Partnership

Drexel University and Haddonfield Memorial High School will announce tonight a first-of-its-kind partnership that includes free college-level courses for high-achieving students and online classes, as well as mentoring and faculty-training programs. As designed, the partnership will give Haddonfield students access to courses not available at the high school, such as Mandarin and electrical physics, and allow them to accumulate college credits early. And it gives Drexel special reach into a high-performing school where many students already apply to the university.

Tell Evalind Minor that the University of Pennsylvania doesn't award contracts to minority businesses in West Philadelphia, and she'll tell you what a Penn program has meant for her company, Emsco Scientific Enterprises Inc. Emsco, a black-owned company that supplies laboratory equipment, teamed up with Fisher Scientific International, a large laboratory supplier that is white-owned. They received a five-year contract from Penn, worth about $15 million. About $300,000 a year will go to Emsco, which was founded 10 years ago and is located in the Philadelphia Business and Technology Center at 51st Street and Parkside Avenue.

The Philadelphia School Partnership will announce Friday that it is awarding a $1.5 million grant to Wissahickon Charter School in Nicetown to help it expand. A year ago, the Philadelphia School Reform Commission gave the charter school, which has an environmental focus, permission to add a second K-8 campus in 2014. Kristina Littell, Wissahickon's co-chief executive officer, said the school's second site will be located on Washington Lane in East Germantown. She said the spot is ideal since it is across the street from the Awbury Arboretum and near several environmental programs.

Now this was the kind of partnership people want in Camden. And not a day too soon, as 100 people yesterday celebrated a long-awaited $10 million renovation of a public housing development amid news of yet another audit criticizing how city officials spend public money. The audit, by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development's Office of the Inspector General, found that the city misused $2.2 million worth of federal grants for community programs in 1995. But scathing audits of Camden's government and agencies have become all too frequent - even from HUD, which last week announced a new "partnership" between itself, the city and the state.

For the last 10 years, James H. Shacklett 3d has been chairman of the Montgomery County Higher Education and Health Authority. And for the same period, Douglas B. Breidenbach Jr.'s law firms have represented the authority, receiving fees of $323,000 in 1992 alone. About three years ago, the two men also became partners in a real estate development, a relationship Shacklett did not list on state financial- disclosure forms. Shacklett said it was an oversight on his part that he did not list the partnership on the disclosure forms.

Two of the biggest apartment landlords based in the Philadelphia area are betting on Washington, hoping the federal government and the contractors who depend on it will weather the budget battles that have lately depressed hiring and rents around the capital. Morgan Properties, the King of Prussia firm headed by Temple University and Republican Party donor Mitchell Morgan, says it has bought the 620-unit Northampton Apartments in Largo, Md., in partnership with DRA Advisors L.L.C., of New York.

Directors of AmeriGas Propane Inc., general partner of AmeriGas Partners L.P., increased the quarterly distribution by 5 percent to 84 cents per limited partnership unit to unit holders of record as of May 10.   The annualized distribution will increase from $3.20 to $3.36 per unit. AmeriGas units would yield 7.6 percent, based upon Monday's closing price of $44.07 a unit on the New York Stock Exchange.   UGI Corp., Valley Forge, is the general partner of AmeriGas and owns 26 percent of the partnership units.

A public-private partnership is stepping up to save three city skating rinks whose futures were on thin ice. Mayor Nutter and Ed Snider, chairman of Comcast-Spectacor, announced yesterday that the Ed Snider Youth Hockey Foundation would take over operation and programming at three rinks that officials said were targeted for possible closing amid the city's budget troubles. Comcast-Spectacor owns the Flyers. At a news conference at the Rink at Simons Recreation and Teen Access Center at 7200 Woolston Ave. in the West Oak Lane section, Nutter hailed the partnership with the foundation.

The Wayne Partnership, a coalition of civic and commercial groups whose goal is to rejuvenate Wayne, has announced its officers for its inaugural year. Art Forster, a Lancaster Avenue merchant specializing in picture frames and artwork, was named president at a recent meeting of the partnership. "I will serve as president until I feel the partnership is sufficiently up and running, and then I will call an election by the end of the year," Forster said Tuesday. Two vice presidents were named - Sonja Keohane, former president of the North Wayne Protective Association, and David Oppen, president of the Wayne Public Safety Association.

Investors tied to Hollywood's most powerful talent agency have sought refuge in U.S. Bankruptcy Court here for the Ben Franklin House in Center City. Michael Rubel, an attorney for the owners, Ben Franklin Hotel Associates LP, said the Chapter 11 filing was basically a technical change required by the partnership's major creditor before it would agree to rework an old mortgage. He said the building's commercial and residential tenants and creditors would not be affected. The filing covers the 18-story commercial and residential building at 834 Chestnut St. and an adjacent parking garage at 815 Walnut St. The limited partnership lists assets of $19.9 million, including real estate worth $18 million, and liabilities of $42.1 million.