If you couldn't reach anyone at City Hall Friday, it was because a bomb threat cleared most employees from the building.

        City Manager John Shirey took to the public address system just before noon Friday, asking people to leave, tand to report any suspicious packages.

        At least two people stayed behind: Mayor Charlie Luken and a guest, former mayor-turned-talk-show host Jerry Springer, visiting for Yom Kippur.

        Apparently unconcerned that the threat was real, Mr. Luken and Mr. Springer hardly interrupted their conversation.

        But if a bomb did go off, they jokingly asked Enquirer reporter Robert Anglen to let it be known that they spent their last moments trying to make Cincinnati a better place.

        Give me Five: Civil service reform is not exactly the kind of issue that captures the imagination of voters.

        There aren't a lot of people who get worked up about a plan to make about 98 bureaucrats accountable to the city manager.

        Still, supporters of Cincinnati's Issue 5 are doing everything they can to make it sound exciting.

        Councilman Pat DeWine planned to muster arguments, collect endorsements, and call a news conference. But co-sponsor Councilwoman Alicia Reece would have none of it.

        “She looked at me, as she so often does, and said, "Pat, that's the most boring thing I've ever heard,' ” Mr. DeWine said.

        Instead, the Issue 5 forces held a happy hour campaign rally this month in Over-the-Rhine, during which elected officials described the plan as “really exciting.”

        Then Ms. Reece led the crowd in a rousing chant of “Yes on Issue 5! Yes on Issue 5!”

        Ad watch: It may not be as exciting as Issue 5, but Mr. DeWine has the first television ad of the City Council campaign.

        And, like Mr. Luken's commercials, crime is the issue.

        The 30-second spot shows a dressed-down Mr. DeWine walking an undisclosed west side neighborhood at night, saying, “Everyone — black and white, young and old — ought to feel safe, no matter where you live, no matter what the hour.” He said he supports more police on the street.

        The ad is running on cable at a cost of $6,400 a week, but will move to broadcast stations soon.

        No flattery: From the beginning of his campaign, Courtis Fuller has been critical of Mayor Charlie Luken's handling of the April riots.

        This week, he's been less vocal. But he suggested that questions about how quickly Mr. Luken called the curfew miss the point.

        Mr. Fuller has complained that the mayor has co-opted his message of racial healing.

        “He is really fed up with what he perceives as Charlie's imitation with the very things that Courtis has been promoting all along,” said spokeswoman Donna Rogers.

        “This is no flattery,” she quoted Mr. Fuller as saying.

        Mr. Fuller has said, for example, that the mayor should urge people to respect each other, that he should listen to all voices, and that he should meet with clergy in attempt to calm the unrest.

        Mr. Luken said he's been doing those things all along.

        “Courtis doesn't know what we did in April, and that's part of the problem,” he said.

        Broadcast news: Mr. Fuller's surprising political feat — getting 54 percent in a mayoral primary in his first-ever ballot appearance on a ballot — has overshadowed his journalistic accomplishment.

        In the Ohio Society of Professional Journalists Awards Sept. 15, the formerChannel reporter won two first-place awards.

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