Atlanta City Council President Lisa Borders channeled Aretha Franklin in a recent message to council members.

R-E-S-P-E-C-T.

Borders wrote a letter to the 15-member council Friday, saying some of them have treated Mayor Shirley Franklin's staff with "hostility" in recent weeks during hearings on the city's budget crisis. Atlanta has a projected $140 million budget shortfall for the fiscal year beginning July 1.

"We must ask tough questions, but we have the higher obligation of decorum, civility and respect," Borders wrote. "The City Council sits as the representatives of our constituents and we do them no service when we replace thoughtful inquiry with hostility or probing analysis with ad hominem attack. We owe our citizens more."

Borders, who has announced she is running for mayor next year, said in an interview Monday she wrote the letter after talking with Franklin recently about verbal confrontations between council members and the mayor's staff. She's also concerned about rowdy behavior by citizens, such as a man who used profanity during a public hearing on the budget.

Last Thursday, Councilman H. Lamar Willis cut off Chief Operating Officer Greg Giornelli during a meeting. Willis later apologized.

Councilman C.T. Martin stopped Chief Operating Officer Greg Giornelli several times in midsentence during the same meeting.

"I'm talking," Martin said at one point.

Martin said Monday he has no regrets about his actions, arguing that Franklin's proposed budget "is a lie." Martin said Franklin's staff should have been more responsive to council members before the council received her budget proposal.

"I have no compunction about speaking to them in that form when they will not tell us the truth," Martin said.

Councilman Howard Shook said the hostility comes from frustration over the city's budget. Unfortunately for the council, Shook said, the frustration is on display in front of television cameras.

"All of our worst moments are on live TV," he said.