Full Disclosure

IHOPE I'm not the only one who picks up the irony (or disingenuous hypocrisy, given the Daily News' politics) in your recent editorial on the state Gaming Control Board. You rant about not knowing the exact percentage an individual holds in a partnership that has applied for a license. We already know who these people are, but the apparently important information is what percentage they hold. So you say "in the interests of full disclosure" that Daily News CEO Brian Tierney is a partner in the Trump Street project.

Most of the candidates for governor are promising that, if elected, they'll eliminate Pennsylvania's very own, very secretive version of pork barrel - "walking around money," or WAM. There are good sides to the WAM process, mainly that it can quickly target funds for specific local projects. But WAMs have come under heavy criticism in recent years because the money promised to individual legislators for their home districts is hidden in the budget and not delineated for taxpayers to see. And the expenditures often seem frivolous - like last year's $1,000 for little-league football pants, $2,000 for a Mummers Parade comedy group, $4,000 for a cheerleading program.

Danny Briere is more than one of the Flyers' premier forwards. More than an integral part of their power play. More than someone who seems to play his best in big games. He is also the unofficial Team Big Brother. A year ago, Briere had been recently divorced when he asked teammate and fellow French Canadian Claude Giroux to move in with him and his three boys in their Haddonfield home. Giroux has since opted for a place of his own in Cherry Hill, and Briere's newest housemate will soon be 18-year-old rookie Sean Couturier, another French Canadian.

After coming out last week on the short end of a 2-1 vote that approved pay raises for county elected officials, Montgomery County Commissioner Rita C. Banning yesterday called for those officials who receive a pay raise to disclose all sources of their incomes. "I used to think full disclosure was important only because of conflict- of-interest problems," said Banning, the Democratic minority commissioner. "But I can see now that it is important for county commissioners and county row officers to make full disclosure, since the county commissioners set the salaries.

House Speaker Thomas S. Foley, denying any effort to cover up congressional check-kiting, said yesterday that the House would vote by tomorrow on an ethics committee report that would conceal the names of all but 24 members who wrote bad checks. But even as Foley repeated his support for partial disclosure, members in both parties called for naming all members who wrote checks on the now-defunct House bank without sufficient funds to cover them. Republican members of the House ethics committee said yesterday that they would introduce a proposal today calling for disclosure of the full list of members who overdrew their accounts at the House bank.

What right does City Council have to distribute my hard-earned money (as a taxpayer) to any group without knowing specifically what the money is to be used for? How audacious of Sam Evans to request $600,000 and then say that he will not tell what the money is to be used for until after he gets the grant. And why would City Council even consider his requests without the full disclosure for the use of the requested money? Since I have to account for my money, why should Mr. Evans not have to acount for the money he is requesting as a grant?

Two brothers who founded Metrobank, a small Center City financial institution, have sued the firm's directors in federal court, alleging "self- dealing," "insider loans" and other improper banking practices. "It's all bull - - - -," said City Controller Jonathan Saidel, a bank director and one of the named defendants, when informed by a reporter that the suit had been filed on Tuesday by Raymond and Jerome Weisbein, the bank's founders. Saidel said he hadn't been served with a copy of the lawsuit and therefore couldn't comment.

The Securities and Exchange Commission has almost completed an 18-month investigation of a Huntingdon Valley health-care company, according to the firm's chairman and president. Daniel P. McCartney said he expected to meet next month with SEC attorneys to answer questions about the 1988 acquisition of a rival in the housekeeping and linen-supply business for nursing homes. McCartney's Healthcare Services Group Inc., a leading provider of those services to more than 500 facilities nationwide, purchased American Services Inc. in September 1988 from the financially troubled Southmark Corp.

Question: I've been seeing a really great guy, "Joe. " The relationship looks like it's going to jell into something more permanent. He works with my stepdad, and so knows my parents. The problem is that my mother was abusive to my sisters and me while we were growing up. In addition to physical abuse, she used to regularly tell us that she hated us and wished we would all die or run away so that she'd never have to look at us again. It's taken me many years and much therapy to move past this, but I will always carry the emotional scars.

IT'S A SIMPLE enough request: Tell us what you paid several sub-contractors who took part in Edison, Inc's $2.7 million "study. " That was all state Sen. Vince Fumo asked for in a letter sent to Edison, Inc. last Tuesday. It was all the Daily News asked for a week earlier when connecting the dots between Edison and two associates of Mayor Street. "As a matter of policy in this project," Edison' s Adam Tucker told the Daily News, "we won't release dollar amounts. " What makes this project so different?

