What is it about taxpayer-supported stadiums in this town that gets the populist juices flowing? Pittsburgh has two jewels of stadiums on the North Shore that came about despite huge public controversy a decade ago -- and it's way past time to let that issue die.

Yet this week Allegheny County Controller Mark Patrick Flaherty unhelpfully summoned up the ghost of controversy past with a letter of warning to the Rooney family: If the Rooneys sell the team, the demand would follow to reimburse at least part of the $281 million in public funds it cost to build Heinz Field.

Mr. Flaherty would deny he is reviving the stadium controversy; he says he is just being a fiscal watchdog and trying to guarantee the Steelers' stay for another 75 years. But his assumptions are full of echoes from the old stadium saga and so is the soak-the-rich-sports-figures populism that animates his action.

Clearly, Mr. Flaherty has seen a political opportunity and has been less than scrupulous in exploiting it. While he assumes a legal authority, the sections of the lease agreement Mr. Flaherty cites between the Steelers franchise and the Sports & Exhibition Authority do not back up his contention that a reimbursement would be required. This is nothing but a bluff and a shakedown.

Even if the lease agreement did say what he thinks it says, the logic of his warning letter is dubious. In his letter to the Rooney family, he argues that "the new stadium and the generous lease provisions contributed significantly to increases in the value of the Steelers franchise" -- and, using Forbes magazine figures, he says the team's value has risen from $300 million in 1998 to $929 million in 2007.

To which we have to ask: So what? Although the Rooneys have been a highly respected family in Pittsburgh, Heinz Field was not built as a gift or favor for them. It was built because the continuing presence of their franchise in Pittsburgh was seen as vital to the prestige and economic well-being of this area -- and so it has proved.

A change in ownership would not change the self-interest of this city and county in remaining the capital of Steeler Nation. Certainly, government would not have done anything to deserve the money back on its investment -- money that has been returned in countless ways since the stadium's opening in 2001.

What is troublesome about this grandstanding play by the controller is that it has the potential to complicate what are apparently difficult negotiations between a prospective new owner, Stanley Druckenmiller, and a divided Rooney family.

If Mr. Flaherty's threat to demand back millions of dollars in public funds were taken as real, he would have effectively driven up the selling price by millions of dollars. Although Mr. Flaherty's stated motive is to ensure the Steelers stay for 75 more years, this piece of political mischief only complicates that goal -- ironically, the one public interest that should be protected here.