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Opponents of funding plans for a $197.5 million headquarters hotel construction project near the Oregon Convention Center are still fighting to put them before voters.

Paige Richardson, a Lake Oswego-based spokeswoman for the Coalition for Fair Budget Priorities, on Friday filed suit in Clackamas County Circuit Court alleging that Metro would violate state statutes by constructing the 600-room hotel without a public vote.

“The legal issues could be resolved today if Metro and the county took this to a public vote,” said Sandeep Kaushik, a Seattle-based spokesman for the coalition. “I think that’s what the law requires.”

The lawsuit argues that Metro does not have the right to “construct” facilities without a public vote.

“Clearly they are participating in the construction of a convention center hotel,” Kaushik said. “They are directly involved in the financing of it. They are the driving force.”

The coalition, which includes Provenance Hotels and the Portland Hilton and Executive Tower, also appealed a Multnomah County decision that found the county had acted within its administrative rights when it approved $60 million in Metro-backed revenue bonds for the project.

Plans call for paying for part of the project with $78 million in public financing, including $60 million in Metro-issued revenue bonds. Debt service will be paid by transient lodging tax revenues generated by the hotel. The remaining $119.5 million will be paid by the developer – a joint venture of Minneapolis-based Mortenson Development Inc. and Chicago-based Hyatt Hotels Corp.

Hyatt will purchase the hotel from Mortenson upon completion in early 2017, according to a term sheet executed this past fall.

Metro is still in separate negotiations with Mortenson on a development agreement and with Hyatt on a room-block agreement that would set aside about 500 rooms for certain convention events. Terms of the agreements have not been finalized.

Project backers say the plan has a broad support base that includes hotels, tourism operators, other Lloyd District businesses and construction companies. They also say a 2012 market impact study, backed by Metro and conducted by Strategic Advisory Group, found that a hotel with rooms blocked for convention business would increase the likelihood of conventions being booked at the Oregon Convention Center by 79 percent. That would improve business throughout the tourism industry, according to the study.

The lawsuit is a “campaign tactic (and) not a sound legal debate,” Metro Council President Tom Hughes said in a statement.

“This is the second unfounded lawsuit filed, not by hotel owners, operators or workers, but by paid lobbyists,” he stated. “By attempting to tie the project up in court once again, after losing the first legal challenge outright, this is nothing more than a delay tactic funded by a small and vocal minority.”

Kaushik acknowledged that the legal challenges could make it difficult for Metro to sell bonds for the project, and stall construction.

The coalition also could put the funding issue on the November ballot, he said.

“I think it would be difficult to issue bonds given that there’s a significant legal hurdle,” he said. “We intend to fully pursue our legal avenues at this point.”