Cincinnati Mayor Charlie Luken was right to raise the issue of repealing Article XII in his State of the City speech Monday, but wrong to suggest that the city should end managed competition.

Charter Article XII bans preferential treatment for gays. A debate on this issue is warranted, but the mayor and other supporters of repeal need to be careful not to muddy the waters further: Repeal of Article XII would not mean that gays would automatically be added to the city's list of groups given special protected status under human rights law. That's a separate issue, for separate debate.

There's also no evidence Cincinnati voters ever favored discrimination against gays, even if, unfortunately, that's how many view Article XII.

As for managed competition, in his 2002 State of the City speech, Luken said: "We are not afraid, and we will look to the private sector to perform services traditionally done by government." Two years later, he wants to make the city's newly recruited "managed competition czar" an "efficiency czar" instead. He justifies the switch by suggesting that any savings from managed competition would come at the expense of low-wage workers. Let us remove the threat of job loss, he pleaded.

No city worker lost a job when the city privatized street-cleaning operations. Council members David Pepper, Pat DeWine, John Cranley and others put protections in place such as a living wage ordinance and coaching city workers to make sure the bidding process was fair to them. In most cities that use managed competition, city workers win most of the bids, but they do so by working more efficiently. The street-sweeping project has saved Cincinnati $700,000. It's as if the mayor is saying, "OK, it works, so let's get rid of it." We should give it a try with other city operations.

Luken used a pre-speech video to show off all the neighborhood projects Cincinnati has produced in contrast to layoffs and other woes in Cleveland, Columbus and Pittsburgh. Left unsaid was that Cincinnati could be in the same fix without its $54 million Anthem money, a one-time "windfall" the city got when the health insurer converted to a for-profit company. That money now is almost all committed. Pepper and DeWine warn once it's gone, managed competition is the only identified source of savings that can free up money for neighborhood projects. Projected budget deficit by 2008: $60 million.

Wednesday, only a month and a half after budget debates, council is poised to give another 1.5 percent cost of living raise to city middle managers. The state of the city is better than it was in 2001, but the mayor, council and the manager need to insist on much more fiscal discipline to keep recovery from stalling.