The Philadelphia Inquirer from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania • Page 37

TT 9 4 k' 4 9 mf" fe IPftilabelpRia Inquirer Witnesses emerge to testify against man accused of fatal arson. B2. Weather, B6. Section A look at Commonwealth Court candidates. B5.

News in Brief B2 The Scene B2 Friday, May 12, 1995 Thousands pay last respects to slain officer It was another huge police funeral Ippolito Gonzalez, 40, was laid to rest. David Boldt gwm Mm By Mark Davis, Karla Haworth and Nicholas Wishart FOR THE INQUIRER VINELAND, N.J. The song, heartbreaking and heavenly, rose skyward yesterday, filling the domed ceiling of Sacred Heart Church. One voice, high and quavering, commended to God the soul of Ippolito Gonzalez another good cop, another dead cop. Amazing grace, how sweet the sound A burly sergeant pursed his lips and blinked hard.

A skinny cadet swiped at a tear. A plainclothes officer stared at the floor. The entire Franklin Township Police Department, whose ranks were depleted by one Saturday night when Gonzalez was gunned down during a routine traffic stop, grieved openly. Gonzalez, 40, of Buena Borough, was buried yesterday in a ceremony that is becoming all too familiar. In a show of force and solidarity similar to those that honored Haddon Heights officer John Norcross and Camden County investigator John McLaughlin, both killed while on duty April 20, more than 1,500 police officers turned out to put one of their own to rest.

They came from across the Northeast, dressed in gray and black and blue, their badges covered to signify a death in the sometimes-violent fraternity of cops. They they spoke in soft tones; they consoled each other. A few rode horses, whose shoes clanged against pavement outside the gray-spired church that held more than 600 mourners during a two-hour Mass of Christian Burial. Others officers from Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, New York and throughout New Jersey came in hundreds of squad cars. Some rode police-issue Harley-Davidson motorcycles, shaking the street as they thundered to a stop.

They even came by air a red-and-white helicopter, its rotors thumping, hovered not far from the church. Inside the building, Msgr. Dominic Bottino of Our Lady of Victories Roman Catholic Church in Landisville, where Gonzalez was a member, voiced the thoughts of many. "When our culture can allow murder to be awarded with freedom, it says something about how we value life," he said. A convicted murderer and recent parolee from Pennsylvania has been charged with killing Gonzalez.

Robert "Mudman" Simon, 43, a member of the Warlocks motorcycle club, and a fellow biker, Charles "Shovel" Staples, 37, remained jailed on S2 million cash bail yesterday, both See SLAIN OFFICER on B4 I rTrr -j ft Si r-i 1 if tl I f.f-p I i nwfcf. ofcw 4 Answers are few on Osage houses The Philadelphia Inquirer REBECCA BARGER A clamorous crowd of parents and students marched into City Council chambers yesterday to call for more money for public schools. Council President John F. Street (right) and Mayor Rendell listened and gave them a message they didn't want to hear. Story on B2.

His life was "short and sweet." Soldier Bill going back in scrapbook Critics' math doesn't add up From the time he announced his education plan Tuesday, Gov. Ridge had both of his two stump speeches pretty much down pat. For adults (teachers-union members, reporters, etc.) he talked about how his father had worked two jobs to make sure his children got good educations, and how his own goal was to give Pennsylvania parents more options so that they could do the same for their children. In talking to children in the schools he toured, he had a simpler lesson plan about perseverance that began with questions to break the ice. "Do you like to read?" he would ask the kids.

"Do you like to do tough math problems?" It occurred to me that perhaps he should reverse these approaches, and ask adult skeptics of his plan whether they like to read, and whether they can do tough math problems. Many of them evidently do not, as demonstrated by the fact that their criticisms do not add up. Consider Wythe Keever, the head PR person for the Pennsylvania State Education Association (PSEA), who trails the governor around giving the union's "side" of the argument. He says the PSEA is against school choice because "it will divert resources from the school districts that need it most." Now one has to give credit where credit is due. His tone of sincerity never wavers.

He doesn't even smirk slightly. He can't tell the truth And one has to be understanding. He can't, after all, tell the truth. Suppose he were to say: "The PSEA is against school choice because it might break the union's choke hold on public education in Pennsylvania. It could, for example, reduce the effectiveness of our strikes." That just wouldn't look good in print.

