A few wavering Democrats could control the outcome tonight when Allegheny County Council returns to a refurbished Gold Room at the county courthouse for a vote on Chief Executive Dan Onorato's second assessment plan of the year.
A Carnegie Mellon University professor performed a statistical accuracy test of the new assessment values, posted on the county Web site last month, and found that they do not meet internationally accepted standards when compared to recent sales.
In March, all of council's eight Democrats and four of its seven Republicans voted to approve Mr. Onorato's plan to put a 4 percent cap on assessment increases. Without the cap, assessments would have increased an average of 19 percent for the county's 500,000 residential properties.
A judge rejected the cap, and the chief executive decided to revise values from the last reassessment, in 2002, to limit the size of increases.
Despite the chief executive's reassurances, some council members still are uneasy, and council President Rich Fitzgerald, D-Squirrel Hill, has said he would be willing to send the issue back to committee if he can't muster enough votes to pass the plan tonight.
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
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