Repeating his call for a statewide solution to property reassessment issues, Allegheny County Executive Dan Onorato said the county will appeal a Common Pleas Court order to complete a reassessment of all properties over the next four years.

Mr. Onorato said the appeal of last week's order by Judge R. Stanton Wettick Jr. would give the state Legislature time to deal with a solution to assessment problems.

In making the announcement, Mr. Onorato, who has long portrayed property assessments as a back-door tax increase, sought to challenge Judge Wettick's order and to place the blame for Pennsylvania's archaic assessment system at the feet of the Legislature.

"The only thing standing between you and a property tax increase is the [state] Senate Appropriations Committee," said Mr. Onorato.

He urged property owners to call members of the committee and their state senators and ask them to push through a bill that would place a moratorium on court-ordered reassessments for two years, as one of the ways of preventing a reassessment in Allegheny County.

The House has already passed the proposal by a 196-1 vote margin, but the Senate is yet to push forward House Bill 1661, which would give the Legislature time to study the system of property assessment in Pennsylvania and other states. Such a study could be the basis of a new system of property assessments implemented by the state.

But Erik Arneson, a spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Dominic Pileggi, indicated that Mr. Onorato ought not hold his breath awaiting Senate action on the proposal.

"We always appreciate hearing from local officials regarding pending legislation. At this point, we have not established a specific timeline for the possible consideration of House Bill 1661," said Mr. Arneson.

That, he added, is the consensus of the Senate's key Republican leaders who control the chamber, including Senate President Pro Tem Joe Scarnati and Sen. Jake Corman.

Judge Wettick last week ordered the county to implement a property reassessment by dividing the county into four segments, with one segment to be completed by Oct. 1 of each year.

Yesterday, Mr. Onorato described it as "a crazy way to do reassessments," and he plans to appeal Judge Wettick's order in Commonwealth Court within a month.

"I promised to bring sanity to property assessments in Allegheny County," said Mr. Onorato referring to the campaign promise -- not to raise property taxes -- that swept him into office in 2003.

Mr. Onorato, who last month announced his candidacy for the governor's seat, said he will continue "to do everything in my power," to oppose a property reassessment in Allegheny County.

"In all my years, [as county executive] I have not received one call from one constituent saying 'reassess my property value,' " said Mr. Onorato.

And any attempt to overhaul the property assessment system at the state level, he added, ought to consider the fundamental issue of whether school districts should be funded by property tax revenue in the first place.

The state Supreme Court earlier this year tossed out Allegheny County's decision to assess property at its 2002 value, a system which Mr. Onorato implemented -- establishing a base-year system similar to that used in most counties.

The Supreme Court agreed with Judge Wettick, who ruled the system was unfair because it allowed values to stay artificially high in declining communities and too low in growing areas.

But neither the county nor the lawyers for the residents who challenged its property valuation system seemed satisfied with Judge Wettick's order.

"We are going to seek reconsideration of the case," said Donald Driscoll of the Community Justice Project, who represented one of the two sets of clients that sued the county over its assessment system..

"We have not considered an appeal yet because it may not be necessary," said Mr. Driscoll. He is not satisfied with Judge Wettick's order, he said, because it does not address the existing and substantial disparities of the tax burden currently placed on people in low-income communities.

Meanwhile, Robert Max Junker, one of the attorneys for the second set of clients, said he is more concerned about whether an appeal would delay an implementation of Judge Wettick's order.

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