The Cincinnati Fraternal Order of Police won a round in the police promotion sweepstakes this week, but the city should let the clock run out on this game.

On Wednesday, Hamilton County Common Pleas Judge John West granted the FOP a temporary restraining order to keep the city from scrubbing a civil service promotional list of candidates for assistant chief.

The union wants the city to fill the vacant assistant chief's spot with Capt. Stephen Gregoire, the top name on the list. The city wants to enact the charter amendment passed last year that lets the city manager hire chiefs and assistant chiefs from outside the department.

The vacancy exists because of the forced resignation of Assistant Chief Ron Twitty, which, according to the city, officially goes into effect Dec. 10, after the promotions list is due to expire. The union claims the vacancy occurred when Col. Twitty announced his resignation on Sept. 10. Judge West's order keeps everything on hold until a Nov. 13 hearing on the FOP's claim that the charter amendment violates a provision of the union contract that says assistant chiefs should be promoted off the civil service list.

Because Col. Twitty is black, a lot of people think the city manager should hire a black person to replace him. But the FOP says the city can address the concern for a high-ranking black officer by taking the second name on the promotion list, Capt. Michael Cureton, and promoting him too. This is the wrong thing for the city to do for two big reasons: Capt. Gregoire is white and Capt. Cureton is black. Both men may be excellent officers, but their skin colors do not guarantee they would be top quality assistant police chiefs. The voters decided last fall that top quality couldn't always be quantified on a promotional list.

Ahh, the list. For years, your place on "the list" was how you measured your chance to rise in the ranks. You took a civil service test to move up to the next rank. How well you scored on the test determined how high your name was placed on "the list." Promotions were made from the top. If the department had five vacancies for sergeant over the course of a year, the top five people on the sergeants' list got the jobs.

But the lists aren't good forever. After a set period of time they expire, and if you're still on the list when that happens, it's like being left on base when the inning ends. It doesn't count for anything. All you can do then is take the next test that is given and hope for a high spot on the new list.

The whole point of the charter amendment, known as Issue 5, was to improve the quality of the police department by giving the manager the flexibility to hire the best people she can find. That means not being limited to lists of people already in the department. Double filling this spot may satisfy people who find justice in racial quotas or people who think victory is holding on to the ways of the past - but it won't give Cincinnati a better police department. At best it will just make the place a little more top-heavy.

The FOP seems to have a point that Issue 5 contradicted a right the union negotiated. Blame the lawyers who wrote the ballot language for not foreseeing that problem. But the public's preference is clear. They want new blood and new ideas in the police department.

In order to get out of this mess, I suggest the city do nothing. Stall, delay, wait the controversy out until it goes away.

There need be no rush to fill the Twitty vacancy. It may be that the judge will order the city to promote Capt. Gregoire. If that happens, do it, but don't compound the problem by appointing a second person as well. Let the FOP contract expire. The passage of Issue 5 should take the promotion of assistant chiefs out of the new contract, so that the next vacancy can be filled the way the voters said it should be.

Contact David Wells at 768-8310; fax: 768-8610; e-mail: dwells@enquirer.com.