Police Chief Tom Streicher did the round of national morning shows Tuesday. Cecil Thomas, the director of the Cincinnati Human Relations Commission, did CNN and MSNBC Monday night. And Mayor Charlie Luken has been doing interviews with The New York Times, Los Angeles Times and USA Today.

But as the national media descended on Cincinnati this week after the death of a 350-pound Northside man fighting with police in a fast-food parking lot, one city official was noticeably absent from the spotlight: City Manager Valerie Lemmie.

Why? "You'd have to ask her," said Luken.

He told council members Tuesday that the city manager was undergoing medical tests and would be back at work today.

Assistant City Manager Rashad Young, who's known Lemmie longer than anyone else at City Hall, surmised that she doesn't want to upstage the elected officials.

But it may also be that Lemmie feels beleaguered by Cincinnati's preoccupation with race.

That was the tone of a Nov. 21 keynote speech she gave at a "Hope in the Cities" conference in Richmond, Va.

She didn't sound happy about her 2002 move from Dayton.

"To say I jumped from the frying pan into the fire is an understatement," she said. "From the day I started, my professionalism, values, self-worth and intelligence were routinely questioned and tested.''

On almost every issue she deals with, she said, "Just under the surface lies that nefarious, ugly demon called racism - the demon we try to ignore, refuse to publicly acknowledge, and hope through lack of acknowledgement it will go away.

"For example, civil unrest in our cities, or a blitz of media stories, have yet to be triggered by police shooting a young white man, or the in-custody death of a young white man."

Before moving to Ohio, she said, she thought of the state as a "liberal bastion."

"However, I quickly discovered that a state's history is not necessarily a barometer of its present," she said. "I have found my new home full of many mean-spirited people who want to celebrate our divisiveness rather than work on solutions."

Bringing inclusion to Cincinnati is "the hardest thing I've ever had to do," she said. Unnamed African-American leaders have urged her to go easy on black lawbreakers because of "historic institutional racism," she said.

Sometimes, if you want to know what public officials really think, you have to listen to what they say when they leave town.

SPEECH: Speaking of speaking, Christopher Smitherman's inauguration speech Monday was the longest of any councilman's, clocking in at 10 minutes even.

That's understandable. As he was one of two newly elected councilmen, the day belonged to him and fellow freshman Sam Malone.

But incumbents also spoke. John Cranley broke the seven-minute mark.

Jim Tarbell's speech clocked in at just over five minutes - and that included a two-minute harmonica solo.

The gaffe of the day came from Xavier University's president, Father Michael Graham.

In an opening prayer, he referred to Laketa Cole as "Lakota."

Graham said he soon realized his mistake and has sent the councilwoman a note of apology.

Gregory Korte can be reached at gkorte@enquirer.com