NEWPORT - The law firm fighting the public taking of several private buildings for a bus-transfer station is just trying to jack up the final selling price - a tactic it has used in other high-profile cases in Cincinnati, opposing attorneys say in court documents.

        The Newport battle involves property located near Fourth and York streets. The Transit Authority of Northern Kentucky wants the land for the transfer station, but owner BIF Inc. is fighting the eminent-domain proceedings.

        BIF's attorneys, Robert Manley and Matthew Fellerhoff, are with the firm Manley Burke & Lipton in Cincinnati.

        They've built a franchise out of representing property owners against government takings. Former clients include Christopher and Cheryl Banks, who received a $4.5 million jury award for their convenience store located in the path of Fort Washington Way. The city of Cincinnati had intended to pay $665,000 for the property.

        In another case, Manley Burke worked out a $5.7 million settlement for a produce company whose land was taken to build Paul Brown Stadium. Hamilton County originally had offered $1.4 million.

        Those cases and others illustrate Manley Burke's strategy of dragging out eminent-domain proceedings in order to manipulate the final price, TANK attorney Debra Pleatman said in court documents filed last week in Campbell County Circuit Court.

        The delays jeopardize project deadlines and force public agencies to pay huge sums in order to get the property on time, Ms. Pleatman said.

        In an interview Monday, Mr. Manley countered that his Newport clients only want to stop the forced sale of their buildings. His firm has handled many cases in which a halt to the takings - not a high sales price - was the result, Mr. Manley said.

        Manley Burke now wants to depose officials with two private entities, the Millennium Monument Co. and Southbank Partners. The firm alleges that the two concocted the idea of the bus-transfer station as a way to get rid of the BIF buildings, which house industrial-like businesses. Aesthetically, those businesses interfered with the two entities' plans for a Millennium Monument tower and related private development nearby, Manley Burke claims.

        To back up that contention, the attorneys have filed in court internal memos from the Millennium Monument Co.

        In one 1997 document, a company official writes that Newport's city manager would be contacting BIF about selling the property to the Monument company. If that didn't work, “then we would need to build a public park or something dedicated to the public so the property could be purchased through eminent domain,” the memo states.

        In her response for TANK, Ms. Pleatman said the agency's decision had nothing to do with any private development plans.

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