Ron Panepinto Jewelers
7001 ROOSEVELT BLVD.
700 Sansom St. 215-923-1980
PHILADELPHIA, PA 215-331-6600 Jim Stevenson Union Member Sales Representative
J.Stevenson@northeastlincoln.com
www.PanepintoJewelers.com We Buy Gold & Diamonds
Serving Citywide Political, Labor, Legal and School Communities of Philadelphia
Vol. X. No. 42 (Issue 455)
“The good things we do must be made a part of the public record”
Value 50 ¢
October 16, 2008
Obama Owes Pa. Unions Big Time CONGRESSMAN BOB BRADY, welcomes Presidential candidate Barack Obama to W. Phila. rally as Congressman Chaka Fattah adds to Photo by Bonnie Squires applause.
by Joe Shaheeli If Pennsylvania goes into the Barack Obama column on election night, credit will go to this city’s labor movement. It has pumped several million dollars into the Obama for President campaign chest and turned out thousands of man-hours in campaigning by hundreds of rank-and-file members. Locally, stressing the importance of herding the state into the Democratic column, the leadership of every union located here has taken to the streets, leading rallies all over the city and walking informational lines at many of the city’s industrial sites in the wee hours of the breaking dawn. Unions have sponsored the opening and staffing of Obama campaign offices around the city. Proof of all this was the way the Obama campaign’s four major stops in the city Saturday were staged. Credit had to go to organized labor, whose members turned out by the thousands to insure the candidate had the kind of crowds that smelled (Cont. Page 18)
IN ELECTION street gear at Mayfair rally for Barack Obama Saturday were Controller Alan Butkovitz, Bldg. Trades President Pat Gillespie, AFLCIO President Pat Eiding, Democratic City Committee Chairman Congressman Bob Brady, Local 98 Business Mgr. John Dougherty and Councilman Bill Green.
PPA: An Authority That Admits Blame Impounds 200,000 Illegal Vehicles PHILADELPHIA Parking Authority and Philadelphia Police take 200,000 illegal vehicles off city streets.
A government agency that does its work well and admits when it makes an error is more the exception than the rule. That is the case with the Philadelphia Parking Authority. When it was discovered traffic-light cameras could have caused over 4,000 motorists to be given $100 fines in error, PPA Executive Director Vince Fenerty announced he would be returning over $440,000 to those fined.
ACORN: GOP Pain, Democrat Gain Is ACORN a painful corn on a toe to government officials, or a political organization with an agenda different
from the many seniors and indigenous poor it claims to represent. Or is it what it claims to be: an Association of Com-
TOBACCO EXPRESS Claymont, Delaware
TRI-STATE MALL
(302) 798-7079 5 Minutes from Comm. Barry Bridge, Naaman’s Rd, Turn Left, Next to K-Mart
Marlboro
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36
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27
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Eagle
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Winston
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Salem
34.75
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Monarch
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$
37.25
Grand Prix $ 28.99
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(Prices Subject to Change) • SURGEON GENERAL’S WARNING: Quitting Smoking Now Greatly Reduces Serious Risks To Your Health
munity Organizations for Reform Now? ACORN is bragging it has just completed “the largest, most successful nonpartisan voter registration drive in US history.” That is the claim of one of its spokesman Brian Kettenring, who said, “We helped 1.3 million low-income, minority and young voters across the country register to vote.” But its efforts have raised howls from registration commissions charged with making the voting apparatus function smoothly while insur(Cont. Page 2)
He left nothing to chance. Fenerty presumed most of those fined were innocent and ordered the restitution of the $100 fines, while insuring the cameras’ errors were immediately corrected. This week the PPA reached a hallmark in its responsibilities to rid the city’s streets from uninsured, unregistered, uninspected vehicles and those with unlicensed drivers at the wheel. The Authority impounded its 200,000th illegal vehicle in the LiveStop progam it operates in cooperation with the Police Dept. (Cont. Page 2)
Port Gets Key Land
Few Philadelphians realize a $5 billion widening of the Panama Canal will have a positive impact on the Port of Philadelphia. New locks will double the Canal’s capacity, allowing a major increase of traffic from Far East ports looking for East Coast destinations. That widening makes Philadelphia a probable destination. Insuring the Port of Philadelphia (Cont. Page 16)