Add Salt Lake City Mayor Ralph Becker's name to the list of people who wishes November's attempted coup against Councilman Soren Simonsen had succeeded.

As the clock ticked toward 11 p.m. Tuesday, after a crammed council chamber had cleared, an irritated Becker confronted Simonsen behind the dais, where the two men continued an animated exchange -- with voices and fingers raised -- for nearly half an hour.

The uncharacteristic feud, pitting a pair of professional planners, boiled over after Simonsen twice broadsided the Becker brain trust about how two proposals -- downtown's $125 million police headquarters and the west side's $40 million sports complex -- violate master plans.

And now, with funding approved by voters for both projects but controversies still swirling about their locations, neither politician is conceding any ground.

Becker maintains the will of the people should prevail since each location was "understood" during the respective bond elections in 2003 and 2009 (although neither ballot's language was site specific). On Wednesday, the mayor tamped down the dust-up, through his spokeswoman, by saying the year-long discussion with Simonsen is a "healthy dialogue" about how master plans are interpreted.

"It was an absolutely professional conversation," Lisa Harrison Smith said, "between two men who respect each other."

But it sure looked personal.

Simonsen argues every master plan in the city is outdated. And the decorated urban planner insists each time the capital courts controversy -- more than 100 residents clogged the chamber Tuesday to debate the sports complex -- it stems from inconsistent land-use decisions. Think the downtown sky bridge.

"He's operating as an administrator at this point," Simonsen said Wednesday of Becker. "When we are expending $40 million, which is the largest expenditure to develop open space in our city's history, we ought to do it the right way.

"Don't shoot me because I bring my professional expertise to the table. It's why some people elected me."

But last fall, several council colleagues stung Simonsen and backed his opponent, Lisa Ramsey Adams. They argued Simonsen's laserlike focus on land use and nitpicking style were ill-suited for the council. After a recount, Simonsen bested Adams by 12 votes.

On Tuesday, two of Simonsen's three council foes were anointed as 2010 leadership. But the titles did little to tilt the animosity. When Simonsen scolded the Becker team for promoting a sports complex that violates a decades-old open-space master plan -- a mayor's lieutenant conceded some of the area is zoned agricultural -- newly minted council Chairman J.T. Martin rolled his eyes and huffed to new Vice Chairwoman Jill Remington Love, "Oh my God."

Then, after Simonsen made an (ultimately successful) motion to continue the public hearing another week, he was approached by Love.

"She lambasted me; she was upset," Simonsen recalled Wednesday. "She said, 'We're going to hear the same thing from the same group of people next week and it will take another two hours.' I said, 'Jill, you should have voted against the motion then.' How can I vote against public comment?"

Simonsen says he is regularly "chastised" by Love, while Martin refuses to return his calls or e-mails. And now he has Becker literally in his face.

Martin said, "It simply isn't true," adding that Simonsen would not have supported him for chairman if there were acrimony between the two.

Undeterred, Simonsen insists the public has a right to know when the city deviates from its "living documents" or master plans, especially with public dollars in the mix. "That's been a burr in my saddle even before I came on the council."

Simonsen is not alone. A growing groundswell of residents notes the Barnes Bank block, just east of Library Square and now pegged for the planned police headquarters, is zoned for residential and mixed use. River lovers and conservationists say the patch of Jordan River near Rose Park, site of the proposed sports complex, has been zoned as open space for decades. What's more, the council last year unanimously endorsed Blueprint Jordan River, a vision document that regards a recreation hub as inconsistent.

City officials counter they did not acquire the 160-acre sports complex patch from the state until last fall. Each master plan, they say, can be amended this spring.

That does little to muzzle Simonsen, who insists the only thing the council can control beyond money is land-use policy.

"I'm not making this stuff up," he said, as he junked the notion that bond elections should trump process. "That's not a land-use plan -- that's a wish."

djensen@sltrib.com