The Philadelphia Inquirer from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania • Page 24

B2 City THE PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER Fate of state mortgage aid program uncertain available for up to three years. An The effort to assist homeowners needs more money. Gov. Ridge and the legislature must decide on a plan. Thursday, October 24, 191)6 Metropolitan Area News in Brief a Man shot twice in the back while leaving driveway A 22-year-old Northeast Philadel-y phia man was in critical condition at Thomas Jefferson University Host pital yesterday after being shot! twice in the back as he pulled out Of, the driveway of his apartment com-plex, police said.

1 Keith Robinson, of the 3100 block fJ of Thornton Road, and 17-year-old Joy Ackerman were in a Chevrolet Lumina when a gunman opened fire on their car about 11:15 a.m., invests gators said. After Robinson was struck, his car hit a parked car and -flipped over, police said. Police said the gunman ran down" the street and fled in a car. A police investigator said Rob-', inson may have known the Ackerman, whom police said Robinson's girlfriend, was taken to' Frankford Hospital, TorresdaleJ! Campus, where she was in serious j(j condition last night. She sustained multiple injuries in the crash, in- eluding a broken leg, a hospital spokeswoman said.

ing homeowners from making repayments if their housing costs, including utilities, exceed 35 percent of their income. Thanks in part to that rule, of the 12,000 loans outstanding, 8,300 or about 69 percent are currently exempted from repayment, said Brian Hudson, chief financial officer of the Pennsylvania Housing Finance Agency, which oversees the program. Of the remaining 3,700 loans, 2,380 are delinquent, he said. Those lenient terms drew the interest of Ridge, who recommended in February that the program receive no funding next year. That move "was meant as a signal that the program cannot be allowed to continue as it has for the last decade," said Ridge's spokesman Tim Reeves.

The legislature later tacked on $3 million to enable the mortgage assist-" ance program to operate through Dec. 31, but Ridge has continued to press for changes. Following Ridge's lead, the agency's staff proposed the restrictions such as limiting loans to $12,000 over 18 months. There is no current limit on loans, which are with some tightening up. At the same time, a spokesman for Ridge said the governor would oppose any new funding unless the program made strides toward self-sufficiency.

If no new money is provided, the program will stop taking loan applications on Dec. 31. If any program could resist the budget-cutting mood of the 1990s, it might be the Homeowners' Emergency Mortgage Assistance Program. Born in December 1983 amid desperation in Western Pennsylvania as the steel industry shrank, it is fairly selective about who it helps. Only 35 percent of applicants are approved, and applicants must show that layoffs or other outside forces left them in financial straits.

About 30 percent of the program's 20,275 loans in the last 12 years have gone to homeowners in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, records show. Such statistics have not shielded the program the only one of its kind in the nation from the state's budget knife. Among the program's unusual lending provisions is a rule exempt wrenching pleas from homeowners who had benefited from it. The board then voted, 6-5, to reject the cuts, and asked the state for the full funding of $15 million for the 1997-98 fiscal year. But the board doesn't have the last word.

Now the fate of the program, which serves struggling middle-class homeowners, rests with the legislature and Ridge. Rep. John J. Taylor and a bipartisan group of lawmakers plan to introduce a supplemental funding bill seeking $9 million for the program when the legislature reconvenes on Nov. 12.

Taylor, a Northeast Philadelphia Republican who has resisted some of Ridge's other proposals to trim assistance progams, said the governor's staff has indicated a willingness to discuss changes in mortgage aid. Taylor said he was hopeful that the program could be preserved By Karl Stark INQUIRER STAFF WHITER In other times, the Homeowners' Emergency Mortgage Assistance Program has been a real crowd-pleaser. This little-known honey pot of state money has given loans to Pennsylvania homeowners facing Last year, it helped 2,000 residents hang onto their homes. But this year, the program that helps victims of downsizing is itself being squeezed. And unless Gov.

Ridge and the legislature agree to provide more money or scale the program back, 12 years of lending will end on Dec. 31. The yearlong battle over the agency intensified this month when its staff proposed new restrictions that would have cut the number of participants in half. At its regular meeting on Oct. 10, the board that runs the program heard heart- i 'ft New executive director appointed by ActionAIDS ActionAIDS, Philadelphia's est AIDS service organization, has named A.

Billy S. Jones, a nationa) (', leader in the fight against AIDS, asI its new executive director. Jones, technical director Macro International a ton, consulting firm, willj replace Ennes Littrell, who re; signed in March. Jones will begin, -work here on Jan. 6.

David S. Blum, a lawyer whb j-heads the ActionAIDS board, said j' Jones could play "an effective role'j in healing the rifts among Philadel-j. phia's often-squabbling AIDS serv- ice organizations. Jones, a graduate. of Howard University, has held management jobs at the National AIDS Network and at the Whitman Walker Clinic, Washington's largestnr AIDS organization.

Northern Liberties man wins Latino service award The National Hispanic Conference has given the 1996 Ce: sar Chavez Community Service Award to Juan F. Ramos of North ern Liberties. The honor, the most prestigious Latino award to be given at the na? tional level, was conferred in cago. Ramos, 45, is vice chairman of, the Philadelphia Police Commission. He also is president the Delaware Valley Voter Registra-j tion Education Project and founder of the Puerto Rican ance in Philadelphia.

