Editorial for Decmber 6, 2007 edition:


Two big decisions

This is a pivotal week for Philadelphia, from its western border to the eastern border and everybody in between.
City Council and Mayor John Street are poised to give their official blessings to zoning changes and lease agreements that will allow the Fox Chase Cancer Center to begin its big expansion project.
As soon as Council and Mr. Street do their good deed, the vocal minority of expansion opponents should get out of the way and cancel plans to wage a legal battle aimed at preserving the will of Robert Waln Ryerss.
It’s time to let Fox Chase do what it does best — fight cancer and save lives.
Some wills are meant to be broken. Everyone but the most avowed racists would agree that Stephen Girard’s will — which stipulated that students at his school could only be white males — deserved to be overturned decades ago. Even the folks who want Burholme Park to remain untouched forever would have to agree that Mr. Girard’s will deserved to be ignored.
Meanwhile, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court’s near-unanimous ruling on Monday that city officials should get out of the way of the planned construction of the Sugarhouse casino in Fishtown naturally carries a lot of weight, but like the entire manner in which the state is trying to plop casinos in neighborhoods with strong opposition, the state Supreme Court’s decision doesn’t pass the smell test. Like the Fox Chase Cancer Center expansion, the casinos offer a bounty of new jobs and tax revenue, but unlike the cancer center, casinos cannot save lives. If anything, they destroy lives.
Casino foes who believe the state Supreme Court went too far can appeal to the court of last resort. The U.S. Supreme Court has the final say. And if you don’t believe that, just ask President Gore. ••

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