In case no one's noticed, Cincinnati City Council members are happy to point it out: council meetings are half as long and not nearly as rancorous as they used to be.

        After council resolved several hot-button issues unanimously and with little debate Wednesday, Councilwoman Minette Cooper took time to give her colleagues credit.

        “At the risk of oversimplification, we have settled a number of things that we had been making big mountains out of,” she said. “We did some stuff that we all wanted to do, and that wasn't that hard to do, but we just had to do it. This is how City Council is supposed to work.”

        Among the formerly contentious issues resolved:

        • Council voted unanimously to cut $250,000 from the Park Board's budget without sacrificing nature-education programs or highway beautification.

        Instead, council approved a recommendation from the city manager that the cuts come from the parks' market ing, training and maintenance budgets, and by eliminating unfilled positions.

        • Council passed Councilman James R. Tarbell's plan to spend $1 million for arts construction, mostly at the Taft Museum of Art and the Cincinnati Opera.

        But council also passed Councilwoman Alicia Reece's proposal to fund half of the Taft Museum's subsidy through a downtown development fund, freeing up $200,000 for arts projects that Ms. Reece said would be “more inclusive.”

        • Mayor Charlie Luken referred to the Finance Committee a proposal to restore funding to the West End Community Council. Council pulled funding in 2000 after allegations that the group and its related Genesis Redevelopment Inc. had misspent at least $80,000 on board members and their relatives.

        Now that the community council is under new leadership, Mr. Luken wants to release $267,800 in neighborhood development funds paid by Automated Data Processing in lieu of property taxes.

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