By Gregory Korte
The Cincinnati Enquirer

DOWNTOWN - The publisher of a weekly alternative newspaper said he's deciding whether to fight Cincinnati City Council's subpoena of a CityBeat reporter who wrote about alleged overtime abuses in the Cincinnati Police Department.

CityBeat reporter Leslie Blade's Dec. 10 story, "Protection Racket: Public Housing Security Grant is a Cash Cow for Cops," reported that officers had routinely violated overtime rules while working off-duty details for the Cincinnati Metropolitan Housing Authority in 1998.

City Council voted 5-4 Wednesday to compel Blade's attendance at a Feb. 3 hearing on the issue.

Publisher John Fox said that if City Council wants to investigate the report, it should start with a subpoena of Police Chief Thomas H. Streicher Jr., who refused to answer questions for the CityBeat story.

"She's not going to tell them anything they don't already know if they read the story," Fox said.

It would be only the second subpoena City Council has issued in the past 10 years. In 2001, City Council subpoenaed former development official Charles Bronson about his role in the Genesis Redevelopment scandal.

Law & Public Safety Committee Chairman David Pepper, a Democrat, said the subpoena would be the first ever issued by City Council to a journalist, and would set a bad precedent. But Charterite Councilman Christopher Smitherman, who's pushing for the police overtime investigation, said it was a "friendly subpoena" and "journalistic protocol" to allow a reporter to testify.

E-mail gkorte@enquirer.com