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Newsmaker: Representative has change of heart over university name change
Monday, October 08, 2001 By Milan Simonich, Post-Gazette Staff Writer
If state Rep. Peter J. Daley is to commit political suicide, he said he prefers to pick his own bullet.
Name: Peter J. Daley
Date of birth: Aug. 8, 1950
Place of birth: Brownsville, Fayette County
In the news: Daley agreed to sponsor a bill to change the name of California University of Pennsylvania to Eberly University. He reversed himself last week after receiving so much criticism that he said he thought it could cost him his legislative seat.
Quote: "I know that the public is not fundamentally supportive of the idea."
Education: Graduated from California, Pa., High School in 1968; bachelor's degree in social studies, California University of Pennsylvania, 1972; master's degree in political science from California, 1975; master's in social work, University of Pittsburgh, 1983; law degree, Widener University, 1993
Family: Married to Sally Daugherty Daley. They have two daughters, Delia, 21, and Talia, 19, both students at West Virginia University.
Daley, 51, saw his 18-year legislative career flash before his eyes last week. He had agreed -- naively, he says now -- to sponsor a bill that would change the name of California University of Pennsylvania to Eberly University.
Daley, D-California, said he was lukewarm to the idea, but agreed to carry the bill as a favor to his friend, California University President Angelo Armenti Jr.
"He explained the need for a change," Daley said. "I asked if it was what the students, faculty and alumni wanted. He said, 'Everybody's pretty much in line.' "
Daley soon found that no such consensus existed.
"I learned right away that there could be a problem. My wife didn't like it and she went to California. My sister didn't like it and she went to California. My local staff thought it was a pretty stupid idea."
Daley attended a high school football game and spectators blistered him over the name-change plan. The same thing happened to him in church.
Calls, e-mails and letters to his Harrisburg and district offices topped 200, all of them condemning the idea for Eberly University as silly and half-baked.
"Usually on an issue -- even on abortion or a tax increase --three days at most is the cycle of public participation," Daley said. "This escalated. Opposition actually increased by the second week."
So Daley flip-flopped. He told Armenti the public does not want the name change. Then Daley promised voters that he would oppose Armenti's plan if it ever makes it to the Legislature. Without a sponsor in Harrisburg, Armenti has yanked his proposal off the table, at least for now.
Armenti, California University's president for more than nine years, said he still believes the school should be renamed for the philanthropic Eberly family of Fayette County. But, he said, he would delay his effort until February to give people a chance to learn more about his idea and, he hopes, to sell them on it.
Armenti has said that calling the school Eberly University would make it easier to recruit students from the populous Philadelphia area, some 300 miles away.
Campus skeptics, though, say they have seen no credible market research that supports Armenti's contention.
"I want to know how a name change would help us. I want to know how it would make us better," said Erik Sprowls, who works at the university television station.
Daley has come around to the same position. With no disrespect to the Eberlys, he said, their name does not resonate across Pennsylvania.
"After you get outside the immediate area, their name recognition drops off tremendously," he said. "It's not like Oral Roberts."
Daley grew up in California borough, so named because black gold -- Pennsylvania coal -- was discovered there in 1849, the same year of the great gold rush on the West Coast.
The son of a football coach, Daley enrolled at his hometown university in 1968. His dream was to play football for the California University Vulcans, but he admits now that he was too slow and undersized at 5-feet-10 and 140 pounds.
Without football for the first time in his life, Daley set out to make his mark in other arenas. He played on the tennis team, immersed himself in fraternity life and waged a successful campaign for student body president.
"I was a conservative in a sea of hippies -- a jock and a Greek," he said.
After graduating from college in 1972, he ran for mayor of California borough and whipped a field that included the school board president. Daley was all of 22 when he took over the municipal government.
He made $900 a year as California's mayor, so he taught eighth-grade history to pay the bills.
As the town's top politician, his main job was to supervise the police department. Daley said he participated in the arrest of 62 "drug pushers" during his eight years as mayor.
"I was like 'Walking Tall,' "he said, comparing himself to the late Tennessee Sheriff Buford Pusser, whose crime fighting was immortalized by Hollywood.
After two terms as mayor, Daley wanted a bigger pond. He ran for the state House of Representatives in 1982 and has been there since.
He has often made news for his own quirky bills.
One would have made it illegal for adults to smoke in cars in which children were passengers. Another would have shrunk the Pennsylvania Legislature from two houses to one. Both ideas fizzled.
Daley is more proud of his efforts to create the Governor's Action Team, which tries to save jobs by averting plant closures.
He also has high hopes for one of his new bills, which would create the William Penn Liberty Medal of Honor for bravery.
Daley believes the first medals should go to at least four people who were on United Airlines Flight 93. The plane was hijacked Sept. 11 and crashed in Somerset County after passengers tried to recapture the craft from terrorists.
Daley's critics say he was wise to junk the Eberly University bill before it could be used against him. They believe he could be vulnerable in his next campaign because of redistricting and a lack of attention to detail.
"He's got a law practice, a restaurant in Morgantown and the Legislature. Too many irons in the fire," said Joseph Dochinez, mayor of California borough.
Even so, Dochinez said, Daley may have enough strengths to discourage any serious opposition.
"I will say he is a doer. He also will compromise to achieve what he thinks is important," Dochinez said.
Other legislators, including House Democratic Leader H. William DeWeese of Waynesburg, were bypassed by Armenti on the Eberly University proposal.
Mike Manzo, DeWeese's press secretary, said the bill might have sailed through the Legislature if Daley had not had a change of heart.
"He has a reputation as a straight shooter, so the members of our caucus wouldn't have even thought twice about supporting it," Manzo said.
Daley, a politician from the tip of his toes to the crown of his shaved head, said he had no choice but to drop the Eberly bill back in Armenti's lap.
"I'm a politician. I live by the sense of the public," he said.
"Besides, it was not my issue. I have enough problems created by myself. I don't need somebody else's."
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