But the problem with his assertion that school choice would divert funds from needy districts is that it is flat wrong. The governor, in fact, has guaranteed that per-pupil spending will go up in every public school district under his plan. Admittedly, the plan presents a complex math problem with a lot of moving parts. It would be phased in over seven years, and it's difficult to predict how many parents will make a particular choice tuition grant, charter school, public-to-public transfer in a particular year. Of course, this decision to put the program in place slowly is also its great strength.

If something unexpected occurs, adjustments can be made. And despite these uncertainties, it's instructive to walk through what would happen to the school district of Philadelphia in the first year of the plan, using the assumptions being made by the governor's staff. They estimate that in the first year, when "education opportunity grants" of $700 per child for elementary school and $1,000 per child for high school are offered to parents with taxable annual income of $15,000 or less, about 6,000 of the city's 212,000 public school students will leave. (That would be 5 percent of those eligible.) Fewer pupils, same money The result would be that the school district would have 6,000 fewer students to educate and the same amount of money it would have had if those students had remained. That's because under the governor's plan the school district continues to get the $2,700 per student state subsidy for a year after the student has left.

And in the years after that the school district would presumably still have the $4,000 per student that comes from the city and other sources. Calculating on the basis that the school district spends about $6,900 per student each year, the school district would come out about $41 million ahead the first year. Admittedly that's not fair. A portion of each per-student expenditure goes for "overhead" the central administration, teacher sabbaticals, lights, heat, and other items that could not be reduced immediately. In the actual case of the Philadelphia school district, which is gaining students each year at present, the major benefit is likely to be that new school construction can be curtailed, with the funds going instead to refurbish decayed existing buildings.

But there is no way anyone can argue that the school district loses resources. It gains. And that gain just gets larger as the plan phases in. It may be a tough math problem, but it has a positive result. In a meeting with frustrated MOVE site residents, city officials could not say why homes were falling apart.

By Suzanne Sataline INQUIRER STAFF WRITER There are no easy answers in life. Nor on Osage Avenue. After listening to a deluge of complaints last night about cracked walls, leaky roofs, the kitchen that has divorced itself from the once-adjoining living room city officials told residents they were not completely sure why some houses on the site of the MOVE bombing are falling apart nine years after they were rebuilt. Noel Eisenstat, executive director of the city's Redevelopment Authority, could provide few solid answers for the frustrated residents, other than the city would try to rectify the problems in the 61 rebuilt houses that they are responsible for. "This is sad, really sad," said one woman as she left the meeting at the Cobbs Creek Recreational Center.

"They don't have a clue." Clifford Bond, whose family owned their house for a generation, said he questions the quality of the work the city could perform. "It's things done haphazardly that got us to this point now," said Bond, 47, of 6240 Osage Ave. "If it's condem-nable, let us know and stop playing with us." Eisenstat said that so far the city had found several areas that needed repair: Water does not appear to be draining properly in the rear of several properties on the northeast side of Osage Avenue. The city says this could be because soil under the foundations was not packed down enough. Building materials also were improperly added to the building site.

Roofs are leaking, and it is possible that water has seeped behind the brick facades of homes. The city would have to begin "reworking" of bathrooms in houses where water has leaked into rooms See MOVE on B6 Barnes art won't hang in Munich A judge denied a request to add a new show to the record-breaking tour. An appeal has been filed. quick note in which her great-uncle reported that everything was fine "over here." Delaney left the postcard on the stairs, tucked between the railing and the wall "a good, safe place," she said. That happens to be where her family sometimes puts the outgoing mail.

It got mailed. "I feel sheepish," she said. But appreciative. Gurmail Singh, the owner of Tandoor India, a restaurant at the West Philadelphia address where Bill's sister used to live, found the postcard in Wednesday's mail. He called The Inquirer.

"It is amazing it arrived," Delaney said. "It's amazing the man cared enough. He could have thrown it out. I'm very grateful." The U.S. Postal Service delivered the card even though it didn't have a stamp because Bill had written "Soldier's Mail" on the top.