Watchdog group to run hotline for Election Day The Committee of Seventy will again provide its customary watch-'. dog services on Election Day, Nov. 5. Volunteers will staff a hotline on which residents can report allegations of improper conduct, find out where their polling places are, oi; get information about voting procedures. The hotline, 215-557-3600, will, be staffed from 6:30 a.m.

to 8:30 p.m.; Election Day. Calls will also be taken during normal business hours before and after the election. Woman who was found slain in East Falls is identified The body of a woman found shot Ml An Amish farmer harvests corn on his land in Lancaster County. The temperature reached the mid-70s there an uncharacteristically mild October. Today's weather will be drier and a bit cooler.

jo- terday morning. But is it? No representatives with ITT, Miss Universe or Madison Square Garden, an ITT subsidiary that owned the pageants in a partnership with a Long Island, N.Y., cable TV firm, would confirm the sale. But one official close to the negotiations, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said Trump's domain yesterday grew to include the 47-year-old Universe and USA pageants and Miss Teen USA, a mere kid of a pageant at 13 years old. News of the sale spread among the pageant world's tiara-and-sequin set with the rapidity of a swimsuit change. "They the pageantsl will probably be more spectacular events than they have been in the past," said Julie Phillips, who owns Pageant Consultants, a Houston, Texas, firm specializing in preparing girls and women for beauty and scholarship contests.

"Trump puts his hand in things that are very profitable and glamorous." It's hard to out-glamor the Universe and USA contests, which feature competitors who have one challenge to be prettier than all the other contestants. They also are profitable, according to pageant officials, who declined to say just how much cash the televised shows generate. And, though each pageant travels Trump says he bought beauty The unconfirmed deal gives him the Miss Universe, Miss USA and Miss Teen USA pageants. other proposed restriction would curtail the number of homeowners exempted from repayments. The staff envisions that with these changes, plus an additional $5 million in state aid next year, the program could become self-suffi cient but would only serve 1,000 homeowners, half the number now served, said Bill Fogarty, spokesman for the housing finance agency.

It was this plan, however, that drew fire from the program's board. In a letter, board member and state Treasurer Catherine Baker Knoll, a Democrat, said that without the program, "many of my neighbors in the steel towns surrounding Pittsburgh would no longer own their own homes I will do everything in my power to see that this program is carried into the future." Reeves said Ridge would continue to insist the program become self-sufficient. Because many working families cannot even afford to buy homes, the governor's spokesman said, "government needs to be fairly demanding of the recipient." Officer tells of Narberth shoot-out Officer Frank Carafa was shot during the Sept. 1994 robbery of an Acme market. His wounds forced him to retire.

By John Murphy INQUIRER CORRESPONDENT More than 60 bullets rattled the quiet streets of Narberth Borough in September 1994, when police exchanged fire with a pair of masked bandits fleeing an Acme market with $14,000 in cash, coupons and food stamps. Yesterday, Frank Carafa told a Montgomery County jury how it took just one of those bullets to ruin his police career and nearly end his life. "There was rapid firing. We fired and then they stood up and fired back. Our car was struck on the hood and the windshield glass was coming into the car," Carafa said, crouching in the witness stand to demonstrate how he took cover under the dashboard.

"As I was trying to get a clip, I was struck in my left shoulder," he said. The bullet did not stop there. It tore three inches of his collarbone, traveled around his back and lodged in his right shoulder, where it remains. Carafa's wounds forced him to resign from the Narberth Police Department in July. Prosecutors say Yehia Elham Badawi, the son of an Egyptian chicken farmer, is one of the two men responsible for Carafa's wounds.

Badawi, 19, who was cap tured in February alter hiding in Utah for 15 months, is charged with attempted murder, robbery and other offenses. Badawi's cousin, Mourad Ellak-kany, who was arrested at the scene, pleaded guilty to similar charges last year and is serving a term of 17'2 to 35 years in prison. Though prosecutors place Badawi at the scene of the crime, none of the police officers who testified yesterday could say whether he was there. They said that conditions were too dark and that they never got. a good look at Ellakkany's partner before he fled.

In his opening statement Tuesday, Badawi's attorney Samuel Stretton told the jury that Badawi was on the other side of Philadelphia that night, staying clear of his "gun nut" cousin who had asked him to participate in the robbery. Yesterday, however, the jury heard the prosecution's version of events. On Sept. 24, 1994, the pair donned ski masks, armed themselves with assault weapons and semiautomatic pistols, and robbed the Acme market on Montgomery Avenue in Penn Valley, prosecutors said. A night auditor tor Acme Markets testified that more than $14,000 was stolen from the storp that nmht The robbers fled the market on bicycles with special racks to hold their rifles.

