,” he said. “They would not be lending money to build casinos if they didn’t think that there was a longtime prospect for casinos — especially in these tight times when credit is tough to come by.

“So the fact that the credit markets are saying they think that long-term gaming has a future in Pennsylvania, I think bodes well for the state,” Fajt said.

There is the possibility of the addition of table games at casinos in the future, he said.

House Majority Whip Bill DeWeese, D-50, of Greene County, is once again drafting legislation that would allow table games in Pennsylvania casinos. A spokesman for Rendell said the governor currently believes it is too soon to expand gaming beyond the slot machines.

However, Rendell has favored legalizing video poker machines in bars and clubs to fund tuition relief for students at state universities and colleges.

Fajt said there are “serious discussions” in Harrisburg on whether to add table games to Pennsylvania’s casinos.

“I think we’ll know the answer to that, whether that passes or not, before the Legislature breaks for the summer,” he said.

They are in budget negotiations now with a June 30 deadline, which usually extends beyond that, he said.

The Senate wants to pass a reform bill for the state gaming act, but the House on the other hand is pushing table games, said Fajt.

“I think it’s a 50-50 prospect right now,” he said.

The PGCB is “very happy” with where the Harrah’s facility is right now, in view of nearby competition such as Delaware Park, Fajt said.

“They are exceeding the numbers that they based their projections on,” he said. “They are exceeding the numbers that we based their projections on.

“So we think they are doing a great job here and it’s a first-class facility,” Fajt said.

Fajt, who was appointed to a three-year term that expires July 2011, earns a salary of $150,000 a year. Kevin O’Toole, of Harrisburg, oversees an agency of 275 employees and earns $180,000.

Philly Mural Honors Local Tuskegee Airmen

Roger Terry, one of the original Tuskegee Airmen has died at the age of 87 in Los Angeles. He was one of 300 African-Americans who received the congressional gold medal in 1997 for World War Two service.

The news comes, coincidentally, as the city of Philadelphia's 3,000th mural was being dedicated on Sunday at 2pm in West Philadelphia - a tribute to the Tuskegee Airmen.

KYW's Karin Phillips reports the wall-sized mural is on 39th Street facing south toward Chestnut and, in a series of blues, greens, and browns, shows the African-American airmen performing their many tasks. A lot of it is three dimensional. Sixteen-year-old Melanie Johnson of the Girard Academic Music Program (right) especially liked working on that part of the project:

"It's like a plane coming out toward you and the propellers, we worked on that. And on the propellers (it) has different symbols that we think that they fought for. Like on the one that I worked on, there were chains and a lock and war tags and things."

Students from the Philadelphia School District, working with a muralist, researched the project and interviewed local Tuskegee Airmen, who's images are also displayed inside the Rotunda at 40th and Walnut Streets.

Seinfeld Comedy Contest Sponsored By Kimmel Center

Story from the Daily Journal

The Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts, Broad and Spruce streets, Philadelphia, will host a standup comedy contest June 16 in the center’s Commonwealth Plaza to celebrate Jerry Seinfeld’s performances which are scheduled for June 19 and 20 at the Academy of Music in Philadelphia.

Contestants may sign up at 5:15 p.m., and the contest will be held from 6 to 7:15 p.m. The first 75 people to sign up will take the stage to perform one minute of their favorite Seinfeld bit for the chance to win a prize.

Participants will be judged on dress, delivery, comedic timing and choice of material.

Contest will also award prizes for winners of: Seinfeld trivia and best character lookalike.

Prizes include: First, four tickets to see Seinfeld at the Academy of Music and a $200 gift card for Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse; second, four tickets and a $50 gift card to Helium Comedy Club; third, intern at Kramerica Industries; and fourth two tickets to “Spring Awakening” at the Academy of Music June 23.

For contest information, visit http://www.kimmelcenter.org/mail/yadayada.html.

For tickets to Seinfeld’s performances, call (215) 893-1999 or visit
www.kimmelcenter.org.