Cincinnati Charter Amendment: Issue 12 would allow Cincinnati City Council to meet in private

What is it: Issue 12 on the Hamilton County ballot

What it would do: Amend Cincinnati's charter to allow executive sessions of council.

What it's about: Cincinnati City Council is asking voters to allow them to hold executive sessions, which are currently forbidden under the city's charter.

What it would do: Allow council to privately discuss personnel matters, litigation and land sales.

How things are now: Council cannot have any private group discussions among themselves, despite the fact that most governments in Ohio allow for executive sessions.

What happens if it passes: These private discussions will be permitted. Like other municipalities with executive sessions, what the discussion is about will need to be outlined on a public agenda. All votes related to the discussion would happen in public.

What happens if it fails: Council will continue to have all discussions in public.

Argument for: Some topics don't need to be hashed out in public, like the ugly public fight earlier this year over whether former City Manager Harry Black should be fired. (He eventually resigned and walked away with a severance payment.)

Argument against: Cincinnati's charter is held up as a better system than most governments and it forbids private discussions in the interest of transparency.

Who's for it: Councilmembers Chris Seelbach, Wendell Young, Amy Murray, P.G. Sittenfeld, David Mann, Tamaya Dennard, Jeff Pastor, Greg Landsman.

Who's against it: Vice Mayor Christopher Smitherman. Mayor John Cranley.

Websites for more information: None

Read the language: Shall Section 5 of Article II, "Legislative Power", of the Charter of the City of Cincinnati be repealed and replaced to require all meetings of Council and its committees be held in accordance with the requirements of the Ohio Open Meetings Act, codified in Ohio Revised Code Section 121.22 or its successors? YES. NO