Photo By David Sorcher

Justin Jeffre (center) squeezed in between Alicia Reece and David Pepper at a recent mayoral candidate debate at The Greenwich. He advocates more citizen involvement in City Hall decisions.

There are probably either two or three more candidates vying for the mayor's seat than Cincinnati voters realize, depending on their knowledge of popular boy bands.

Though for the most part CityBeat and other local media outlets have narrowed their coverage to the top four contenders in the Sept. 13 mayoral primary -- State Sen. Mark Mallory (D-West End), City Councilman David Pepper, Vice Mayor Alicia Reece and the Rev. Charles Winburn -- three others also convinced 500 city voters to sign a petition and paid the $75 filing fee to get their names on the ballot.

The lack of recognition, however, doesn't diminish those candidates' presence on the non-partisan primary ballot and their ideas for improving their home town.

The way you do
To steal from a 98 Degrees song, maybe Justin Jeffre is feeling like yesterday's letter.

The graduate of Cincinnati's School for Creative and Performing Arts got himself some national fame singing bass in the boy band 98 Degrees. But when the clamor died down, Cincinnati was still his everything, so he came home this year to run as an independent for mayor.

Jeffre tried to heat up his campaign by convincing a TV network to produce a reality show following his mayoral bid, but at least one network, VH-1, told him to give it up.

But he says he's never giving up because he's sincere about his efforts to change Cincinnati. In an answer to a question posted on his Web site's "citizen input" forum, he writes, "There is no reality show but the reality is we need bold leadership and I'm trying to do my part."

Jeffre has found it the hardest thing to get taken seriously. Tired of being an invisible man, he crashed the stage during an Aug. 13 mayoral debate among the top four contenders at The Greenwich in Walnut Hills. He was allowed to stay when Mallory ceded some of his time.

Impressive nads, though Jeffre's passion seems to outpace his ideas. On his Web site (www.justinjeffre.com), he writes, "I am running for mayor because we need to change the way we do business. City Hall is moving the city in the wrong direction and we need more citizen input in the process."

That's about the closest thing to a platform his Web site has to offer. And the closest CityBeat will get to an interview, as Jeffre -- perhaps emboldened when he shared the stage at The Greenwich -- declined to speak to a reporter unless CityBeat wrote a long profile on him as it's done with other mayoral candidates.

Here's Jeffre in his own words:

Voice mail, Aug. 10: "My name is Justin Jeffre. You may have heard of me, I'm from the group 98 Degrees and I'm also running for mayor. I'd like to talk to you about getting one of those articles like you all have done for Mr. Pepper (see "Swimming Against the Tide," issue of June 29-July 5), Mr. Mallory (see "Well-Suited for Mayor," issue of May 11-17), I believe Mr. Winburn (see "Winburn's Revival," issue of July 27-Aug. 2) and you have one coming up for Ms. Reece (see cover story). ... I also want to let you know we're gonna be doing a big event with Nick (Lachey, 98 Degrees heartthrob) and Jessica (Simpson, most recently Daisy Duke in The Dukes of Hazzard, married to Lachey) coming up so we're gonna give you guys the opportunity to one-up the competition. Give me a call when you get a chance."

Voice mail, Aug. 16: "Hi, Stephanie, it's Justin Jeffre, I'm just calling to let you know -- I just left a message for Mr. (CityBeat News Editor Greg) Flannery, as well -- I'm not interested in doing an article with (other mayoral candidates) Sandra Queen Noble or Sylvan Grisco, but I would be more than happy to do an article with you guys similar to other candidates, and also we're doing a documentary on the race and I would be interested in asking some of the reporters and editors of CityBeat some questions about the race. So anyway, you can give us a call and we can reschedule a time to do an interview about me similar to the other candidates, and I look forward to talking to you."

Driving women 'bananas'
In World War II, Sylvan Grisco, now 83, was a flight engineer for sea planes and amphibian vehicles in both the Pacific and European theaters. He says he was one of the Navy's youngest flight captains and that those are his initials on the nose of the Douglas SBD-6 Dauntless "Diving Bomber" now hanging in the Smithsonian Institution.

After the war Grisco turned to shoemaking, as his family has done for 300 years. The last of his several Cincinnati shoe shops was at 931 Main St.

Now the longtime Madisonville resident, a Republican, wants to inject City Hall with some of the good sense he's learned in decades as a small business owner. That starts with a full audit to cull out what he calls "legal stealing."

"Then, if you get any of this hanky panky stuff, you can catch it," he says.

He'd also focus on reenergizing the neighborhood business districts. The buildings are already there, he says. Clean 'em up, get good security and insurance and people will move in to take care of the rest. He envisions shop after shop selling specialty items, shoe by sock by tie.

"And you women, you do 90 percent of the buying, you'd go bananas, you'd have a ball," he says.

He also proposes assigning two police officers to every square city mile. Yes, he realizes that would occupy 890 of the city's 1,050 cops.

"You got enough as is, you got enough right now, all you gotta do is put them to work," he says.

Grisco says he once won 6 percent of the vote running against Tom Luken as a write-in candidate for Congress. Does he think he has a shot this time?

"Of course," he says. "I wouldn't be trying if I didn't."

International testosterone
Sandra Noble likes to be called "Queen" because the rivers of antiquity run through her blood.

We sit in a light rain in white plastic chairs on the sidewalk outside her Walnut Hills apartment. She wears a gold cowboy hat -- again, the gold to indicate royalty -- and an Army-fatigue-and-denim outfit she fashioned herself. Noble makes all her own clothes.

"The people in nonviolent military service should be draped in gold, at least a spot here and there," she says.

As mayor, she'd create this "nonviolent military service" as well as "security childcare services" that put young people in police uniforms and send them out to protect and serve latchkey children and senior citizens.

Noble's "hardcore public speaking" program would turn young people's profane Rap into public speaking.

She'd privatize the Department of Children and Family Services -- which is a county agency -- because more than once it took her two kids from her. For that, she's sued the federal government for $720 trillion and appealed every loss. Her latest filing in the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals is dated May 24.

Noble says pharmaceutical companies are as corrupt as the government, which is why she won't medicate her bipolar illness. She lives on $579 a month in federal disability benefits. Her landlord knocks $40 off rent for cleaning the sidewalk where we sit.

Without evident malice, she runs down her list of inventive racial theories: the Irish and the Russians descend from the Vikings, while the Egypt-born Germans, because of penis and testosterone envy, have conspired to grab all power and subjugate the West Africans who are the true mother race of humanity.

She says those who flock to the latest sighting of Jesus Christ in a "piece of toast or rock of crack cocaine" are mentally ill people who just want to believe in a good spirit.

Then, with a child's glee, she flashes a photo of herself in which she sees her own good spirit, which this day had been made clear, if not much else.