Any serious student of legislative bodies would have to conclude that Cincinnati City Council's committee system is a mess. Consider:

• Council members routinely drop in and out of committee meetings. Tuesday, Councilwoman Laketa Cole showed up more than an hour late to a Neighborhood and Public Works Committee meeting to ask Police Chief Tom Streicher the same questions about the Sunday morning riots on Stratford Avenue he'd already been asked by other council members.

• Assignment of legislation to committees often has more to do with who the committee chairman is than the actual jurisdiction of the committee.

Last year, for example, Paul Booth proposed cutting council office budgets by 5 percent. But he introduced it in his Neighborhoods Committee and refused to relinquish it to the Finance Committee.

Under the "stronger mayor" system in effect since 2001, it's Mayor Charlie Luken's job to assign legislation to committees. Asked about whether council members played games with assigning legislation to committees they chair, Luken made a sour face.

"There are times when I know someone is trying to gin up a little attention in their committee. Sometimes that's what council members need," he said. "I don't sit around thinking about which legislation goes to which committee."

But this week, the mayor sent the recommendations of his Economic Development Task Force to the Finance Committee, even though they more properly belonged in the Community Development Committee.

"I thought it would get a fair hearing in the Finance Committee," Luken said. "Fair as defined by me."

Finance Committee Chairman John Cranley is arguably Luken's closest ally on City Council. Community Development Committee Chairwoman Minette Cooper is not.

Easy Ryder: Assistant City Solicitor Ely Ryder has been exiled to the Department of Buildings and Inspections after signing his name to a taxpayer lawsuit against the city.

Ryder was one of the seven members of the Cincinnati Retirement System Board of Trustees (also including Cooper) who sued the city over the $54 million "windfall" the city got when insurer Anthem Inc. went public. The city used that money for neighborhood projects; the pension board thinks at least some of the money belongs to employees and retirees who paid insurance premiums.

City Solicitor Rita McNeil said Ryder remains a lawyer for the city. His physical move out of the Solicitor's Office wasn't punitive, and she said half of his workload comes out of Buildings and Inspections anyway.

But the solicitor also wanted to make sure Ryder wasn't privy to any inside scoop on how the city planned to defend his lawsuit. It's called a "Chinese wall," McNeil explained - a concept she picked up when she worked for former Ohio Attorney General Betty Montgomery.

Your tax money: To be clear, there is nothing illegal or improper about a council member using public money to send out a newsletter to constituents. Like the congressional "franking privilege," city ordinances allow council members to send out mass mailings related to their activities, as long as they're not within 75 days of an election.

But the only council member who takes advantage of the privilege is Vice Mayor Alicia Reece. Her "Report to the People" - an eight-page, black-and-white pamphlet - cost taxpayers $3,052.

Though the brochure speaks of her political accomplishments - she won the Ohio Democratic Party's Gertrude W. Donahey Award for the top female elected official - Reece bristles at the suggestion that the brochure reads like campaign literature. Still, the same information is on her Web site, www.aliciareece.com.

Reece insists it's not a campaign site, but her personal site. It sure looks like one of the slickest campaign sites in Cincinnati politics. "Vision. Action. Results," it proclaims.

It also promotes her May 17 "Skate and Dance" fund-raiser at Castle Skateland, 980 Loveland-Madeira Road. Special guest: Bootsy Collins. Midnight-5 a.m. Tickets: $12 in advance, $15 at the door. Call 731-9466 for information.

Alas, it must not be a campaign Web site, because there's no campaign committee disclaimer as required by Ohio law.

More tax money: After the Enquirer asked the city for the spending records of City Council members, Councilman Pat DeWine put out a five-page report - complete with pie charts - listing every expense in his office. He said other council members ought to do the same.

City Hall reporter Gregory Korte can be reached at gkorte@enquirer.com or 768-8391.