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Suit against Plan B dismissed The judge's one-sentence decision ended the suit against the plan, but an appeal has been promised Wednesday, August 12, 1998 By Tom Barnes, Post-Gazette Staff Writer
Plan B has survived its first legal challenge.
With just one sentence yesterday, Common Pleas Judge Robert P. Horgos dismissed a lawsuit filed by local lawyer Allen Brunwasser, a sharp critic of the financing plan.
Brunwasser had filed the suit against the Regional Asset District, which last month approved $13.4 million a year for 30 years in county sales tax revenues to help finance Plan B.
The $809 million city-county plan will enlarge the David L. Lawrence Convention Center and build two new sports stadiums.
Brunwasser, however, contended that RAD funds could be used only to support existing cultural, sports and entertainment facilities, not to build new ones.
He had also tried to get the judge to reinstate Fred Baker to the RAD board.
Baker, an opponent of Plan B, had resigned under pressure from county Commissioner Bob Cranmer, before the board voted to support Plan B.
Sara Davis Buss, chief counsel for the RAD board, had filed preliminary objections to Brunwasser's suit and asked the judge to dismiss it, which he did without explanation.
"He contended the board didn't have the legal authority to commit the financing for part of Plan B," Buss said of Brunwasser's suit.
"We showed the judge that the state Legislature clearly contemplated that the financing of new sports facilities was something the RAD board has the power to do," Buss said.
She said the lawsuit was "a political suit because he didn't like the decision made on this policy issue. There was never any legal grounds for this suit."
Brunwasser disagreed and said he planned to file an appeal.
He said he intended to bypass the next level of appeals, the state Superior Court, and ask the state Supreme Court directly to consider the issue.
He said he had wanted Horgos to put county Commissioners Cranmer and Mike Dawida, as well as the seven RAD board members, on the stand so he could ask them about their decision to finance Plan B.
"They are giving away (millions of tax dollars) against the will of the populace," Brunwasser said.
He contended it was improper for Cranmer to ask for Baker's resignation simply because Baker opposed Plan B.
"What's the point of having a RAD board if (commissioners) can remove members at will?" Brunwasser asked.
He said it should have taken a vote by all three commissioners to remove Baker, not just Cranmer.
Also yesterday, state Rep. Don Walko, D-North Side, traveled to Minnesota to join a legislator from that state in calling on Major League Baseball officials to reform their sport's finances in order to save teams in small markets like Pittsburgh and Minneapolis.
Walko and Minnesota state Sen. John Marty said taxpayers and sports fans in both their states "are disgusted at the relentless demands for public money to subsidize million-dollar operations" in professional sports.
They sent a letter to baseball Commissioner Bud Selig, who is from the small-market city of Milwaukee, to "show leadership by developing a reform plan that ends baseball's dependency on tax money."
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