YAKIMA, Wash. -- Under threat of a court order, a contrite Yakima City Council rescinded a controversial budget policy on the same night a replacement was sworn in for a council member who quit over it.

Emerging after a 90-minute meeting behind closed doors, the council voted 6-0 late Tuesday to rescind the policy and start over. Councilwoman Sonia Rodriguez was absent.

Councilman Rick Ensey, the figure at the heart of the controversy, called the court order "garbage" but conceded that he was wrong to have rushed a vote on the policy during a study session on April 14. The move so incensed Councilman Neil McClure that he quit on the spot.

"My mistake," said Ensey. "I'll make sure and learn from this."

The other three council members who joined with Ensey on the original vote -- Micah Cawley, Kathy Coffey and Bill Lover -- also requested a mea culpa.

"Let's try to move forward, go from there," said Coffey.

The new policy was modeled after one used by Yakima County and, according to supporters, is designed to give council members broad policy input on municipal priorities at the front end of the budgeting process.

Opponents, however, assailed the move as a thinly veiled attempt to wrest control from City Manager Dick Zais. They also complained about the behind-the-scenes role played by Yakima Valley Business Times publisher and longtime Zais critic Bruce Smith.

Weeks of hard feelings followed McClure's resignation, coming to a head two weeks ago during a tense council meeting when the divided group briefly united in picking Maureen Adkison as his replacement. She was sworn in Tuesday.

The second-guessing continued, however, in the form of public records requests seeking evidence that backers of the new policy conspired in violation of the state open-meetings law.

The controversy went to a whole new level last Friday when a lawyer got a court order blocking the city from implementing the new policy -- and effectively stopping work on its 2010 budget.

Curiously, one of Adkison's first votes as a council member was to rescind the policy that caused her predecessor to quit in the first place. Ensey, meanwhile, was defiant.

"If we need to study, do it over, fine," he said. "But let me be clear on this: I'm not apologizing."