For the third time, the one percent tuition tax vote that has been squabbled over since Nov. 9 has been postponed again yesterday by Mayor Luke Ravenstahl.

“Students should continue lobbying for as long as it takes,” Point Park University President Paul Hennigan said.

Hennigan said that students need to continue to be involved as they leave campus for the holidays and their minds start to wander from the tuition tax issue. He urges them to read the newspaper online everyday and continue sending letters to council members.

Unlike the mayor, Hennigan said he has not suspected a change in stance by the five council members currently voting for the tax from the private meetings he attended as a member of the Pittsburgh Council on Higher Education (PCHE.)

“My goal is to come to an agreement with the nonprofit community before the end of the year and I am more hopeful than ever that we can do that,” Ravenstahl said as quoted in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

The public hearing held on Monday, Dec. 14 was no reflection of this reconciliation between the nonprofit institutions and the city leaders.

Councilwoman Theresa Smith, who called for the meeting, had to continually remind those in attendance that its purpose was to attempt to discuss alternative solutions to the budget gap and the pension fund crisis.

“I don’t believe [a solution] is going to come from this meeting,” Councilman Jim Motznik said, retorting Smith’s pleas to keep the conversation geared toward solutions. “I’m voting for it because I honestly believe you, the presidents of the universities, got together and said let’s see if they vote for it.”

Motznik along with Councilwoman Darlene Harris accused university leaders, except for the University of Pittsburgh, of not coming to the table and discussing the tax with the mayor and city council at the end of Summer 2009.

“I sincerely think that if the mayor’s office had asked us to come and sit down and talk about this, then we would have,” Hennigan said on Tuesday after the public hearing. “I don’t know how exactly they reached out to us.”