The Philadelphia Inquirer from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania • Page 25

-r ffic JPfiilabclpfnailnquircr Obituaries, B8. GOP committee chairman of state House quits. B7 Weather, B9. SECTION WEDNESDAY, JUNE 7, 2000 www.philly.com Deadline nears on 12th and Vine ballpark Tom Ferrick Jr. Street said June 15 was the day for a "conceptual agreement" with the Phillies and Eagles.

There's some talk of a higher price tag. Chinatown leaders plan a protest strike perialism in China. Organizers were vague about the details of tomorrow's proposed strike, saying only that it would last at least a couple of hours. The organizers also announced they had hired attorney Robert Sugarman to represent them in their efforts to stop the city from building the ballpark there. Sugar-man was behind delaying the construction of the Point Pleasant Pumping Station in Bucks County for more than a decade.

And, as a young civil-rights attorney in the 1960s, he stopped construction of the proposed Crosstown Expressway, which would See PROTEST on B7 By Cynthia Burton INQUIRER STAFF WRITER To show their opposition to a baseball park proposed for 12th and Vine Streets, Chinatown leaders plan a day of protest tomorrow, which will begin with a silent vigil at the 10 a.m. City Council meeting and will include the first widespread shutdown of businesses in the neighborhood since World War II. According to Helen Gym, president of Asian Americans United and a member of the Stadium Out of Chinatown Coalition, the last general strike among Chinatown businesses was held to oppose Japanese im A conceptual agreement would not be a detailed contract, but a consensus on where the stadiums would be located, what they would cost, and what the outline of the basic business deal would be, according to the mayor's office. The mayor yesterday brushed off suggestions that the 12th and Vine site could be too expensive and said he expected to meet the June IS deadline for giving the general outline of a stadium plan to City Council. "We hope that we'll be right on target," Street said.

"That's our plan. And unless I hear something to the contrary, we're looking forward to being ready when we said we'd be ready. We always knew the costs were going to be high. We've known that See STADIUM on B6 By Clea Benson INQUIRER STAFF WRITER Once again, the attempt to come up with a plan for new stadiums is coming down to the wire. Mayor Street's self-imposed deadline for reaching a "conceptual agreement" with the Phillies and the Eagles comes at the end of next week.

But while the teams and the city have been meeting behind closed doors for more than a month, there has been talk that the cost estimates for a Phillies ballpark at 12th and Vine Streets could be ballooning, pushing the combined price of both stadiums well beyond $1 billion. And people familiar with the talks say the parties have not yet discussed the nuts and bolts of financing. i i i i i LJ wi Li 15 minutes aren't up. Warhol seen in but briefly Witness: Plaintiff refused fire call By Eils Lotozo INQUIRER STAFF WRITER Andy Warhol's famous-for-more-than-15-minutes face, adorned by his signature big glasses and odd silver thatch of a wig, was sighted in Old City recently. The dead artist's pale visage showed up on stickers and posters bearing the legend "Warhol Seen in Philadelphia." Just before last Friday, the images began to appear on telephone poles, pay phones and walls as part of what the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts billed as a "guerrilla campaign" to gener mm ate excitement for its exhibition Andy Warhol: Social Observer, which opens June 17.

But by Tuesday, the posters and stickers were gone removed by cleaning crews from the Old City Special Services District. In a turn of events that Warhol, a man who adored celebrity in any form, would have loved, Warhol as Che Guevara Giant too mighty for David's sling I don't know what it is about David Hornbeck that provokes biblical allusions. He's been called messianic, a prophet, a zealot. Now, we can add martyr to the list. At the news conference Monday to announce his resignation as superintendent of Philadelphia's public schools, Hornbeck and Mayor Street talked so much about faith and belief, I was surprised no one shouted "Amen" or "Alleluia." Actually, shouts of alleluia did come from Hornbeck's political enemies, including Gov.

Ridge; the teachers' union; and Philadelphia's very own State Rep. John Perzel, who said, in so many words: He's dead! And, boy, am 1 happy. The only thing that spoiled their joy was that Hornbeck quit before they could find a way to get him fired. Why did he doit? My theory is that Hornbeck left for two reasons: 1. He had become a political liability and he knew it.

