Politics & Government

Allegheny County Executives Ordered to Continue with Reassessment Process

Judge R. Stanton Wettick ordered executives to continue with property assessments on Tuesday.

Allegheny County Judge R. Stanton Wettick has ordered residents to abide by new property reassessments and county executives to continue working on the process.

On Tuesday, Wettick said residents who have already received the new assessments must abide by them, despite last week's declaration by County Executive Rich Fitzgerald that the numbers were "."

According to WPXI, Wettick decided not to hold Fitzgerald in contempt, but said he would hold county officials in contempt if they don't move forward with the reassessment process.

Find out what's happening in Peterswith free, real-time updates from Patch.

On Thursday, Wettick is scheduled to vote on a request from Pittsburgh City Council to delay using the values for another year, according to WPXI.

“This order is just more evidence of the court overreaching its bounds,” Fitzgerald said in a statement. “This is an unelected judge, who is not even standing for retention and chose, instead, to go into senior judge status, who is now acting as the executive and legislative bodies of this county.

Find out what's happening in Peterswith free, real-time updates from Patch.

“If the court believes that removing the elected officials from this process and requiring county staff to report to him directly will result in my stopping this fight—the court can think again. I was elected, as was county council, to make policy and legislative decisions for this county. I took an oath to uphold the laws of the Commonwealth, not go around them as the court is dictating that the staff to do, by pushing forward with this reassessment.

“I can assure taxpayers that we are evaluating this order and will continue to explore each and every avenue that is available to fight this Allegheny County-only reassessment.”


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