Corbett Supports Landmark Legislation for Pension Reform

Harrisburg –Governor Tom Corbett today joined Senator Mike Brubaker (R-Lancaster) and Representative Chris Ross (R-Chester) as they introduced a comprehensive pension reform plan that stems skyrocketing pension costs and provides significant taxpayer and budgetary relief for Pennsylvanians, now and well into the future.

The legislation mirrors the governor’s proposal introduced during his February budget address.

“I commend Senator Brubaker and Representative Ross for their leadership in supporting Pennsylvania taxpayers through pension reform and I strongly encourage the legislature to follow suit,” Corbett said. “New calculations show that our unfunded liability has risen to a staggering $47 billion; we can no longer ignore our debt to Pennsylvania. We must take action now.”

Without reform, the governor’s budget office has calculated that pension costs will consume approximately 60 percent of all new general fund revenues in the 2013-14 fiscal year.

“This legislation ensures the pension system is sustainable for the future and implements critically-needed reforms in both the short term and long term,” Brubaker said.

Due to rising pension costs, more than one-third of Pennsylvania’s school districts have applied for exceptions to increase property taxes above the school district’s established index.
“Pennsylvania’s pension funding situation is quickly reaching a crisis,” Ross said. “Something must be done soon to bring these costs into line. Failure to do so would not only be irresponsible, but would threaten our schools and the state’s ability to meet its obligations.”

With reform, school districts and local education agencies would realize savings of more than $1 billion over five years, nearly $140 million in 2013-14 alone.

The legislation rebalances the state’s obligations to both pension funds and the general fund. It also provides short-term budgetary relief to avoid deep cuts in core services and programs offset by long-term reforms that produce an overall savings to the pension systems.

The legislation:
• Contains no changes to current retiree pensions.

• Keeps current employees and retirees in the same type of retirement plan, a defined benefit plan.

• Respects current employees by protecting retirement benefits already accrued and allowing contribution flexibility to opt out of future benefit recalculations.

• Automatically enrolls new employees in a defined contribution plan, starting in 2015.

o State Employees’ Retirement System, or SERS, employees hired after Jan. 1, 2015
and Public School Employees’ Retirement System, or PSERS, employees hired after
July 1, 2015 will be enrolled in a 401(a) defined contribution plan, similar to a
401(k) plan. Consistent with the plans today, state employees will be required to
contribute 6.25 percent of their salary to the plan, while public school employees
will contribute at least 7.5 percent.

• Recalculates future benefits only for current employees through:

o Capping how much of current employees’ future wages and overtime can be used
to calculate their pensionable income, helping to prevent excessive retirements,
and ensuring that the pension reflects an employee’s entire career and not just a
few years where he or she may have earned more overtime or higher pay; and

o Fixing the formula to adjust the way that monthly pension benefits are paid out if
an employee takes a lump sum payment when leaving employment, preventing
employees from getting more money than their pension earned when they retire.

• Limits the amount by which the state’s employer contributions can be increased to provide short-term budgetary relief.

Corbett, Brubaker and Ross were joined for the announcement by Sen. Scott Hutchinson (R-Clarion), Sen. Pat Browne (R-Lehigh), Rep. Brad Roae (R-Crawford), Rep. John McGinnis (R-Blair) and Rep. Fred Keller (R-Snyder) as well as stakeholder organizations representing local school districts, small and large businesses, and policy and financial industry leaders.

For more information about the pension crisis in Pennsylvania, visit www.pa.gov.

Legislation will be available on www.legis.state.pa.us.

Children’s Art Classes
Begins June 1st 10:00 – 11:00am; Five Saturday Classes for Ages 6 – 10 years.
Registration required. $85.00 for members, $90.00 for non-members

Join this class for colorful fun at Glen Foerd on the Delaware; paint, collage, sculpture and more. Abrakadoodle’s award-winning program will have students exploring exciting artists from around the world as they experiment with a variety of cool art materials in a creative and fun environment, a new masterpiece will be created each class.

Glen Foerd on the Delaware
5001 Grant Avenue, Philadelphia, PA 19114
215 632 5330

3rd Annual Lehigh Baptist Church Family Flea Market
Sept 14th, 2013 9AM – 2 PM
934 Alburger Avenue, Philadelphia, PA 19115
Vendors wanted. $20.00 per space or 2 for $30.00
Contact Lynn 215-495-9684

Philadelphia International Airport (PHL) announced that Qatar Airways, recipient of numerous Skytrax industry awards and twice named the Best Airline for International Travel by Business Traveller USA, has chosen Philadelphia as the airline’s fifth U.S. city. Qatar Airways is scheduled to begin nonstop service from PHL to Doha, the capital of the State of Qatar, in March 2014. Boeing 777 aircraft will serve the route, which is Philadelphia’s first to the independent state in the Southern Arabian Gulf region of the Middle East.

