Closings

Plans to close three more Acme supermarkets in the region were greeted grimly Thursday by a top union official representing clerks employed by the embattled chain, whose corporate parent announced the cost-cutting moves a day earlier. Underperforming stores in Sharon Hill, Morrisville, and Glassboro are among 60 to be closed in the months ahead by Supervalu Inc. of Minnesota. The move follows the firing of Supervalu's previous chief executive a few weeks ago and parallels ongoing efforts by the debt-saddled corporation to find a buyer for its retail chains and wholesale-distribution business.

Gov. Rendell and U.S. Sens. Arlen Specter and Rick Santorum have called a meeting of the state's congressional delegation today to discuss strategies for saving Willow Grove and other Pennsylvania military bases facing closure. As a commission reviews the Pentagon's base-closing list, Pennsylvania's opportunity to make its case before them is just two weeks away. If the suggested closings go through, the state could lose 13 installations and more than 1,800 jobs. Today's meeting in Washington is part of the "campaign to preserve the Commonwealth's military installations," a statement from Specter's office said.

Shouting, waving signs, and drowning out officials, hundreds of students, parents, and community members angry at plans to shut 37 Philadelphia schools lashed out Thursday night at the School Reform Commission. "I have never been more disappointed in this city as a whole," said Naeemah Felder, parent of a daughter at Pepper Middle School, one of the schools slated for closure in June. "I want to stay in my neighborhood, because McCloskey is closest to where I live," fourth grader Lamar Robinson said.

IT MUST be unsettling, and frustrating, to head to the library so you can check job listings online, or be in a safe place after school, only to find it closed. According to a report in yesterday's Daily News, unscheduled closings due to staff shortages are happening more often, as the library system struggles to operate under reduced circumstances. On any given day, according to the report, one or more of the 54 branches in the system have been shut unexpectedly. This is disruptive to the city's citizens; the library is often the heart of a community, providing far more than books.

More than 1.3 million Americans, including 176,000 service industry workers, lost their jobs due to plant closings in 1983 and 1984, according to a congressional report released yesterday. About 60 percent of the 16,200 businesses that closed were in manufacturing, and more than one-third of the closures were in import-bruised industries, the study found. The report, which surveyed firms employing at least 50 people, found that most service industry job losses were in firms dependent on manufacturing.

More than 15,000 jobs could be affected - in some instances eliminated - by the closings of oil refineries in Marcus Hook and Trainer, Delaware County officials warned Wednesday. "This is a real devastating situation," said Frank Carey of the county's Office of Employment and Training. Citing a state analysis it had requested, the county said that for every job lost at the refinery, 18 nonrefinery employees would either lose jobs, have hours reduced, or have their jobs changed in some way. Those who would be out of work included more than 1,100 union members employed by refinery contractors, according to the study.

In the face of population shifts, dwindling Mass attendance, and thinning clerical ranks, the Archdiocese of Philadelphia will soon call on half of its 266 parishes to begin talking among themselves about their needs - and survival. In an announcement to be made Wednesday, the archdiocese will say it has reached "no decisions" about the fates of the churches in the 22 "parish planning areas" involved. It is not ruling out parish closings as a result of the process. Each congregation will be asked to begin a "prayerful and participative" discussion to identity its mission and goals, and "determine if it has the resources required for sustained operation," the announcement reads.

Two Catholic elementary schools in South Philadelphia slated for closure by the archdiocese have appealed to an even higher authority - the Vatican. The schools, Sacred Heart of Jesus and Our Lady of Mount Carmel, are scheduled to shutter in June and to merge into another South Philadelphia school this fall, but parents and a canon-law consultant are proposing that they merge at the Mount Carmel site instead. Parents at both schools - frustrated and angry about the closings, which they say will have adverse effects in their neighborhoods - hired Boston lawyer Peter Borre after Archbishop Charles J. Chaput denied their appeal.

Impressed with the input he has received, Philadelphia schools Superintendent William R. Hite Jr. on Monday said changes will be made to the controversial school-closings plan, but he declined to be specific. The School District has heard from about 4,000 people at 14 meetings, and it has received 38 alternative proposals from activists, educators, a state legislator, and others, Hite said. "We're spending time really trying to vet every one of those proposals," he said, noting that "some are very good.