HARRISBURG -- Pittsburgh's loss on the state Gaming Control Board is Philadelphia's gain.

Gov. Ed Rendell has named Philadelphia lawyer Kenneth Trujillo, 50, to fill the regulatory seat vacated by Sanford Rivers of Pittsburgh, one of the governor's original three appointees in 2005.

Mr. Rivers, a former Carnegie Mellon University official, recently resigned from the $145,000 a year job.

"Ken Trujillo has a vast amount of experience in law, economic development and governmental management," said Mr. Rendell, a lawyer and former Philadelphia mayor. "He possesses exactly the type of broad career background that will be valuable to the Gaming Control Board as it exercises tight regulatory control over gaming."

Mr. Trujillo is a former Philadelphia city solicitor (running a 155-lawyer department), a former assistant U.S. attorney and served on the transition teams of Gov.-elect Rendell in 2002 and President-elect Barack Obama in 2008. He has also been a member of the Pennsylvania Intergovernmental Cooperation Authority, which oversees Philadelphia city finances.

Mr. Rendell names three of the seven Gaming Control Board members. His other two appointees are the chairman, former state Revenue Secretary Greg Fajt of Mt. Lebanon, and Philadelphia lawyer James Ginty, a former AT&T Pennsylvania president.

Before the Gaming Control Board awarded slots licenses for five stand-alone casinos in December 2006, Mr. Trujillo was a small investor in Riverwalk, a proposed Philadelphia casino that did not get a license. His was less than 1 percent of the total amount to be invested in Riverwalk, board officials said. The two casinos that did get licenses from the board were SugarHouse and Foxwoods, neither of which has been built yet.

SugarHouse hopes to open its first phase of slot machines in the spring. Foxwoods is under a board order to be open by May 2011, but severe financial problems at its parent casino, Foxwoods in Connecticut, could affect its progress in Philadelphia. The Rivers casino in Pittsburgh also received its slots license in December 2006.

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