New Lease

We are thankful - especially this year - for family. First, for our adorable, immensely bright grandchild adopted from China, now nine years old. Her name is Kate Lenore Stechert. She is the daughter of our oldest daughter, Barbara, and our son-in-law, Rick Stechert, of North Wales. We are thankful, too, that Kate is now Aunt Kate, even at her young age. Her older half-brother, Kyle Stechert, and his wife, Marie, welcomed baby Mia into the world this year. Kate is learning to read and write Mandarin Chinese, and is doing wonderfully in school.

Gov. Rendell signed an executive order Tuesday that bans further leasing of state forests for Marcellus Shale natural gas drilling, a move lauded by environmentalists but shrugged off by Republicans as the symbolic effort of a lame-duck leader. Rendell, who will leave office in January, signed the moratorium in a bitter denouement to the legislature's failure to enact a natural gas severance tax, which left Democrats and Republicans blaming each other for the breakdown. The governor underscored the overt political nature of Tuesday's signing ceremony at Penn Treaty Park in Philadelphia by using the occasion as a call to action in next Tuesday's legislative and gubernatorial elections.

W. Neil Barto's 180-acre Angus breeding farm reflects a man struggling with burdens. A barn has collapsed into a heap of lumber and hay. Tomatoes rot by the driveway. Rusted junk and empty bottles clutter the porch. Weeds flourish. Barto's wife, Louise, came to the door in a wheelchair. She was disabled 23 years ago in an automobile crash, and Barto quit his county job to care for her. Barto's health is not so good, either. He lost a finger to a log splitter, got a knee replacement a few years ago, and had a kidney transplant in 1995 that freed him from dialysis.

The voice of experience Yankees catcher Jorge Posada said yesterday that Joba Chamberlain should stay in the New York bullpen for the foreseeable future to avoid the kind of injury that has sidelined Posada for a month this season. Posada, recovering from season-ending surgery to repair his right shoulder, made the comments on the Yankees Entertainment & Sports Network. "Leave him in the bullpen," Posada told interviewers. "You're going to lose him because he's going to get hurt.

The grill will be sizzling as usual today as the lunch line grows at Rick's Original Philly Steaks in Reading Terminal Market. But owner Rick Olivieri's mind will be focused on a different order - one he hopes to get from Common Pleas Court Judge Mark I. Bernstein, his last hope of remaining in the market where his family business has been since 1982. Barring some last-minute development, Bernstein will begin hearing testimony today in the nonjury trial of combined lawsuits that Olivieri filed against market management and that management filed to evict Olivieri.

A Philadelphia judge has cleared the way for trial of the long-running lease dispute between Reading Terminal Market managers and steakmaster Rick Olivieri. In a 10-page opinion filed last week, Common Pleas Judge Mark I. Bernstein pared all but one of the 11 counts of the civil lawsuit Olivieri filed last July against the nonprofit Reading Terminal Market Corp., its general manager Paul Steinke, and Ricardo Dunston, chairman of the nonprofit's board of directors. Bernstein also ruled that Olivieri may not seek punitive damages: "Rick's recoverable damages are limited to the amount it reasonably spent to renovate the premises in reliance on the promise of a renewal lease before Rick's learned that its lease would not be renewed.

Some were veteran customers, some were tourists or conventioneers, and some just wanted to be there on the day Rick Olivieri cooked his last steak sandwich at Reading Terminal Market. But that day wasn't yesterday and probably won't be today. The stalemate between Olivieri and management of Reading Terminal Market remained yesterday with Olivieri doing a booming first day of business without a lease, and market officials letting him be while starting the legal eviction process and waiting for the next move in Olivieri's lawsuit against them.

Rick Olivieri left his corner of the Reading Terminal Market yesterday without a lease, at times fighting tears, and promising to be behind the grill at Rick's Philly Steaks when the lunch crowds return today. The predicted end of the long-running drama between Olivieri and management of the historic market came and went, as T.S. Eliot said, not with a bang but a whimper. Olivieri's lawyer had sued to avoid eviction, but, as of late yesterday afternoon, there was no hearing and no court order.

Management at the Reading Terminal Market yesterday reaffirmed its decision not to give a new lease to steak-sandwichmaker Rick Olivieri. Market spokesman Kevin Feeley said officials of the nonprofit Reading Terminal Market Corp. spent the last week explaining the rationale for their decision to merchants and others, as well as giving Olivieri a final hearing on Wednesday. "Following all of these measures, the board reaffirmed the decision not to renew the lease," Feeley said.

A majority of members of the Reading Terminal Merchants' Association unanimously approved a resolution yesterday supporting a new lease for veteran steak sandwich maker Rick Olivieri. Michael Holahan, interim president of the group representing the 76 merchants in the 104-year-old Center City market, said that more than 50 merchants were represented at the meeting and that the vote supporting the resolution was unanimous. Olivieri, owner of Rick's Philly Steaks, was told by market officials on June 28 that his lease would not be renewed and that he had to leave by July 31. Officials announced that he would be replaced by a South Philadelphia competitor, Tony Luke's Old Philly Style Sandwiches.