by KYW's Mike Dunn
Philadelphia Eagles' owner Jeffrey Lurie says the city reneged on a never-before-disclosed private deal between him and then-mayor John Street to settle the dispute over Veterans Stadium skybox revenues.
The city has long contended that the Eagles owed $8 million over the skybox earnings.
But Lurie (right) and team president Joe Banner (below right) have now filed affidavits in Common Pleas Court, in which 
they say they struck the verbal deal with Street through intermediaries during Street's first term.
Under terms of the deal, according to the affidavits, the Eagles would pay the city an unspecified amount less than $1 million to settle the matter.
Lurie's attorney, Tom Leonard, says that despite the agreement, Street never abided by that deal for the remaining years of his tenure. Now, Leonard says, Lurie wants a judge to enforce that agreement:
"The people who were in the room are all prepared to testify that there was a deal. A deal is a deal, and it should be enforced."
The affidavits do not specify when the agreement was reached. Leonard believes it occurred in late 2000. Banner and Lurie claim that verbal agreement was made during the negotiations between the Eagles and the city over construction of the new stadium, and they stipulate that the skybox agreement helped seal the stadium deal.
The Lurie and Banner affidavits say that among the intermediaries to the sky box revenue verbal deal was the late developer Willard Rouse.
Read the affidavits filed by Jeffrey Lurie and Joe Banner
Former mayor Street did not respond to our request for comment.
The Nutter administration says it has nothing in writing on this deal and that Nutter knew nothing about it until late last year. Nutter's aides say that because the deal was never reviewed by the city's law department, its legality is in doubt.
On Wednesday's "Ask the Mayor" program, heard live on KYW Newsradio 1060, Mayor Nutter reiterated that he's ready to let the courts decide on whether the Street deal is enforceable.
Listen to "Ask the Mayor" by clicking on the podcast at top right of page.
Nutter inherited the suit against the Eagles, filed by the city in 2004. The Eagles countersued over revenues lost from a canceled exhibition game at the Vet.
Mayor Nutter in January said the dispute is not likely to be settled anytime soon, even though the city could sorely use the cash. He said his administration has reached out to the Eagles about a possible settlement:
"I have made it very clear to the Philadelphia Eagles organization that the city expects to be paid what we are owed."
Forbes Magazine recently added Lurie to its list of billionaires. His attorney, Tom Leonard, was asked why a new billionaire would press this matter:
"If you make a deal with a poor man, you have to enforce it, no less so than if you make a deal with the owner of the Philadelphia Eagles."
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