The Philadelphia Inquirer from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania • Page 19

Me JPftilabelpfiiailnquircr Section 1 News in Brief B2 The Scene B2 TriClassified, B5. i Weather, B19. Saturday, December 5, 1998 Philadelphia Online: http:www.phillynews.com QtycIRegion Rendell? Consider him ticked off. Mayor calls ESPN play-clock report a political football Willard's parents: Death not enough The mother, who has opposed the penalty, said Bomar deserves even more than that sentence. fice recently announced that the city had achieved a $169 million surplus, the largest in Philadelphia's modern history.

With that sort of cushion, Philadelphia can certainly afford to fix a clock in the city-owned Vet, Rendell said at a news conference yesterday. The source of the malfunction was an electrical short that was not discovered until 3:30 yesterday morning. It has since been fixed. Rendell said the story about the city's fiscal distress came from someone within By Peter Nicholas INQUIRER STAFF WRITER If there's one thing Ed Rendell loves more than sports, it's Philadelphia. So for the mayor, the Eagles' victory Thursday night was poisoned by a nationally televised report that the play clock at Veterans Stadium wasn't working because the city couldn't afford the repair.

Not the sort of message that the city's cheerleader-in-chief wants the rest of the country to hear. After all, the mayor's of an unpopular climate, you would think they would protect me, not go out of their way to embarrass me and, worse, embarrass the city," Rendell said. "Someone in the organization tried to make us look bad to make the case of how badly they needed a new stadium. Someone deliberately told ESPN a false set of facts." Who was it, Mayor? There's only one way to find out, Rendell said, tongue in See CLOCK on B4 the Eagles organization. That person gave it to ESPN, the national sports network that carried the game, in an attempt to build pressure for a new stadium, Rendell said.

The tactic infuriated Rendell, who said he is taking a huge political risk by publicly supporting a new stadium for the Eagles. He said he doesn't relish being blind-sided by the very team he is trying to help. As the "sole spokesperson for getting money for stadiums in what is obviously Li V. I GERALD S. WILLIAMS The Philadelphia Inquirer In front of a childhood home in Abbottsford Homes, Santo Gairo (right) gets a welcome-back embrace from worker Stacey Newman.

A lesson from someone whok been there By Ralph Vigoda INQUIRER STAFF WRITER Arthur J. Bomar, whose profanity-laced outbursts the last time he was in a courtroom lent an air of anticipation to his appearance yesterday, politely maintained his innocence before being sentenced to death for the 1996 slaying of college athlete Aimee Willard. But death, lamented Willard's divorced parents, Paul and Gail Willard, will not be punishment enough for Bomar for beating, raping and killing their 22-year-old daughter. Gail Willard called Bomar a "despicable individual" and a "merciless, evil man" at his formal sentencing in Delaware County Court yesterday morning. She asked Judge Frank T.

Hazel to ensure that he would never leave prison. Bomar, 39, who had' cursed Willard's mother in his last court appearance, didn't utter a word until time came for him to speak on his own behalf near the end of the proceeding, which lasted an hour and 20 minutes. "May I approach?" Bomar asked Hazel. In a blue prison uniform, his hands and feet shackled, and an electronic belt around his waist, he moved slowly to the front of the courtroom. "I have one thing to say in this courtroom, your honor," Bomar said in a low voice.

"I did not kill Aimee Willard. I did not rape Aimee Willard. I did not kidnap Aimee Willard. And I sure didn't beat Aimee Willard. "I'm an innocent man, and if y'all don't believe it, I don't care.

But I know I didn't do it. That is not my crime. Believe what I tell you. That's all I have to say. It's not mine." Hazel was not convinced.

He pronounced a sentence of death, which See BOMAR on B4 Capanos' divorce Kathleen Capano's request was granted days after she testified at her ex-husband's trial. By George Anastasia INQUIRER STAFF WRITER WILMINGTON Kathleen "Kay" Capano has been formally granted a divorce from Thomas J. Capano, who is facing a first-degree murder charge in a trial replete with testimony about sex and adultery that has been the talk of the town here for the last six weeks. Kay Capano's lawyer, Michael K. Newell, confirmed yesterday that his client's divorce application had been granted during a hearing in Family Court on Nov.

13. That was three days after Kay Capano, 48, testified briefly at the mur-Uer trial. Newell said in a telephone interview yesterday that he would not comment further on the divorce, which he said was uncontested. He said Kay Capano did not wish to comment. The Capanos, who met when both were students at Boston College, were married in 1972.

They have four teenage daughters. They separated in September 1995. Kay Capano filed for divorce earlier this year. The Capano murder trial is set to resume here on Monday following a four-day break. Capano, 49, once a politically powerful attorney, is charged with the June 1996 slaying See CAPANO on B4 l- approved New chief of police in Camden 11 24-year veteran will i Head the department, which had lacked a leader since Nov.

1. By John Way Jennings and Angela Couloumbis INQUIRER STAFF WRITERS 1 Under pressure from state and local officials, Camden Mayor Milfon Milan reversed himself on weeks' worth of resistance to the Police De- partment's state-appointed monitor yesterday and named Robert E. Al- jenoacn xne new ciuei. In a brief statement, administra- tion officials said Milan decided to appoint a chief from the depart-t ment's Civil Service list to put an I end to the confusion and turmoil I within the Police Department. The 3o-memDer department has gone without a leader since Chief William J.

Hill abruptly resigned Nov. 1. By appointing Allenbach, a 24-year veteran of the department, Milan essentially backpedaled on his defiance of a personnel directive issued last month by Camden County Prosecutor Lee Robert E. Allenbach f-was named Camden police chief. A.

