Jorge Barrera
Northern News Services

Yellowknife (Aug 31/01) - A council debate which spiralled out of control on Monday night has one councillor calling for tighter chairing and another pointing to deep ideological rifts as a cause.

Despite floundering endlessly in committee meetings, city council's "goals and objectives" finally surfaced on the agenda only to fall into a debate that deteriorated into wheel-spinning arguments.

"The reins are a little too loose," said Coun. Alan Woytuik. "A couple of times it's gone longer than it should have."

Woytuik said Mayor Gord Van Tighem as chair "needs to tighten (the) reins."

Coun. Ben McDonald, council's de facto procedure enforcer, said council could benefit from a workshop on procedure.

"I hope it doesn't ever happen again where people are talking about something else when there is a motion on the floor," said McDonald.

McDonald pointed to a deep ideological chasm between councillors as the reason the debate spun out of control.

"The difficulty with current council is a serious ideological split. It shows up in debates," said McDonald.

On Monday night council couldn't decide whether to approach their goals and objectives goal by goal, accept the thing as one package, or accept the goals as abstractions and deferring the actions connected to those goals to the budget debate.

"This is an overall package," said Coun. Kevin O'Reilly. "I don't have any difficulty with anything here."

Coun. Dave Ramsay said he wanted to contest the actions that went along with the goals.

Coun. Blake Lyons argued council would only be accepting the goals as abstractions and not committing to anything financially.

Then the heat turned up on the debate.

Ramsay threatened to walk out of the meeting.

"This is a principal thing. Why should I sit here if we're not going to discuss the actions. We're making a mistake attaching names to these actions," said Ramsay.

This created further debate which spun in circles until Lyons deferred to Mayor Gord Van Tighem as having the final say after Coun. Robert Hawkins suggested deferring the whole thing back to committee.

Van Tighem sided with Lyons. Another debate raged until O'Reilly challenged the chair. Council voted six to two to accept the goals as abstractions and worry about the concrete steps needed to fulfil those goals at budget time.

Ramsay and Coun. Robert Hawkins voted against accepting the goals.

Van Tighem said he allows councillors to voice their concerns and under his chairing few council meetings have run past 9.m.

"I've been chairing for 30 years," said Van Tighem.

"I don't plan on changing till I need to," said Van Tighem.

McDonald said this particular issue flushes out council differences in a way others don't.

"It's a complex and serious issue that can shape your whole term in office," said McDonald.