Majority Vote

Members of the George Clay Fire Co. in West Conshohocken, who twice rejected the applications of women who had sought to join the all-male ranks, will vote on the requests again - using a more liberal balloting method. Rather than using a system in which three negative votes are grounds for rejection, the company has agreed to decide the matter by a majority vote. The new vote could end a dispute that led the women to file a complaint with the state Human Relations Commission in January, their lawyer, Richard Rogers of Norristown, said Monday.

The Northern Burlington County Regional School District Board of Education decided last night to postpone certifying the results of last week's referendum on whether the method of financing the district should be changed from one based on property values to one based on per-pupil cost. The board said it wanted to await an interpretation of the vote by the state education commissioner. Of the 3,482 votes cast in last Tuesday's referendum in the four towns that comprise the district - Chesterfield, Mansfield, Springfield and North Hanover - 2,514 were in favor of change, and 968 were against.

An editorial Tuesday incorrectly stated a proposal to extend business in the Pennsylvania House past 11 p.m. The proposal would require a majority vote only to conclude action on a pending question.

THE NHL is not expected to release a full schedule until the players ratify the new collective bargaining agreement. A simple majority vote is required of the NHLPA's 740 members. Voting began Thursday evening and will wrap up on Saturday. The Flyers officially will open a 6-day training camp on Sunday with physicals. It remains unclear as to whether the team will also practice on-ice that day. The home opener will be next Saturday at 3 o'clock against Pittsburgh, as previously reported.

He's getting more work for less money. And he's leaving a fairly stable job for one where, in two years, he will have to be elected to the post. But ask Edward J. Donnelly why he's leaving as chief of the Lower Southampton Police Department to become Bucks County sheriff and he will say simply: "It's something different. " From a captain in the Philadelphia Police Department to the head of the 29-member Southampton squad, the 37-year-veteran said he's just about seen it all. Except sheriff.

The Lower Camden County Regional School Board approved a policy last week that will require a majority vote before an individual board member can instruct administrators to compile detailed reports. The board voted, 6-3, on Monday to implement the policy, which is designed to prevent administrators from having to divert time from running the schools to answer individual questions. "As our administrative staff decreases and their duties increase, they find themselves more pressed," said district spokeswoman Jeanne Smith.

A Bristol Township Council member charged with stealing money from the local Democratic Committee resigned last night. Kevin Gilroy, 51, a one-term councilman, gave council members his letter of resignation, effective yesterday, during their monthly meeting. Gilroy was being paid $3,500 a year. He was arrested in late June and charged with theft, receiving stolen property, and tampering with public records. His arrest came after a months-long investigation initiated by the town's Democratic Committee chairwoman, Janet Keyser, after she discovered discrepancies in January.

State officials have revoked their certification of the township's workplace safety committee, a panel founded two years ago to reduce the town's workers' compensation premiums. "This is the first time this has ever happened, and we oversee 3,710 committees statewide," said John Currie, spokesman for the state Department of Labor and Industry. "They just didn't meet our criteria. " In a letter sent to Township Manager Joseph Flicker last week, the state said an April audit found that instead of the required monthly meetings, the township held only four in 1998.

If W. Wilson Goode resigns as mayor to run for the seat now held by U.S. Rep. William H. Gray III, City Council would select by a majority vote a successor to fill out the rest of his term, which expires at the end of the year. Since Goode is in the last year of his term, Council is free to select anyone who meets the two qualifications contained in the Home Rule Charter - that he or she be at least 25 years old and a resident of Philadelphia for three years or more. Should Council be unwilling or unable to pick a successor to Goode, the president of Council, Joseph E. Coleman, would become acting mayor.

In something of a leadership shake-up, Chester Mayor John Linder has replaced three of his highest-level police officers with three formerly lower-ranking lawmen. In addition, the mayor announced Tuesday that he has created a police narcotics task force and beefed up the highway patrol. Linder, who also is the city's public safety director, said the personnel moves were part of the changes and ongoing assessment he vowed when he took office last year. "I saw some areas I wanted to change, and the only way to change things was to move [personnel]

THE NHL is not expected to release a full schedule until the players ratify the new collective bargaining agreement. A simple majority vote is required of the NHLPA's 740 members. Voting began Thursday evening and will wrap up on Saturday. The Flyers officially will open a 6-day training camp on Sunday with physicals. It remains unclear as to whether the team will also practice on-ice that day. The home opener will be next Saturday at 3 o'clock against Pittsburgh, as previously reported.

Ideas are not responsible for the people who believe them, but when evaluating Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's ideas for making the Senate more like the House of Representatives, consider the source. Reid is just a legislative mechanic trying to make Congress' machinery responsive to his party's progressivism. And proper progressives think the Constitution, understood as a charter of limited government, is unconstitutional. They think the "living" Constitution gives government powers sufficient for whatever its ambitions are, enabling it to respond quickly to clamorous majorities.

CAPE CANAVERAL, FLA. - A former space-shuttle commander will attempt the longest spaceflight ever by an American. NASA astronaut Scott Kelly and Russian cosmonaut Mikhail Kornienko will spend an entire year aboard the International Space Station, beginning in 2015. The extended mission was approved almost two months ago to provide a medical foundation for future missions around the moon, as well as far-flung trips to asteroids and Mars. Both men already have lived aboard the space station for six months.

A story in Sunday's Inquirer about a proposed referendum to increase minimum wage incorrectly described how the New Jersey Legislature can pass a constitutional amendment with a majority vote. Both chambers must approve the measure twice within the same legislative session before it could be placed on the ballot. An article about a voter registration drive in Monday's Inquirer wrongly identified Bonnie Snyder-Rothman's daughter as disabled. It is Snyder-Rothman who is disabled.

TBILISI, Georgia - Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili and the opposition both claimed victory Monday in a parliamentary election that has been shaken up by a prison abuse video that activists say showed the cruel, authoritarian face of the government. The governing party was in a heated race with the opposition Georgian Dream coalition led by Bidzina Ivanishvili, a billionaire businessman who has posed the most serious challenge to the pro-Western president since Saakashvili came to power almost nine years ago. No results have been released yet in Monday's vote.

By Tobias Peter Is this really the United States of America? Maybe we should forget the United - unless it means united in polarization, partisanship, and plotting. Washington today is like a battleship that doesn't move anymore because all the crew does is fight about who gets to steer. The surest way to overcome this gridlock would be to sink the battleship that is the two-party system and adopt proportional representation. Americans can choose from an innumerable range of different coffee drinks.

Urban Outfitters Inc. is facing three resolutions put forth by investors seeking to change corporate governance practices at the Philadelphia retail chain. The first wants the board of directors (currently all white men) to commit to considering diversity when picking board candidates. The second urges the company to switch from a "plurality vote" to a "majority vote" standard. And the third seeks to "declassify" the board so all directors face election annually. Naturally, Urban Outfitters' board recommends shareholders vote against all of those proposals when they gather at company headquarters at the Navy Yard at 10:30 a.m. Tuesday.

BERLIN - Voters in Germany's most populous state strengthened a center-left regional government which Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservatives had portrayed as irresponsibly spendthrift, and inflicted an embarrassingly heavy defeat Sunday on the German leader's party, projections showed. The center-left Social Democrats and Greens - Germany's main opposition parties - won combined support of about 51 percent in the election in North Rhine-Westphalia state, according to ARD television projections based on exit polls and early counting.