Collingwood council has been facing some tough budget decisions, which led to a scrappy meeting Monday night.
Through out the meeting, councillors talked over others, interrupted each other, and talked or whispered while others were taking their turn to speak.
Mayor Chris Carrier finally had to ask that everyone respect each other and revisit the rules of conduct.
Despite the tension, council did make some big decisions.
In a 6-3 vote, council decided to debenture (loan) 675 thousand dollars to put a roof over the outdoor ice rink at Central Park.
That amount is subject to 300 thousand dollars being raised by user groups for a total project cost of 975 thousand dollars.
Council will also spend 100 thousand dollars on a study to see how the parking at the park would be affected if there were more people using it and other engineering issues.
It was also a vote of 6 to 3 to spend a total of 2.94 million dollars on the full Heritage Park revitalization project including the new wellness centre.
Staff had suggested council postpone the two million dollar centre until next year.
Treasurer Marjorie Leonard doesn’t have a percentage yet on how much adding these projects will affect taxes. The budget started out with 2.5 percent hike.
Leonard does say the 3 million for the Heritage Park project will cost the town a total of 300 thousand dollars in loan payments.
Council also decided to hire four new firefighters for the second half of this year at a cost of almost 123 thousand dollars.
And 1.5 million dollars committed in 2008 to the Y expansion for a 25 metre pool will come out of reserves this year.
Spending 1.3 million dollars on a new public works garage and 1.6 million for prep work for the High Street Widening have been postponed.
The final budget is expected to be presented to council next Monday.