What does a crosswalk in North Avondale have to do with Lunken Airport expansion and tax breaks for a medical testing company?

Everything, says Councilman Christopher Smitherman.

Confused? He'll explain later.

One reason some neighborhood leaders are pushing so hard for district representation is that City Council has historically done a poor job focusing on the little picture. A problem that affects 10,000 people a little bit gets much more attention than a problem that affects 10 people a lot.

That changed somewhat in 1985, when John Mirlisena practically invented constituent service at City Hall with his "four day" guarantee. More recently, Neighborhood and Public Works Chairwoman Laketa Cole has made a practice of putting even routine inquiries from citizens on council's "correspondence calendar." She's put 23 citizen complaints on the calendar so far this term - as many as all of her colleagues combined.

But those complaints are just as routinely referred to the administration for a report, which can take weeks or months to prepare. When the reports come back, they're usually "approved and filed," meaning City Council accepts the city manager's response to the problem.

That's what happened in 2002 when Dotty Shaffer and Doug Krejsa, a wife-and-husband physician team, asked City Council for a crosswalk at the north leg of Reading Road and Clinton Springs Avenue. They wanted people to be able to get from the Belvedere Building to their new medical practice without having to make three crossings.

Traffic engineers did a study and concluded that a northern crosswalk would create unsafe turns from Clinton Springs and delay traffic on Reading.

So nothing happened, Shaffer said, until Smitherman got elected and took on the cause. "He completely initiated it, which was so nice, because I ran out of steam," she said.

Smitherman isn't satisfied with the traffic engineer's report. He wants a four-way "walk" light at the intersection, which Traffic Engineer Steve Bailey says would result in "intolerable delays" on Reading Road.

The freshman Charterite says the incident is anexample of how City Hall concentrates too much on big business at the expense of the small.

"Going forward, the administration is offering more incentives for big business while ignoring small entrepreneurs. LabOne is asking the city of Cincinnati to rescind 75 percent of its income taxes for a 10-year period. The Lunken Airport debate pits big business against concerned citizens," Smitherman said in a memo to City Manager Valerie Lemmie last week. "I consider these items related to the crosswalk at Reading Road and Clinton Springs. We must begin supporting small business owners in Cincinnati."

NAME GAME: Cincinnati Vice Mayor Alicia Reece has been named vice chairwoman of the credentials committee for the Democratic National Convention.

The position is largely honorary - there are three co-chairs and nine co-vice chairs - but is another example of the national attention Reece gets in Democratic Party circles.

Now, if only they could spell her name.

A news release from the John Kerry campaign called her "Alicia Reese" Tuesday, even as she was introducing the Democratic presidential candidate at a rally.

E-mail gkorte@enquirer.com