In times of war, that is all that's necessary to this day, said John Harrison of the Postal Service's Philadelphia office. Harrison would like a third shot at delivering the postcard, this time to Delaney in Montgomery County. And she will return it to her scrapbook along with a couple of curious newspaper stories to pass down through the ages. By Daniel Rubin INQUIRER STAFF WRITER The mystery of Bill, the World War I soldier whose postcard to his sister in West Philadelphia arrived this week, has been solved. Bill was William II.

Cooke, who was age 31 when he wrote the holiday card after the war ended in 1918. He died soon afterward in a horrible fire overseas, according to his grandniece. The life of the soldier, an orphan who never married, "was very short and sweet," she said. His postcard, which arrived at 106 S. 40th St.

Wednesday, was not languishing in a battleship or stuck in a postal bin all that time like some ancient mariner that could not find its way. For three-quarters of a century, Bill's postcard was secure inside a family scrapbook. Until Easter. Kathleen Delaney, 49, was entertaining relatives in her home, in Audubon, Montgomery County. She dug out the piece of heavy cardboard with her great-uncle's picture on it to show a cousin.

When she turned the picture over, she was surprised to find it was actually a postcard to her grandmother, Kathleen Cooke Wilson a The disease is spreading. Outreach workers are getting expectant mothers to get care. Fighting syphilis for the newborn of N. Phila. By Leonard W.

Boasborg INQUIRER STAFF WRITER A Montgomery County judge yesterday rejected the Barnes Foundation's plea to send its record-breaking show of impressionist and post-impressonist art to Munich, Germany and hardly had the ink dried on the decision when the foundation's lawyers filed an appeal. In his nine-page written ruling, Orphans Court Judge Stanley R. Ott said the Barnes trustees had failed to prove that the additional venue was necessary to cover the costs of present renovations and future repairs of the 70-year-old building in Merion. That was the sole reason Judge Louis Stefan, who is now dead, had cited for allowing the paintings to go on tour, Ott said. Stefan did not, Ott noted in his decision, authorize the tour to increase the foundation's endowment or defray its operating expenses two reasons the foundation sought the added venue.

Ott "abused his discretion" in making his decision, foundation president Richard II. Glanton declared yesterday. "Basically, what he's saying is that it's better for the paintings to remain in storage than for the foundation to get more than $2 million, even though we need the money for the endowment," he said. The Munich museum, the House of Art, had promised to pay the foundation $2.25 million to put the paintings on display from June IS to Oct. 15.

Foundation attorney Bruce Kauff-man, who filed the appeal in state Superior Court, said yesterday he hoped to have the case considered "as soon as possible, because you know that time is of the essence." Arthur Jenkins, attorney for the Students for the Barnes, one of the groups opposing the tour, said he was "delighted that the Orphans Court) finally recognized that these trustees have a purpose diverse from the intent of the trust." He said he was confident the Superior Court would reject the foundation's appeal. See BARNES on B6 him themselves, much less a child. White, an outreach worker for the Philadelphia Health Management talks to the women about syphilis, yet another scourge hitting some North Philadelphia neighborhoods. He encourages the women to be treated, if not for themselves then for their unborn children. "Just approaching them is tough," says White.

"People on the streets don't trust what you're saying. They think it's a gimmick." It's not. Though public health administrators believed syphilis had declined over the last 20 years, a resurgence began in the mid-1980s. Health officials around the country began seeing an upsurge in infections in urban areas and more babies being born with the disease. More than half the cases reported in Philadelphia were among pregnant women who were getting little See SYPHILIS on B6 By Marjorie Valbrun INQUIRER STAFF WRITER Cruising down Jefferson Avenue, Gene White notices the young woman with the swollen belly.

"There's one," he says, backing up to park near the corner grocery store she had just entered. White grabs his bag filled with pamphlets and fliers and stands patiently outside. When the woman emerges, he jumps into his delivery. Soon he has her home phone number and permission to visit later in the week. The scene is repeated throughout the day as White navigates through North Philadelphia, looking for bleary-eyed women with distended bellies, looking to score drugs; young pregnant girls with misguided impressions of motherhood; working women too overwhelmed to seek regular prenatal care; and the homeless ones with no means of taking care of A it The Philadelphia Inquirer PAUL HU Gene White cruises the streets of North Philadelphia; trying to persuade expectant mothers to join a program fighting syphilis..