It has been more than a decade since Fresno made the big switch to a strong-mayor form of city government. But even now, the resulting strains have a way of reappearing on occasion.

That may explain why Thursday, during a meeting that began at 8:30 a.m. and lasted into the evening, the City Council spent almost an hour debating details of the city's representation on the Council of Fresno County Governments.

That obscure agency controls millions of dollars in transportation and regional planning funds. It is controlled by a board made up of mayors from each of the county's 15 cities and the chairman of the Board of Supervisors, although some send alternates. Former Mayor Alan Autry, for example, almost always let a council member attend in his place.

In most cities, the mayor sits on the city council and takes direction from the city council on COG votes. That's not necessarily so in Fresno, where the mayor typically doesn't even attend council meetings. That gave rise to a concern that Mayor Ashley Swearengin's COG votes might conflict with the council's wishes.

Council Member Blong Xiong wasn't much swayed by assurances from Swearengin's representatives about her efforts to make sure everybody was on the same page: "By the time it's broken, it's a little too late to fix it."

But COG Executive Director Tony Boren pointed out an inconvenient truth -- the agreement creating the COG also designates each city's mayor as its delegrate. Changing that would mean reopening the entire agreement, a possible Pandora's box of a task, and one that would require the COG board's consent.

As a result, the City Council took no action although both sides pledged to work more closely on high profile COG issues.