More than that, he had been marginalized. Undoubtedly under Street's orders, Hornbeck had all but disappeared during the city's negotiations with the state over getting more moola for the schools. It was like ordering Joan of Arc to the rear. A strategic necessity perhaps, but still hard for Joan to take. 2.

He was sick of it. "It" being the whole megillah. Six years of bureaucratic and political fights at home. The Hundred Years War with Har-risburg. The braying of the media.

The whining of the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers. At some point, a reasonable man of a certain age has to say: Hey, I don't need this grief! And who can blame him? I don't think Hornbeck would have minded being fired if it was part of a dramatic settlement that brought big bucks to the district. But the deal reached this year with Ridge wasn't big or dramatic. It was the equivalent of a state-subsidized cease-fire. We'll give you some money if you agree to halt hostilities until after the November election.

It makes political sense for Street to take the deal. It gives the new mayor time to get his very own superintendent and more important to bring the PFT to heel. Harrisburg (and Hornbeck, too) has always wanted more "flexibili-tyv and "accountability" from the teachers, buzzwords for eliminating large portions of their contract. Negotiations are under way now. Hide your eyes, kids; it's going to get ugly.

Smite them, baby Although loath to admit it, Hornbeck and Ridge were often in agreement on education. Both demanded measurable improvement in student performance, accountability by teachers and parents, and more freedom for principals. A key difference was: Hornbeck is a true believer (read: zealot) in public education's ability to deliver on those goals, and Ridge is an agnostic one reason he favors vouchers. Another is that vouchers are cheaper than raising state aid to public education by several hundred million dollars. Hornbeck also rightly pointed out that such reform costs real money and argued that the state had a moral obligation to provide it.

In fact, he said unto them: Your refusal to do so is pernicious! And racist! And God will smite you! In Harrisburg, the Pharisees were not amused and proceeded to smite back. Is the state's failure to provide Philadelphia schools the money it wants an act of" racism? I think not. Did the tactic advance the cause of the black and Asian and Latino children in his charge? No. Did it make Hornbeck feel good? Yes. And we're left holding the pooper-scooper.

Of course, when you hire prophets, you get the whole bundle. Give Hornbeck for his unwavering belief in the ability of all children to achieve and Vz for having the political skills of well, what he once was: a ministerial iiMlSliti the academy's publicity stunt has become a font of controversy. It turns out that papering the city with stickers was a little more "guerrilla" than the academy intended. According to academy spokeswoman Penny Blom, the museum employed local ad agency Gyro Worldwide to develop an advertising concept for the Warhol exhibit. Although an agency-run guerrilla campaign might seem like a contradiction in terms, that's what Gyro came up with, bringing in four artists associated with the Arch Street collaborative gallery and studio Space 1026 to create four Warhol-inspired designs.

"Gyro promised me they would only put them where they were allowed to, and I believed them," Blom said. But on Monday, just days after Clare Ro-jas' posters and stickers made their debut, Blom got a call from Cynthia M. Philo, exec- Clare Rojas' stickers and posters were among those removed from Old City. An official at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts said she will now oversee posting of the notices. way.

"It's the law," Center City District head Paul Levy said. "Anything that goes up on the street, we take down immediately. If you let people do that, the place would be a mess." Using permanent adhesives to put up post-See WARHOL on B4 utive director of the Old City district. "She said we had to take them down," Blom said. Said Philo: "I understand that it's a unique concept, and that they're trying to get this show across." She said she had received a number of complaints from residents.

"Unfortunately, you can't do it that The female firefighter is suing the chief, saying bias motivated her firing. Her colleague expressed shock. By Joseph A. Slobodzian INQUIRER STAFF WRITER A firefighter who said he reported that former colleague Katrina Northern missed an emergency run told a federal jury yesterday that he heard her refuse a direct order to get on the ambulance. "I was shocked, angered," testified Michael A.

