Pittsburgh Mayor Luke Ravenstahl said yesterday that he wants four City Council members to go to the city's Ethics Hearing Board to discuss a legal bill they incurred in connection with their challenge to a billboard permit.

"I'm not one to rush to judge," Mr. Ravenstahl said. "I certainly take [the council members] at their word that they didn't mean to do anything wrong."

An ethics board hearing would help "to get this issue behind us," he said, invoking his appearance before the board last year following news that he golfed at a high-dollar charity event as a guest of the Penguins and the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. "The ethics board should voluntarily take a look at this just as I voluntarily met with the board."

Councilman Ricky Burgess has asked the State Ethics Commission to review how council should handle the $10,706 legal bill incurred without council authorization. Mr. Ravenstahl praised that move.

Councilman William Peduto said that the state commission's review should be enough. He said the commission should review a legal opinion issued by the city Law Department that found him, Mr. Burgess, Councilman Bruce Kraus and Council President Doug Shields in a conflict-of-interest situation when they voted tentatively to have the city pay the legal bill.

The four council members hired attorney Hugh McGough to challenge a permit Lamar Advertising received, without public hearings or votes, to put a 1,200-square-foot electronic billboard on the Grant Street Transportation Center, Downtown.

After the tentative vote, the Law Department opined that the bill is a personal debt owed by the four, so they could "take no further action of any kind" on the legislation to pay it.