The death of yet another apparently malnourished child who ultimately succumbed to abuse has Philadelphians once again asking how these tragedies can be avoided. For all the improvements made within the city's Department of Human Resources since 14-year-old Danieal Kelly starved to death six years ago, there are still children who end up dead. The latest is Khalil Wimes, 6, who died last week of blunt-force trauma to the head. He weighed only 29 pounds. Medical examiners said he had suffered tremendously before being taken, unconscious, sunken, and sallow, to Children's Hospital of Philadelphia.

Thirty-eight Philadelphia winters ago I asked a 76ers rookie from where he drew what seemed like an inexhaustible supply of energy. This kid was rawhide, wolf-pack lean, and he would run so hard, cut so sharply, that he would rip the soles off the bottoms of his sneakers. And he never, ever, slowed down. So what was his secret? "Bee pollen," said Doug Collins. Pardon? "Here, try some. " I didn't sleep for what seemed like three days. (Full disclosure: Relax, it was not a banned or illegal substance.

In the interest of full disclosure, I was among the dirty-minded political observers who gasped at an exchange Gov. Christie had with a female heckler at a rally in New Hampshire last weekend. In case you missed it, after the woman barked that Christie was a job-killer, the governor responded with this doozy: "Something may go down tonight, but it ain't going to be jobs, sweetheart. " From my couch Sunday night, I sent this e-mail to my friend and colleague Matt Katz, he of the "Christie Chronicles": you see this stuff about christie in exeter?

Back in those grainy black-and-white days, back in the late 1940s, you could still get up and run if you'd been tackled. So naturally, piling on was a commonplace tactic, like pinning butterflies to a board. And where you never, ever wanted to be was on the bottom of one of those piles, where everyone was busily gouging, pinching, biting, and otherwise committing all manner of indignities. You'd look down and there would be a tackler gnawing on your ankle like a berserk beaver.

IT'S HARDLY news that Philadelphia holds business, and small business in particular, in the same regard most of us hold bedbugs. When the city was a thriving center for manufacturing, the term "business-privilege tax" might have had less of a contemptible ring to it, but 100 years later, the term speaks volumes about how cruel the city's policies can be for anyone daft enough to launch their dreams here. One of the most onerous aspects of that business tax - the one that requires new businesses to pay two years of their taxes up front - should win an award in a "Bad government" contest.

Danny Briere is more than one of the Flyers' premier forwards. More than an integral part of their power play. More than someone who seems to play his best in big games. He is also the unofficial Team Big Brother. A year ago, Briere had been recently divorced when he asked teammate and fellow French Canadian Claude Giroux to move in with him and his three boys in their Haddonfield home. Giroux has since opted for a place of his own in Cherry Hill, and Briere's newest housemate will soon be 18-year-old rookie Sean Couturier, another French Canadian.

LAST WEEK, while listening to NPR on my drive home, I burst into near hysterical laughter, listening to a report that movie theater owners were now duking it out with federal officials over the new law that requires full disclosure of nutrient and calorie content of foods. In case you missed it, you should know that a typical large size popcorn with imitation butter - a cheap soybean oil and a few other artificial ingredients - has about 1,500 calories. Put another way, that is the equivalent of three, that's right, THREE Big Macs!

Question: I think I screwed up, but I'm not sure how badly. My wife is pregnant with our first baby - a girl. Full disclosure, I expressed mild disappointment when we learned the sex, but I was mostly joking. Also, my wife was really sick for the first few months, couldn't keep anything down, but she's doing great now. I think this might be relevant. So here's the screw-up: I was working on a brief for work. My wife was in another room watching TV. She called out for me to come feel the baby move - she's felt it before but I never have.

Question: I've been seeing a really great guy, "Joe. " The relationship looks like it's going to jell into something more permanent. He works with my stepdad, and so knows my parents. The problem is that my mother was abusive to my sisters and me while we were growing up. In addition to physical abuse, she used to regularly tell us that she hated us and wished we would all die or run away so that she'd never have to look at us again. It's taken me many years and much therapy to move past this, but I will always carry the emotional scars.

Question: Recently, we purchased a rehabbed house where mechanicals, the roof, windows, and the like were pretty much all replaced. When we asked our real estate agent for a disclosure from the buyer, the agent said there wasn't one because it was a rehab. Looking at the Pennsylvania disclosure law, in a resale the seller should always provide a disclosure, but there's also a provision that new properties do not require one, if a warranty if offered. What is a rehab considered, a new building or a resale?