“This is a great day for the entire Philadelphia region,” said Mayor Michael A. Nutter. “Convenient international air service in today’s global marketplace is essential to the economic vitality of a region, and this new direct service to Qatar gives businesses in the greater Philadelphia area access to a nation that has the world’s highest per capita GDP.”

The new service to PHL is the first by a foreign flag carrier in more than a decade. Qatar is the first foreign flag airline to the Middle East from PHL and would become the 4th non-U.S. airline to serve Philadelphia.

Qatar Airways serves more than 120 cities in Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Asia and North and South America.

Added Rina Cutler, Deputy Mayor, Transportation and Utilities: “Qatar Airways has distinguished itself as one of the best airlines in the world, and we are very excited that it has chosen to serve Philadelphia International Airport. This is terrific news for our Airport and our City, and I want to acknowledge Mark Gale and his staff as well as representatives from a variety of business and tourism sectors who worked hard on getting this new service.”

Earlier this year, Mayor Nutter and several City officials, including Airport CEO Mark Gale, met with representatives of the U.S. – Qatar Business Council, a non-profit, private sector organization that provides a forum for discussion of key economic, commercial and other issues of interest to American companies doing or planning to do business in Qatar. The Qatar delegation spent 2 days in the City and visited the Airport, where they met with Gale and members of PHL’s executive staff and were given a detailed presentation on the Airport including air service development.

Qatar Airways is the fifth new airline since 2011 to announce it would begin serving PHL. Virgin America and Alaska Airlines began new service in 2012, Spirit Airlines launched at PHL in April and Jet Blue will start service later this month.

“We are very proud of our successes in bringing new air service to the Philadelphia region, and this announcement by Qatar is great news for our traveling public, especially business travelers, who will have convenient access to an important economic center in the Middle East and beyond,” Gale said. “We look forward to Qatar’s new service and a long relationship with this award-winning international carrier.”

In a press release issued by Qatar Airways, the carrier’s Chief Executive Officer Akbar Al Baker noted that “Philadelphia is one of the major hubs of the soon-to-be-merged American Airlines / US Airways and will provide Qatar Airways’ customers with onward connections to over 100 cities. With the implementation of code share agreements with American Airlines and Jet Blue, which offer numerous connections beyond our U.S. gateways, Qatar Airlines is making big strides to strengthen its presence in the United States to ultimately give our passengers greater travel options.”

Qatar has a 5-star rating by SkyTrax, which named Qatar Airways Airline of the Year in 2011 and 2012 as well as the Best Airline in the Middle East seven consecutive years. Business Traveller Middle East also named Qatar Airways Best Business Class in the World in 2012, while Business Traveller USA named Qatar Airways Best Business Class to the Middle East in 2011.

TAMMY KUSHNIR RECEIVES SPECIAL INTERNATIONAL RECOGNITION

Artist, TAMMY KUSHNIR of PHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA has received a special recognition award in the “15th Annual Contemporary Art Juried Online International Art Exhibition” hosted by Upstream People Gallery.

This international exhibition received approximately 200 art entries from around the world and 40 artists were selected by the juror Laurence Bradshaw, Professor of Art at the University of Nebraska at Omaha, U. S. A. Professor Bradshaw states this about the specially recognized work:

“‘TAMMY KUSHNIR of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania has a keen eye for capturing the tenderness of youth as seen in her special black and white photograph “Georgie”. The delicacy of the child is quite touching.”‘

Further information about this special work:

Artist Statement
“I like to capture my subjects unguarded. In this particular case, Georgie had momentarily looked right in the camera and I was lucky enough to capture that precious moment.”
_Tammy Kushnir

The exhibition will be featured online during May, 2013 at www.upstreampeoplegallery.com and continue indefinitely in the archives section of the website.

PHILADELPHIA, PA — The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has announced the City of Philadelphia as one of 20 communities to receive a grant to conduct a planning study to guide the cleanup and reactivation of brownfield land. A $200,000 grant to Philadelphia will fund a study for a four-square-mile area of Frankford Creek, including sections of the Bridesburg, Frankford, Port Richmond and Juniata Park neighborhoods. The Philadelphia City Planning Commission applied for the grant, which was announced April 25th, and will manage the planning process. The Department of Parks and Recreation and the Mayor’s Office of Grants assisted with the application process.

“Through the collaboration of the Planning Commission, Parks and Recreation and the Grants Office, we received this EPA grant, which will be a critical part of the ongoing revitalization around the Frankford Creek,” said Mayor Michael A. Nutter. “I look forward to seeing the final plan and eventual revitalization of these brownfields sites.”

Gary Jastrzab, Executive Director of the City Planning Commission said, “The revitalization of this area was the focus of the recently adopted Philadelphia2035: Lower Northeast District Plan. This grant is the first step toward reusing formerly industrial properties along Frankford Creek in new and exciting ways.”

