Nathan VanderKlippe
Northern News Services

Yellowknife (Jan 18/02) - With two special committee meetings this week, a special council meeting next Monday, several in-camera sessions and a public meeting on the matter, the city's budget is a big deal.

It's a long and arduous process to work out the kinks and knots in a $43.5-million budget, balancing demands for city services with calls for zero tax increases.

So perhaps it's no surprise that councillors spent over nine hours deliberating the two 170-page budget books.

Even so, anyone who has attended council knows that some councillors have a little more to talk about than others.

But who leads the pack? Who does our plants the biggest service, exhaling the most carbon-dioxide while talking?

Determined to find out, Yellowknifer came to the meetings on Tuesday and Wednesday armed with highly sophisticated time-keeping technology: the Windows clock on a laptop computer. After meticulously tabulating the results, we crown Coun. Robert Hawkins Yellowknife city council king of gab.

Over two nights, Hawkins lapped up 88 minutes of floor time.

It took Mayor Gord Van Tighem, who came in at 39.5 minutes, two nights to talk as much as Hawkins did during the shortest meeting.

Second on the list was Coun. Kevin O'Reilly, who put out an impressive 70 minutes -- not a surprise considering he gave council an entire lesson on the value of non-profit organizations.

Just behind him was Coun. Alan Woytuik, who at 63 minutes tried to provide a solid conservative counterbalance to O'Reilly's views.

On the brief end of the scale, Coun. Blake Lyons -- who was absent from most of the meetings -- put in a mere 2.5 minutes.

Councillors Wendy Bisaro (28.5 minutes) and Dave McCann (30 minutes) were the most concise.

Among staffers, senior administrator Max Hall took up 39.5 minutes, much of which was spent guiding discussion through the different budget books.

Finance director Robert Charpentier came in a distant second with 19 minutes, while treasurer Glenn Jarbeau took the top prize for shortness at only 30 seconds of talk time.

Coun. Ben McDonald, who came in at 56.5 minutes, deserves mention simply for quoting Marshall McLuhan on warm and cool media.

Woytuik may have been the most colourful speaker of the evenings. Criticizing the plan to pour money into library refurbishment, he said: "To me it's a case of pouring good money into bad to fix up a lemon that we want to get rid of."