PHILADELPHIA— After several warnings that state legislators would reject the expansion of the convention center here if the city couldn’t resolve its labor difficulties, PA lawmakers officially voted not to fund the center expansion. House lawmakers, who were asked to pay for half of the $464 million project, passed a budget bill without an appropriation for the Convention Center. due to the lack of a union agreement. The Senate was expected to vote on the same bill last night or today without any changes, legislative officials told the Philadelphia Inquirer. “It would be foolish for me to [support]this [appropriation], and then, after they have the money, pray they come to an agreement,” House Majority Leader John Perzel said. The only opportunity remaining this year to secure the money will come next month, when legislators return for a brief post election, lame-duck session. However, a change of heart is unlike, the Inquirer reported. Yesterdays legislative rebuff was a setback for Mayor Street, who met in Harrisburg recently with Perzel to lobby for the expansion money, and for much of the citys tourism industry. For two years, city tourism officials have argued that the building must double its total square footage to stay competitive nationally, as well as to help sustain healthy occupancy levels and room rates at Center City hotels. But that effort has been impeded by trade-show exhibitors continuing complaints that the work rules of the union workforce inside the center made Philadelphia more costly, and less customer-friendly, than other convention cities. In August, Street brokered an unsuccessful labor agreement with five of the centers unions that was designed to end jurisdictional disputes. The lone holdout has been the carpenters union, which many officials hold responsible for the defeat on expansion. SOURCE: Philadelphia Inquirer