Cincinnati voters will be seeing a lot more attention devoted to a ballot issue that would dramatically change the way some city supervisors are chosen.

        Supporters and opponents of Issue 5 spent Saturday passing out yard signs and rallying their troops.

ISSUE 5

Issue 5 is the reform initiative on the Nov. 6 ballot that would remove civil-service protection for 98 Cincinnati city employees, including the police and fire chiefs.    Here are some of Issue 5's supporters and opponents:    In favor: Mayor Charlie Luken and former mayors Roxanne Qualls, Ken Blackwell and Arn Bortz; former city managers Gerald Newfarmer, Scott Johnson and Sy Murray; the Cincinnati chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People; the Greater Cincinnati and African-American chambers of commerce.    Those against: Chief Tom Streicher and former Chief Mike Snowden, campaign chairman; Keith Fangman, president of the Fraternal Order of Police; Mark Sanders, president of the Cincinnati firefighters union; Hamilton County Prosecutor Mike Allen; Todd Portune, Hamilton County commissioner; Phil Burress, president of Citizens for Community Values; and the Cincinnati AFL-CIO Labor Council.

        The initiative would take civil-service job protection away from 98 city supervisors, including the command staffs of the police and fire divisions.

        Proponents say they're not attacking Cincinnati's finest, they're just trying to open up hiring for key positions to the most qualified people, whether they're insiders or not. They say they don't want voters to attach faces of police officers and firefighters to their votes.

        But that's exactly what opponents hope will happen. They argue that voters should know that if they approve the measure, they'll essentially be pinning badges on politicians.

        Chief Tom Streicher, at a Fraternal Order of Police pancake breakfast Saturday, called the measure a knee-jerk reaction from city officials who have been a “miserable failure” in running the city.

        Hamilton County Prosecutor Mike Allen was just as vehement. He asked if “anyone in their right mind” should trust “those yo-yos down at the nut bin” to control the hiring and firing of police and fire bosses.

        Getting the focus off the police division has been one of organizer Betty Hull's biggest challenges. Many people, she said, particularly some African-Americans, want the vote to be a referendum on the police division.

        “This is not an attack on the Cincinnati Police Division or the chief,” she said. “I like Tom Streicher.”

        She points to the Newport's success in the development of restaurants and stores to illustrate what could happen in Cincinnati if an economic development boss, for example, were hired from the outside and brought in fresher ideas.

        “It's just an appeal to people's common sense,” Ms. Hull said. “It'll make the city run better.”

        Pro-Issue 5 TV ads have started running, and opponents have launched a direct-mail campaign. They'll also deliver yard signs to the approximately 400 police officers who live in the city.
       

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