Judge says he won't hold Fitzgerald in contempt for assessments

An Allegheny County judge today let County Executive Rich Fitzgerald off the hook for defying a court order to complete a county-wide property reassessment.

Common Pleas Senior Judge R. Stanton Wettick said he did not believe it was necessary to hold Fitzgerald in contempt of court for telling Pittsburgh and Mt. Oliver taxpayers last week to ignore the reassessment and rely on the county's 2002 base year for property values.

The contempt charge could have sent Fitzgerald to jail.

Wettick ordered the county manager, chief assessment officer and other top officials below Fitzgerald in the chain of command to follow his orders to proceed with the reassessment.

If they don't, he will hold them in contempt.

"We need to get everything back to where it was," Wettick said.

Fitzgerald again accused Wettick of trying to run the county by judicial fiat.

'This order is just more evidence of the court overreaching its bounds,' Fitzgerald said in an e-mailed statement. 'This is an unelected judge, who is not even standing for retention and chose, instead, to go into senior judge status, who is now acting as the executive and legislative bodies of this county.'

Wettick was elected to his first 10-year term in 1977, the year Fitzgerald turned 18. State law prohibits him from 'standing for retention' because he`s two years older than the maximum age of 70. Wettick declined to seek his fourth 10-year term in 2007, when he was 69 years old and one year away from mandatory retirement, saying then that it 'doesn`t make a lot of sense to run.' State law allows him to serve as a court-appointed senior judge until age 75.

The judge put off deciding on a request to delay using the controversial reassessment to calculate tax bills this year. He plans to decide Thursday.

If he grants a delay, the reassessment would apply to tax bills in 2013. Such a move that would ease fears among municipal and school district managers that the reassessment process would not be finished in time to avoid the expense and confusion of securing tax anticipation loans and potentially sending out two tax bills.

Pittsburgh Public Schools requested the delay. The district contends that thousands of successful reassessment appeals could erode property tax revenue and potentially create a budget deficit.

The delay would allow the court-ordered reassessment and appeals to finish this year, likely with time to spare before the district and other taxing bodies set their 2013 tax rates.

"It would certainly give the district more reliable numbers for next year's budget," Paul Lalley, a district attornet, told Wettick during today's hearing in a standing-room-only courtroom Downtown.

-- Staff writer Mike Wereschagin contributed to this report.