A day after protesters called for an investigation of the process that led to a judge's approval of a strip club on West Carson Street, city officials on Tuesday pointed fingers at each other.

Mayor Luke Ravenstahl's administration released a timeline indicating that Councilman Doug Shields was part of "numerous conversations" about the strip club with city lawyers but did not schedule a public hearing until it was too late. Mr. Shields called part of the timeline "a flat-out lie," and said one of the lawyers involved, Assistant City Solicitor Lawrence Baumiller, "would've been fired" had he made similar mistakes at a private firm.

The back-and-forth left West End residents who oppose Marquise Investments' club plan "dumbfounded," said Ginny Kropf, vice president of the Sheraden Community Council.

"This is great," she fumed. "There's still no answers. It's like high school -- let's blame this person, let's blame that person."

She said an outside investigator should review the facts.

"If we're going to have a lifetime sentence of living with a strip club at the gateway of our community, it would be best to know if it was because it was legal, and not the result of an oversight," said West Side United Community Development Corp. President Marciana Rossi.

Not at issue are the facts that Elizabeth-based Marquise applied in 2008 for approval to turn a medical office building into an adult venue and that the Planning Commission unanimously rejected it in November. Normally, the Planning Department then forwards the finding to council so it, too, can hold a hearing, but that never happened.

Council's lack of action amounted to a denial, which Marquise appealed. In March, Allegheny County Common Pleas Judge Joseph James told city lawyers to have council hold a hearing. That led to a March 12 conversation between then-city Solicitor George Specter and Deputy City Clerk Mary Beth Doheny, who said she would need the Planning Department's file to set up a hearing.

What happened next is in dispute.

In the administration's timeline, Mr. Specter "repeatedly tells Shields to schedule the hearing" between March and June, and Mr. Baumiller on June 12 wrote an e-mail to city Clerk Linda Johnson-Wasler telling her the same.

Mr. Specter, now general counsel for the city's Urban Redevelopment Authority, said Tuesday that he wanted to review the legal file before commenting.

Ms. Johnson-Wasler said she couldn't recall that e-mail and no longer had messages that old. Mr. Shields said he heard nothing from the Law Department until late July, when, he said, "Specter said, 'You'd better get this hearing scheduled, you could be held in contempt of court.' And I said, 'What hearing?'"

Council introduced legislation on Aug. 3 and set a hearing for Oct. 6. But Judge James demanded legal briefs by Oct. 5, rendering the hearing moot. He later granted Marquis' application in a decision the city has appealed.

Mr. Shields said Mr. Baumiller should have been more diligent in ensuring that council held a hearing, adding that his colleagues "could've put conditions" to make Marquise reconsider the location.

Looking for more from the Post-Gazette? Join PG+, our members-only web site. You'll get exclusive sports content, opinion, financial information, discounts from retailers and restaurants, and more. Our introduction to PG+ gives you all the details.