Consent Order

Mayor William Conner must pay only one of two $500 fines he was assessed last summer for ethics violations, according to a consent order he entered with the state last week. In return, Conner has ended his appeal of the fines. In July, the state Local Finance Board ruled that Conner was violating a 1991 ethics law by simultaneously serving as mayor and township manager. The board said that posed a conflict of interest and fined Conner $500. The board, a judicial unit of the Department of Community Affairs, also charged that Conner had hired his two sons for summer public works jobs without advertising the positions.

Attorneys for Philadelphia prison inmates filed a motion yesterday asking a federal judge to overturn a 1986 consent order that has been used in the troubled effort to reduce prison overcrowding. If U.S. District Judge Norma Shapiro grants the motion, attorneys David Richman and Philip Lebowitz will seek monetary damages from the city and tougher court orders to end what they termed "at least 18 years of dire prison overcrowding. " The motion is bold and somewhat risky because it focuses on actions taken or not taken by Shapiro and other parties to the current case - a consent order growing out of a lawsuit filed in 1982 by a Holmesburg Prison inmate.

Unhappy with a plan by the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection to test groundwater at the closed Buzby Bros. landfill, Voorhees Township officials will send a counterproposal to the DEP, Mayor James J. Curran said yesterday. On Sept. 3, the DEP sent Voorhees officials a draft of an administrative consent order that would require the township to install a minimum of six groundwater-monitoring wells at the former landfill on Gibbsboro-Marlton Road. Voorhees officials objected to the order because it did not set a maximum number of wells to be installed, Curran said.

The state Department of Environmental Protection and the township appear headed toward a confrontation over a failure to restore wetlands. Last March, the township and the DEP had reached a tentative agreement to replace 5.8 acres of wetlands destroyed when the municipally owned Five Ponds Golf Course was built in 1988. The agreement was put on hold later that month, when the DEP received a letter from two Republican candidates for the Board of Supervisors. The letter said the township had reached the agreement under "duress.

The Winslow Township Committee was advised Tuesday of state allegations that the firm seeking to extend its controversial soil-mining operation has committed numerous environmental violations. Committeeman James A. Powell presented a letter from the state Department of Environmental Protection containing the allegations concerning the firm, George F. Pettinos Inc. Tuesday night was the third time the Township Committee has convened to hear the Pettinos application. The hearing, which has lasted almost 18 hours over three days, closed Tuesday with the committee allowing the public and the applicant 10 more days to submit statements or documents for the record.

Rohm & Haas Co. said yesterday that it had agreed to a multimillion-dollar effort to test its 800-acre facility in Bristol Township for contaminated soil and water and to develop cleanup plans. Plant manager David J. Belonger said at a news conference that the company had signed a consent order with the Environmental Protection Agency in which it agrees to conduct studies in five areas at the 72-year-old facility. One of the sites is a 50-acre landfill in which the company has acknowledged burying about 350,000 tons of waste, including hazardous materials such as benzene, a carcinogen, and flammable materials toluene and xylene, between 1952 and 1975.

Stonebridge Financial Corp., the parent of Stonebridge Bank in Exton, entered a restrictive agreement with the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia designed to conserve financial resources for the bank, which has lost $10.8 million over the last four quarters and has seen its equity decline by $18 million, or 46 percent, in that period. The agreement, dated Sept. 1 but released Thursday, prohibits privately held Stonebridge Financial from paying dividends or redeeming stock or debt without permission from the Fed, which regulates bank holding companies.

LAKEWOOD, N.J. - Residents of a homeless encampment in the woods near the Jersey Shore have agreed with government officials on the details of a plan to close down the camp after its 80 or so residents have found homes. Both sides in the seven-year dispute have signed a consent order and submitted it to a judge, who is expected to approve it soon. The parties reached an agreement in principle last month. The consent order spells out how Lakewood's Tent City will close down and was sent to Superior Court Judge Joseph Foster on Thursday.

Montgomery Chemicals L.L.C. will pay a $36,000 penalty as part of a settlement with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for violating methanol emissions rules at its Conshohocken chemical manufacturing facility, the EPA announced Thursday. The company produces methanol, a hazardous air pollutant, during the manufacturing of sodium borohydride, a bleaching agent used by the paper industry. The agency alleges the company violated the Clean Air Act related to methanol emissions, monitoring, recordkeeping and reporting.

Philadelphia Orphans' Court Judge John W. Herron said at hearing Tuesday that he would sign a consent order allowing the Temple University Health System to complete its previously announced purchase of the nonprofit Fox Chase Cancer Center. The judge's responsibility was to ensure that none of Fox Chase's $40.9 million in restricted charitable assets would be diverted in the deal, which is expected to close July 1. The next step for Temple is the sale of $318.2 million in bonds, of which $83.88 million will be paid to Fox Chase's bank lenders to settle all outstanding financial obligations of Fox Chase.

