The lawyer for Urban Redevelopment Authority Executive Director Patrick Ford is pressuring the city to fully reinstate his client, saying the State Ethics Commission is past its deadline for formally investigating Mr. Ford, and that he will be exonerated of any ethics charges.

Mayor Luke Ravenstahl said he was "encouraged" by the lawyer's claims, but that neither he nor the URA could act on reinstating the development chief until they receive formal word from the commission. That may be soon, or it may be when the commission meets in the fall. Neither the mayor's office nor the URA had heard from the group as of yesterday afternoon.

The URA placed Mr. Ford on paid leave April 9 after asking the commission to review whether gifts Mr. Ford and his wife received from a billboard executive negotiating for a city contract violated ethics law.

Mr. Ford's attorney, Lawrence Fisher, said he received a fax Tuesday from the ethics commission saying it had "not acted with regard to my client." He then issued a statement to reporters yesterday saying Mr. Ford had been exonerated, the window for investigating him had terminated "and no further investigation of this matter will follow." He also called for the URA to reinstate him.

Mr. Fisher did not share the commission's letter with the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

State law requires the commission to open a formal investigation within 60 days of starting a preliminary inquiry, or the investigation is automatically terminated. Since that 60 days is long past -- even if the commission waited weeks to launch the inquiry -- Mr. Fisher said the matter should be considered closed. Also, Mr. Ford has not been notified that he is a target of a full investigation, as the law requires.

"We're suggesting it's in everyone's best interest to get Pat back to work expeditiously. The city is paying him and he ought to be working," Mr. Fisher said. "The idea here is to get a decent public servant back to serving the public."

Mr. Ravenstahl left the door open for reinstating Mr. Ford, but also indicated it could be ajar for some time.

"We've waited this long to pass judgment, and until I hear back officially from [the commission], we'll reserve judgment," he said. "But I will say it's in everybody's best interest to try to bring this issue to closure, and if Mr. Fisher's statements [yesterday] were accurate, the ethics board will communicate that to us in the very near future, and then the URA board will make a decision, obviously with input from myself as well."

If and when the commission confirms that Mr. Ford is cleared, the URA board will meet quickly to vote on reinstating him as director, Mr. Ravenstahl said. The mayor would have input in that decision, as his chief of staff, Yarone Zober, chairs the redevelopment board and the mayor appoints its five members.

Mr. Fisher said he will take Mr. Ford's case directly to the URA's next public board hearing if he is not reinstated soon.

The commission's review started with an April 11 letter from URA General Counsel Don Kortlandt asking for an opinion on whether "certain gifts" received by Mr. Ford and his wife from James Vlasach, real estate manager at Lamar Advertising, "are violative of law." That went out days after news broke of his wife's 2006 receipt of a surround sound system from Mr. Vlasach.

Mr. Vlasach was involved in negotiating Lamar's receipt of a no-bid lease and a city permit granted without public hearings or votes to put a 1,200-square-foot electronic billboard on the Grant Street Transportation Center, Downtown. Mr. Ford advised the zoning administrator who approved the permit, and was chair of the board of the Pittsburgh Parking Authority, which owns the transportation center.

Federal investigators have asked at least two people about several matters related to Mr. Ford's work as city planning director and development czar before he joined the URA in October.

Mr. Fisher has said that Mr. Ford is not the target of an investigation and that Mr. Ford "has received assurances from authorities that his cooperation with them is of mutual interest."

Mr. Ford has taken information about what he called wasteful spending and mismanagement at the Pittsburgh Housing Authority to Allegheny County District Attorney Stephen A. Zappala Jr., who is reviewing the matter. Mr. Ford chaired the housing authority board until early April.