A lawsuit filed Tuesday alleges the city can’t spend taxpayer money to renovate Scottrade Center without voters deciding at the polls.

The lawsuit seeks to revive a 2002 voter-approved ordinance that was struck down by a circuit court judge in 2015. One of the attorneys, John Ammann, says a different circuit court judge wouldn’t be bound by the other judge’s previous ruling.

“The ruling of a sister court or fellow circuit judge is not binding,” Ammann said by phone Tuesday morning. “One judge doesn’t have to abide by the decision of another judge in the same court.”

Last week Mayor Francis Slay signed a bill approving $64 million in renovations to the facility, which has been the home of the St. Louis Blues hockey team since opening in 1994. With the money coming from a loan taken by the city, the total costs with interest would top $100 million over 30 years.

The bill passed the Board of Aldermen Feb. 10 after a contentious meeting by a vote of 15-12.

The lawsuit was filed on behalf of city residents Jeanette Oxford and Michael Chance, both of whom were involved in the effort to pass the ordinance in 2002. They argue the ordinance applies to construction of a new stadium as well as maintenance or renovations.

Representatives of the Mayor’s Office and the Blues did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

In a decision invalidating the ordinance in 2015, Circuit Court Judge Thomas Frawley wrote that it was “too vague to be enforced.” The law has so many “uncertainties,” he wrote in his ruling, “their sum makes a task for us which at best could be only guesswork.”

At the time, the mayor’s Chief of Staff Mary Ellen Ponder called the ruling “very disappointing.”

In that case, Ammann, a St. Louis University law professor, represented three residents, including Oxford, who said the city wasn’t seriously fighting the case brought by the Regional Convention and Sports Complex Authority. Their effort to join the legal fight on behalf of taxpayers was denied and failed on appeal.

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