Solomon. Solomon was appointed Nov. 12 by state Attorney oenerai i Peter Verniero to oversee police op- erations. I 'L Solomon's personnel directive palled for eliminating all provi- sional positions above the rank of sergeant, including those of Acting I Denutv Police Chiefs Charles Ko- cher and Serapio Cruz, both of wVirtm ViaH tha mnirnr'o Hloccinrr Viet. spite Solomon's directive, the two deputy chiefs have continued to run The day-to-day operations of the de- partment, awaiting Milan's appoint-' ment of a permanent public-safety I director.

Under the new order, Allenbach, who has the full support of both the i city's police unions, is to take con- trol of the department on Monday, As of last night, it was unclear whether Cruz and Kocher would be I knocked down to- the ranks they I held before being named acting deputy chiefs. Kocher, 48, who f' joined the department in 1968 as a civilian dispatcher, was a captain, and Cruz, who joined the department in the mid-1970s, was a lieutenant. "There has been 'too much contro- bee camuln on B4 New rules By Michael Vitez INQUIRER STAFF WRITER Home health-care agencies are being hammered by new federal regulations, and the level of services to patients has been cut more in this region than anywhere else in the country, said Stephen Holt, president and CEO of the Visiting Nurse Association of Greater Philadelphia. "We've seen a 35 percent decrease in services patients are receiving," appointed .1 'c was a boy he walked the streets, stopping to catch a flood of memories. He remembers the thrill of moving to 3201 F.

Henry a "heavenly" two-story unit with a backyard. Then he remembers the time a neighbor's dog killed his kitten in that yard. Though Gairo recalls fierce rock-throwing fights between kids across the gully, that never hurt as much as the taunting on his walk to school every day. "There were rivalries inside the It was coincidence that brought Gairo, 56, back yesterday. In 1979, Gairo founded the Bucks County Housing Group, opening the county's first emergency shelter when many suburbanites didn't think that homelessness existed in their zip codes.

Nearly 20 years later, the organization manages three shelters, owns three apartment complexes and offers programs for first-time home buyers. The group also provides life-skills classes ior the poor. It was invited to work with Abbottsford residents by Pioneers International, a local job-training company with a welfare-to-work contract at the housing complex. Most of Cairo's staff didn't know he had lived there. Gairo was just a baby when the family moved to 3201 A.

Authority Terrace in 1942, the year Abbotts-ford opened. At the time, the complex was all white and full of two-parent households. "To my parents, this was a step up. It was new. It was home," Gairo said after the presentation.

Over the years, he's come back a few times, bringing his children or sitting briefly on the steps just to think. Friday was the lirst time since he cializes in helping home companies declare bankruptcy. Holt said the new Medicare Home Health Interim Payment System limits the amount of money, on average, that any home health agency can spend per beneficiary. The amount varies by region, but the figure for Pennsylvania, New Jersey and New York $2,548 is the lowest in the nation, he said. In' some Southern states, the 7 r'1 By Monica Yant INQUIRER STAFF WRITER It's been 45 years, but Santo Gairo can still remember sitting in his bedroom window and watching the lights flicker across the way at Connie Mack Stadium.

That was about as close as he got to the Phillies games, what with his living in Abbottsford Homes, being a "project kid." The stigma isn't easily shaken, but it does wear off, Gairo told a group of welfare mothers yesterday in a training program at the public-housing complex in East Falls. He came with an unlikely twist on the typical inspirational message. Though Gairo is a former caseworker Santo returned complex a different kind of inspirational message. 1 project, but when we were outside, we were united," Gairo said. "We had to be.

We had that label." So ridiculed were the Abbottsford children that Gairo even hid his Sicilian heritage to fit in, calling himself "Sandy." His father worked in the steel plant across Roberts Avenue. His mother ran the house and bailed the children out of trouble like the time Gairo got a paper route delivering the Bulletin to a ritzy neighborhood, then quit three days See ABBOTTSFORD on B4 care for Pennsylvanians, he joked, is to "give all our patients a one-way ticket to Baton Rouge." He said the number of visits did not necessarily have a relationship to quality of care. The dramatic cuts by Congress were the result of an equally dramatic growth in home health-care costs in the 1990s, as well as some flagrant cases of fraud and abuse by See MEDICARE on B4 Gairo to a public-housing to give FT i who runs the Bucks County organization conducting the welfare-to-work training, he wouldn't dare tell the women that hard work alone could rescue them from poverty. He doesn't believe it. "Most people need help," Gairo said, whether that is welfare, an unexpected college scholarship or a buddy who can put in a good word with the guy who is hiring at the local supermarket.

What he's accomplished since leaving Abbotts-ford, Gairo said, "wasn't because I was super. I needed help. I got help, luck and breaks liien i siuck it Gairo, who runs the Bucks County organization conducting the welfare-to-work training, speaks to the residents. His group was invited to work witn tne people in Aooottstord Homes. hurt home health-care agencies, doctors told amount is $5,700, he said.

He said the new law made it more appealing for agencies to favor short-term, acute-care patients who will get better quickly over chronically ill long-term care patients who require more visits and more expensive care in the long run. "In 1997, Louisiana averaged 160 visits per patient," he said. "Pennsylvania averaged in the low 30s." One way to improve home health he said yesterday at a meeting of the Philadelphia County Medical Society subcommittee on aging. The meeting focused on helping seniors get access to quality health care. Holt said that more than 1,300 agencies nationwide had closed since Medicare funds for home health care were reduced by the Balanced Budget Act of 1997.

He said phones were ringing con-stantfy at a Dallas law firm that spe.