NNSL (Dec 17/97) - The team atmosphere that had prevailed among members of the new council took a beating Monday night.

During debate on the proposed twin-pad arena and community centre budget Ald. David Ramsay accused other aldermen of being more interested in making headlines than headway on the budget.

"It seems to me someone wants a bigger headline in the Yellowknifer Friday. I mean, $9.9 million, $9.6 million," said Ramsay referring to cuts proposed by aldermen Cheryl Best and Bob Brooks.

Ramsay noted the arena budget had already been discussed extensively during detailed debate of the 1998 budget. "Coming here tonight and proposing cuts is just grandstanding," he said.

Brooks and Best objected to the comments.

"It wasn't a last-minute decision," said Brooks of his motion to trim the arena budget. "We've been working on this for the last three months. Just because we lost the last debate doesn't mean we've given up."

Best said she was "hurt" by the suggestion that she was grandstanding. She said Ramsay should have been supporting the motions rather than questioning the motives, considering he ran on a campaign of cutting city costs.

Though other aldermen supported Best and Brooks' motivation, they did not support the pair's proposal to cut the budget, nor one advanced by Near to remove the borrowing requirement, set at $4 million, until a more detailed cost analysis is produced.