The former Philadelphia Coke and Rohm and Haas site, totaling 126 riverfront acres in the Bridesburg neighborhood, present economic development opportunities for waterfront redevelopment and community revitalization. “By comprehensively planning in partnership with the EPA, Bridesburg’s vacant brownfields can successfully be remediated and redeveloped with a dynamic mix of uses that will contribute to the city’s and region’s economic vitality” said City Councilman Bobby Henon.

Similarly, the former site of Edgewater Dyeing and Finishing presents a unique opportunity for creekside redevelopment in Frankford. “EPA’s investment in the Frankford Creek area is crucial for us to unlock the transformative potential of these brownfields sites,” said City Councilwoman María Quiñones Sánchez, whose district includes the Frankford Creek watershed. “We now have the opportunity to replace environmental contamination and vacancy with new life and economic vitality, as we have done with nearby success stories like the Globe Dye Works and Amuneal Manufacturing.”

The rehabilitation of brownfield sites will also enable the development of the Frankford Creek Greenway, a greenway that would connect Tacony Creek Park to the North Delaware Riverfront. “This planning grant provides us with an exciting opportunity to advance our trails, watershed protection, and open space objectives while connecting and engaging with communities on these vital assets,” said Michael DiBerardinis Deputy Mayor Environmental and Community Resources and Philadelphia Parks & Recreation Commissioner. “We look forward to continuing to work with PCPC and other partners on this important collaborative effort.”

The EPA will award a total of $4 million to 20 communities as part of the Brownfields Area-Wide (BF AWP) Planning program, which aims to promote community revitalization by using cleanups to stimulate local economies and protect people’s health and the environment. Since the program’s inception, all EPA’s Brownfields investments have leveraged more than $19 billion in cleanup and redevelopment.

Saturday May 4th – 9:30 AM to 5:00 PM TAG Education for Liberation Curriculum Fair and Citywide Summit Folk Arts and Cultural Treasures School, 1023 Callowhill Street

The morning Curriculum Fair will feature workshops, unit and lesson plans, projects, resources, and best practices for social justice education. This will be a space for educators to connect and exchange, learn from each other, and take new ideas back to their own classrooms. The afternoon Summit will be a space for building stronger community alliances for education justice, as parents, students, community members, and educators. Our public schools are under attack, and it will take a movement to fight back. Come learn from people who have organized together to save and transform their schools, and figure out how to take the lessons back to your school community.

The fair will also be featuring sessions hosted by The Attic Youth Center, Philadelphia Youth Poetry Movement, Decarcerate PA, and more!

Register at http://tagcurriculumfair.eventbrite.com/#

When Jesse Jackson visited Occupy Philadelphia after Joe Frazier’s funeral, he called for a statue of a real hero (as opposed to Rocky Balboa) be erected. The City Of Philadelphia has announced:

Lawrence J. Nowlan will be the artist to create a statue in honor of Joe Frazier. Mr. Nowlan previously created the Harry Kalas Memorial Statue at Citizens Bank Park. The statue is scheduled to be erected at XFINITY Live! by Spring 2014.

“I have no doubt that Lawrence Nowlan will capture Joe Frazier’s tenacity, energy and spirit in his work,” said Mayor Michael A. Nutter. “Mr. Nowlan’s previous work has proven to be exceptional, and I look forward to the finished product. Smokin’ Joe is one of Philadelphia’s great sports icons and deserves to be memorialized this way.

Eight artists were solicited for presentations. Then a statue review panel, which included several representatives from the Frazier family, selected Mr. Nowlan from among the presenting artists.

“To kids like me, growing up in Philadelphia in the 1970s, Joe Frazier was a hero. I became aware of Joe Frazier, the athlete and Smokin’ Joe, the personality during an era when the sweet science of boxing was at the forefront of the sporting world,” said Lawrence Nowlan. “To be selected by the Frazier family to create the monument that will forever represent one Philadelphia’s most enduring icons and greatest boxers is a heavyweight honor to me. Words cannot properly describe the gravity and meaning that sculpting this monument will have on this artist.”

The $160,000 raised will cover the cost of the statue and a perpetual maintenance fund administered by the City Board of Trusts. The major contributors to the project are as follows:

Cordish Family: $70,000;
Hand family: $27,000;
Bernard Hopkins and Golden Boy Productions: $25,000;
Jerry Perenchio: $25,000.

Reed Cordish of the Cordish Company said, “Along with Comcast Spectacor, owning and operating XFINITY Live! has been a great privilege and honor for our family. We welcome this new statue of one of the greatest boxers of all time to the iconic statues of Philadelphia sports heroes at XFINITY Live!. Being able to give back to the City by honoring one of its great sons is incredibly meaningful and gratifying for us.”

Joe Hand, Sr. of Joe Hand Promotions added, “Back in March 2012, I pledged that a statue would get built so I’m very happy to hear about the progress it has made with the help of Mayor Nutter and the city. Joe never complained or spoke out about not having a statue, but it bothered me. It’s about time we honored him. Joe deserves it. Philadelphia should be very proud of him.”