Manager

PATCO passengers should not have had to wait for more than an hour on a train stranded over the Delaware River on Saturday with little information or assistance, PATCO general manager John Rink said Wednesday. Rink apologized at the monthly board meeting of PATCO's parent, the Delaware River Port Authority. "We could have done a better job of communicating with passengers . . . and with the general public," Rink said. "The train was stopped on the bridge far too long before the notification of DRPA leadership and the public.

Was there really any other choice for an investment manager for the city-sponsored Startup PHL Seed Fund but First Round Capital? That's the West Philadelphia firm picked by the Philadelphia Industrial Development Corp. to invest $6 million in information technology start-ups either based in or with significant operations in the city. After all, what has become one of the nation's most active venture capital firms moved its headquarters from West Conshohocken into the city last August and launched the Dorm Room Fund in the fall to invest in companies started by area college students.

The former business manager of the Philadelphia-area charter-school network founded by Dorothy June Brown pleaded guilty Friday in federal court to his role in an alleged scheme to defraud the schools of $6.7 million. In a separate hearing later in the day, attorneys for Brown won a bail reduction for the 75-year-old educator, who faces more than 60 counts of wire fraud and charges that she led a broad conspiracy to obstruct justice. Anthony Smoot, 50, of New Castle, Del., pleaded guilty to charges that he participated in a conspiracy with Brown and others to obstruct justice and had obstructed justice during parts of a four-year federal probe of the schools.

General manager Paul Holmgren said he was not considering a coaching change, and he criticized the Flyers' "compete" level during an impromptu news conference at the team's practice facility in Voorhees on Thursday. At first, Holmgren gave coach Peter Laviolette a seemingly lukewarm endorsement. Asked if Laviolette was on the hot seat, Holmgren said, "I don't think so. " Holmgren later added: "I haven't even thought about" making a coaching change, and he was "not at the point" of consummating a major trade.

The former business manager of Dorothy June Brown's charter school network Friday admitted he had played a role in Brown's alleged scheme to defraud the schools of $6.7 million. Anthony Smoot, 50, of New Castle, Del. appeared in US District Court this morning to plead guilty to charges that he had participated in a conspiracy to obstruct justice and had obstructed justice during portions of a four-year federal probe of charter schools Brown had founded and run in the Philadelphia area.

Keith Li, the Hong Kong-based chief executive officer of Bosera Asset Management (International) Co., has died. He was 42. Li died March 11 in Hong Kong of an "acute illness," according to Suki Chau, marketing manager at the company. She declined to provide more details, citing privacy. Before joining the Chinese asset manager, Li was a managing director at E.J. McKay & Co., a Shanghai-based investment bank, and was a director at Citigroup Inc.'s private-banking arm, according to Bosera.

John P. Flanigan, 96, of Elverson, a former design manager for power plants in the United States and abroad, died Tuesday, March 5, at home. In 1946, Mr. Flanigan joined United Engineers & Constructors in Center City as an electrical designer. He rose to supervisor and finally design manager, responsible for the electrical design of a dozen turbogenerator power-plant installations in the United States, Canada, and New Zealand. He retired in 1981 after 35 years. Mr. Flanigan had been interested in lighting and electric power while working at the Frankford Arsenal, first as a lens grinder, then as an electrical designer.

BRADENTON, Fla. - Space is tight at 90-year-old McKechnie Field, and the Phillies encroached upon the Pirates' batting practice when they began stretching Monday. Gaby Sanchez jogged past, dodging red jerseys and the batting cage. The Pittsburgh first baseman noticed Chase Utley in the pack and made eye contact. "How are these?" asked Sanchez, who put his hands on his kneecaps. Utley nodded his head and smiled. "Good," he said. Tuesday marks the three-week point of Phillies camp in this elongated spring, one defined by cautious optimism.

JO-JO TYNES would go into a nightclub, toss back a Mistic fruit drink or just plain water and hit the dance floor. "He loved to have fun," said his fiancee, Kim Oliver. "Everybody loved him. He'd go into a club and people would say, 'Here's Jo-Jo!' He loved people. He loved to dance. " Joseph Tynes, known to everybody as Jo-Jo, worked with a number of musicians and musical groups as stage manager and general factotum, including Teddy Pendergrass, the O'Jays and the Three Degrees, traveling around the country and overseas.