Officer Richard Nilsen told the jurors that he pursued the two cyclists down Windsor Avenue, where they jumped off their bikes near an apartment complex and began shooting at him. Nilsen returned fire from his car window before taking cover behind his car, he said. While running for safety, Nilsen dropped his radio. Without any way to communicate with headquarters, he was unable to warn Carafa and another officer driving down the street that there was gunfire ahead. "The only thing I could do was yell," he said.

(rv Associated Press SABINA PIERCE yesterday during what has been pageants from city to city each year the Miss USA Pageant, for example, will be held in Shreveport, in February the sale also could mean Atlantic City might join the list of stops, officials said. That brings us to the Miss America Organization, a nonprofit corporation based in Atlantic City since its founding 76 years ago. Leonard Horn, executive director of the organization, sees no basis in Trump's widely quoted assertion that the Universe and USA contestants are better-looking than the 50 Miss America hopefuls who parade the runway in Atlantic City each year. "All I can say is, beauty is in the eye of the beholder," he said. Hispanics plan agenda at rally in Harrisburg By Peter Durantine ASSOCIATED PRESS HARRISBURG "No mas" Hispanic leaders cried yesterday as they opened a three-day conference with a rally in the Capitol rotunda and plans for a statewide coalition to address issues that concern them.

High on their agenda is battling efforts to designate English as the official language of Pennsylvania and the United States. Hispanics see the proposal as an attack on their culture. With dozens of supporters seated behind him, Philadelphia Councilman Angel Ortiz turned to the crowd and said: "In Pennsylvania, we speak English, but we also speak what?" "Spanish!" supporters shouted in The state House passed bills this year to abolish the state's affirmative-action programs and require the use of English only on government documents. Both died in the Senate. Spanish has replaced Italian as the leading non-English language spoken at home in Pennsylvania, according to an analysis by the Pennsylvania State Data Center.

It is the second language spoken by 213,096 Pennsylvanians, 1.9 percent of the state's population, according to the recent analysis of 1990 census data. Hispanics represent about 5t percent of Pennsylvania's 12 million residents. By Mark Davis INQUIRER STAFF WRITER ATLANTIC CITY Miss America, move over. There appears to be a new lady coming to town, and she's on the arm of a rich guy named Trump. The ever-acquisitive Donald announced yesterday that he'd bought the Miss Universe organization, which includes the Miss Universe, Miss USA and Miss Teen USA pageants, from ITT Corp.

He says he beat out some other rich guys and two television networks in a bid for the contests. "It's a done deal," he crowed yes City native becomes an archbishop ARCHBISHOP from B1 new signs of office and marveled: "It takes your breath away when you think what they've done to me." After the ceremonies, his father, Albert looking dapper in a gray suit and green corsage declared himself "very proud" and described his son a "good boy." Asked what his response had been when his son first informed him that he wanted to be a priest, Albert Adams got a laugh when he replied: "I didn't think he'd leave his mother for two weeks." Although posted to Vatican embassies as far-flung as Rwanda, Kenya, Honduras, Denmark and, most recently, the Czech Republic, the new archbishop has for 20 years virtually every day to send greetings. Yesterday, he called his father, "my best friend." On hand for the ceremony were several other Philadelphia parish priests who have likewise gone on to positions of honor in the church. They included Cardinal John O'Connor of New York, Cardinal William Keeler of Baltimore, Archbishop John P. Foley, president of the Pontifical Council for Social Communication, and Archbishops Justin Rigali of St.

Louis and Francis B. Schulte of New Orleans. Co-consecrators were Cardinal Anthony Bevilacqua, archbishop of Philadelphia, and Archrtishop to death execution-style Oct. 12 the parking lot of an East Falls ground has been identified as that of Dianna Perry, 30, of King of Prussia, police said last night. rTT Perry had been shot at close! range in the head.

A police officer -checking McDevitt Playground on Scotts Lane near Indian Queen Lane made the discovery, according to detectives. Investigators believe the woman was dumped there after being elsewhere. Her clothes were in dis4 array, but it did not appear she had 1 1 been sexually assaulted, they said. I Perry had been driven to the Con-' shohocken train station by a rela-tive to go into Philadelphia. Her body was found not far from the line's East Falls station.

t' Simplified craps approved for trial run at Taj Mahal A new, simplified version of called "mini-dice" was approved by New Jersey gambling regulators1. yesterday for a trial run at the.l Trump Taj Mahal Casino in Atlantic' I City. The game, developed by a veterans craps table worker and shift supeWfiv visor named Leo H. Flasch, elimi-, nates many of the confusing betting options and intimidating table at-1 mosphere that Flasch says has kept I gamblers from the craps tablejo "Most people learned in World War II or Korea and they're 70 years old'i: now," Flasch said. "The game is dip" ficult to learn." i The mini-dice game will be played I on a blackjack-size table with for six or seven players.

The dice1' will be contained in a metal rather than thrown across the 1 There will be fewer wagers possi-1 ble, eliminating the come and passdon't pass options, and the odds for each wager will be shown right on the table. 'A Vf ndf 71'- The Philadelphia Inquirer MICHAEL S. WIRTZ Cardinal Angelo Sodanti, the Vatican's secretary of state, ierved as principal consecrator of Archbishop Edward J. Adams (kneeling)..