LAKEWOOD, N.J. - Residents of a homeless encampment in the woods near the Jersey Shore have agreed with government officials on the details of a plan to close down the camp after its 80 or so residents have found homes. Both sides in the seven-year dispute have signed a consent order and submitted it to a judge, who is expected to approve it soon. The parties reached an agreement in principle last month. The consent order spells out how Lakewood's Tent City will close down and was sent to Superior Court Judge Joseph Foster on Thursday.

Montgomery Chemicals L.L.C. will pay a $36,000 penalty as part of a settlement with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for violating methanol emissions rules at its Conshohocken chemical manufacturing facility, the EPA announced Thursday. The company produces methanol, a hazardous air pollutant, during the manufacturing of sodium borohydride, a bleaching agent used by the paper industry. The agency alleges the company violated the Clean Air Act related to methanol emissions, monitoring, recordkeeping and reporting.

ATLANTIC CITY - Twenty-one workers at the Tropicana Casino & Resort who took part in a traffic-blocking protest outside the casino's main entrance this month will remain suspended for 30 days. The casino could have fired the workers, Tropicana president Tony Rodio said. "It was the leadership of the union that misled the workers into making a bad decision, and it wouldn't have been fair to make them lose their jobs for the mistakes of their union leaders," he said. A Superior Court judge granted the Tropicana a restraining order Monday prohibiting Local 54 of the Unite Here union from conducting similar protests or interfering with the casino's business, Rodio said.

Philadelphia Orphans' Court Judge John W. Herron said at hearing Tuesday that he would sign a consent order allowing the Temple University Health System to complete its previously announced purchase of the nonprofit Fox Chase Cancer Center. The judge's responsibility was to ensure that none of Fox Chase's $40.9 million in restricted charitable assets would be diverted in the deal, which is expected to close July 1. The next step for Temple is the sale of $318.2 million in bonds, of which $83.88 million will be paid to Fox Chase's bank lenders to settle all outstanding financial obligations of Fox Chase.

Stonebridge Financial Corp., the parent of Stonebridge Bank in Exton, entered a restrictive agreement with the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia designed to conserve financial resources for the bank, which has lost $10.8 million over the last four quarters and has seen its equity decline by $18 million, or 46 percent, in that period. The agreement, dated Sept. 1 but released Thursday, prohibits privately held Stonebridge Financial from paying dividends or redeeming stock or debt without permission from the Fed, which regulates bank holding companies.

Malvern Preparatory School agreed to return $700,000 received from convicted Ponzi schemer Joseph S. Forte, according to a consent order signed Thursday by Judge Paul S. Diamond of the U.S. District Court in Philadelphia. The settlement ends a heated legal fight between the private Main Line school and the court-appointed receiver who is trying to recoup money for investors who lost $35 million in the fraud by Forte, who is serving a 15-year prison term. The receiver, Marion A. Hecht, had first demanded that Malvern Prep return $900,000 allegedly donated by Forte, a former trustee and volunteer strength coach at the school who pledged $1 million for a strength-and-conditioning center.

Donald D. Kennedy Jr., 79, a former executive with National Liberty Corp., the Valley Forge insurance firm, died of esophageal cancer Saturday, July 3, at his home in Radnor. Born in Philadelphia, Mr. Kennedy graduated from Pomfret (Conn.) School in 1949 and earned a bachelor's degree in sociology at Princeton University in 1953. After serving as a Marine officer for two years, Mr. Kennedy spent summers as director of Camp Kieve, founded by his family, in Nobleboro, Maine, before graduating from the University of Pennsylvania Law School in 1960.

A Maryland health-insurance firm run by Tom Knox was fined $125,000 by state regulators in 2004 for hiring a convicted embezzler, in violation of federal rules - and for keeping him on the payroll after promising to remove him. Knox, a Philadelphia mayoral candidate who has pledged to end corruption and cronyism at City Hall, hired the felon in 2000 as a compliance officer for Fidelity Insurance, which Knox had bought the previous year. As compliance officer, David S. Fishbone was responsible for making sure Fidelity acted within the law. Fishbone had been sentenced to four years in federal prison in 1995 after pleading guilty to looting six estates of more than $1 million when he was a bankruptcy lawyer in Philadelphia.

Accused of spewing lead into the outdoor air and exposing its own workers to life-threatening levels of toxics, Franklin Smelting and Refining Corp. has temporarily shut down its Port Richmond plant. Franklin, the nation's largest copper smelter, banked its blast furnace off Castor Avenue east of Richmond Street this month, apparently to fix equipment that was supposed to control the pollution - but instead held lead dust at hazardous levels inside the plant. "The net effect was to increase employees' exposure to air contaminants inside the plant," said the Occupational Safety and Health Administration.