The City Council that acted in relative harmony for four years to approve city budgets, spur economic development with tax breaks, and regulate the quality of life on city streets ended its term yesterday by swiftly passing 86 bills and bidding farewell to a longtime colleague.

Council members renewed the cable-TV franchise for Wade Cablevision, authorized the creation of a health-care advocacy office, and increased tax abatements for new residential construction.

They also authorized a bond transaction that will pour $8 million into the near-empty coffers of the Philadelphia Gas Works.

Council members unanimously adopted a resolution calling on the incoming mayoral administration to make sweeping changes in the way the Police Department handles sexual-assault complaints, including increased staffing and training for sex-crimes investigators.

The resolution also calls for establishing a separate unit where police and social workers will jointly handle cases in which children have been physically or sexually abused. The aim is to spare child victims repetitious questioning by different agencies.

Mayor-elect John F. Street has said he endorses such a centralized unit in principle.

In passing the resolution, Council adopted recommendations of its Public Safety Committee, which held a hearing this month on the performances of the police sex-crimes unit. The hearing was prompted by Inquirer articles reporting that the squad had buried thousands of cases over the last two decades.

Council also unanimously approved a resolution seeking improvements in the system for removing abandoned cars from neighborhood streets.

And at the end of the 31/2-hour marathon session, Council members honored Councilwoman at-large Augusta A. Clark, who retired after 20 years and is expected to take a position in the Street administration.

"Our shared love for this city of brotherly love will link us inextricably forever," Clark told her colleagues. "Thanks for the memories."

Clark - and former Councilwoman Happy Fernandez, who resigned in September 1998 to launch an unsuccessful bid for mayor - will be replaced in the next term by W. Wilson Goode Jr. and Blondell Reynolds Brown, two Democrats elected in November.

The new Council will be inaugurated Jan. 3, along with Street. Members will see their annual salary rise from $65,000 to $80,000, a benefit approved at the end of the 1995 term.

Yesterday marked the end of a session of relative peace and productivity on Council. The body gave health and pension benefits to domestic partners of gay and lesbian city workers, raised pension benefits for city retirees, regulated aggressive panhandling and loitering, and passed numerous tax breaks for development projects, including several hotels and the Kvaerner Philadelphia Shipyard.

Council saw a change of leadership three-quarters of the way through the four-year term, when John F. Street stepped down as Council president a year ago to run for mayor and Anna C. Verna was chosen to replace him as president.

Verna, who is expected to retain the post next session, cemented her popularity with an open style in which she shared information with colleagues, in contrast to Street's more centralized control of power.

Verna's opponent for Council presidency, Councilwoman Marian Tasco, said one of Council's main accomplishments, particularly in the last year, was working together as a body under Verna's leadership.

"A lot of people had felt left out, and with this last year under Councilwoman Verna, they feel a part of the process and feel that the Council was much more open," Tasco said.

It was a Council that was eager to go along with the Rendell administration's fiscal plans, passing the city budget each year with few major disputes and granting tax breaks to businesses for construction projects. But Council also became more independent and cautious as the term wore on.

After being pressured to approve quickly about $59 million in city-controlled funds for Kvaerner in 1997, some members were dismayed when they received complaints about the project and when the company announced this year that it would sell its shipbuilding businesses.

"There were problems with parts of the deal, and more so with the lack of an affirmative-action plan and with costs," Tasco said. "That has made us much more cautious."

That caution came to the fore this fall when Council refused to consider a plan to build two new sports stadiums for the Phillies and the Eagles in South Philadelphia.

With only weeks left in the session, members said they had not been given detailed information about the financing and site plans. Verna refused to introduce the legislation despite pressure from the teams and Rendell.

Council also showed its independence early this year, when it worked out a plan to give city retirees pension raises, despite initial opposition from the administration.

"I think the body has begun to establish itself more as an independent legislative body that will look at issues, analyze what's going on, and have input," said Councilman Michael Nutter, one of the architects of the pension bill that was passed in February.

In addition to economic development, Council dealt with quality-of-life issues, passing an ordinance that authorized police to crack down on loitering and aggressive panhandling and authorizing curfews and a system for towing cars of unlicensed and unregistered drivers.

Verna said she would like to see Council working on similar issues next term.

"We want to see people staying in the city, not leaving, and we have to make it a better place to live, to work, and to rear our children," Verna said.