McGowan, recalling the Sept. 25, 1996, incident that resulted in Northern's firing. "I have never heard anyone refuse an order. It's unthinkable." McGowan, a firefighter of 23 years, the last 15 at busy Engine Co. 45 in North Philadelphia, where the incident is alleged to have occurred, testified during the first day of the defense of Fire Commissioner Harold B.

Hairston and the city in Northern's federal sex- and race-discrimination suit. The trial resumes today before U.S. District Judge Robert F. Kelly, who took over after Judge Raymond J. Broderick removed himself because of ill health.

Though himself African American, Hairston has come under increasing criticism during the trial for his department's treatment of black firefighters. Yesterday at noon, a dozen black activists, labor representatives and religious leaders held a news conference in Center City to criticize Hairston and suggest that Mayor Street remove him. Edwina Baker, chairwoman of the Coalition of Afro-American Women's Organizations, called the federal trial a "waste of taxpayers' money" and called for Street to "step up to the plate." McGowan was the first witness since the trial began May 15 to testify that Northern refused to make an emergency run, even after being threatened with discipline by her supervisor, Lt. Patrick Henner. Northern, 37, one of just 10 female firefighters at the time of her firing and one of only five black women, contends that sex and race bias motivated her 1996 firing.

Her witnesses depicted Engine Co. 45 as a macho bastion where Northern was the first female firefighter. Fire officials say Northern was fired by Hairston for refusing a direct order to make the ambulance run after arguing with partner Kevin Bell about who would drive. Northern testified that she never refused to make the run. Bell, also African American, testified that he chose to leave Northern but that she never refused to go.

Northern, who had no prior disciplinary record, contends that white and male firefighters have committed worse infractions and were never even formally disciplined because their supervisors decided to "keep it in the station." McGowan, who is white, said he was at the station about 7:45 a.m. Sept. 25, 1996, and watched Northern twice walk back from the idling See FIREFIGHTER on B6 A Collegeville council member commutes from England, where she works. Keeping an eye on local issues from abroad I i i I y' I "The hardest part of these jobs is trying to organize your life," she said. She juggles running an organization in Britain and Sweden and teaching courses in Prague and Amsterdam with working toward borough police contracts and traffic.

She sought the council post after going to meetings to protest a Wendy's restaurant being built across from her neighborhood. She maintains her permanent residence in Collegeville, she said. E-mail and voice mail make her continued participation on the council possible, Kernen said, along with savvy scheduling that squeezes in business and government meetings and trips to the King of Prussia mall to stock up on makeup and other supplies. "You can do anything from anywhere," she said. Fellow council members keep her updated, sending her documents and their comments on town issues.

"We're in constant contact," she said. "It's the same as living across the street." Council President Arnold Mann calls theituation odd. By Kathryn Masterson INQUIRER SUBURBAN STAFF COLLEGEVILLE When Catherine Kernen takes her place up front at tonight's Borough Council meeting, the 7 p.m. start time will feel like midnight. Adjournment two or three hours later will come, for her, in the middle of the night.

These days, Kernen, a council-woman for two years, works on European time. She has been living in England since March and commuting back to Collegeville for the monthly municipal meetings. She can avoid jet lag for her few days here with a simple mind trick, she said: "I never think about what time it really is." Though she may be pushing the limit of how far someone will travel to discuss a sidewalk study one of the matters on tonight's agenda Kernen said international corporate mergers had spawned a whole new group of people living the kind of dual lives that she and many of her colleagues now lead. Kernen is global director of product public relations for the pharmaceutical 'company AstraZeneca. LAURENCE KESTERSON Inquirer Suburban Staff Catherine Kernen (right) at home in Collegeville with Natalia Montero, a foreign-exchange student from Spain.

Kernen directs product public relations for a pharmaceutical company. He acknowledged, though, that "We haven't had anything insur- Kernen had a good grapevine to mountable yet," Mann said. "When keep her connected to the town and it gets to that point, we'll have a its issues. A See COMMUTE on B4 Tom Ferrick's e-mail address is tferrickphillynews.com.