Allegheny County Council members have a long list of important items on the agenda for Tuesday's meeting -- the budget, car rental and drink taxes, rates for using county park facilities and creation of a Riverfront Park Commission.

So why will they be monkeying around with one of the county's most successful and accessible functions?

It's the property assessment Web site, a spot so popular that the system has jammed for hours when new property values are announced, a place where citizens can easily check the system for fairness. As it stands now, information about the value of a property can be found by using the owner name, address or parcel number. Now Chief Executive Dan Onorato wants to eliminate the ability to search by name, based on requests made on behalf of police officers, jail guards, attorneys and other county workers.

Two years ago, Mr. Onorato made the foolish choice to remove the names of 100 judges from the site. Councilman Bill Robinson followed that with a proposal to remove the name search function, an effort that failed. Under the latest proposal, the names of all property owners would be on the site, but it would be harder to find them.

But where are the examples of misdeeds resulting from Web site searches done by name?

County Manager Jim Flynn at a meeting on Nov. 8 said the site has been used to locate individuals targeted for harassment. During the meeting, council members Bob Macey and Michael Finnerty spoke in favor of the measure.

The county's Web site is good enough to carry their comments on the issue, but if the name search is eliminated from the site, it won't be easy to find the value of property owned, for example, by Mr. Macey, Mr. Finnerty or Mr. Flynn -- or any other property owner in Allegheny County.

Council has enough meaningful business to conduct. It should leave the people's assessment site alone.