Gifford Miller ended his tenure as City Council speaker yesterday, presiding over a council meeting that passed 36 pieces of legislation.

In the last stated meeting of all council members this year – which saw the retirement of eight legislators – the body passed, in near-unanimous votes, the year’s pending legislation, including the Health Care Security Act, the labor-supported bill that requires supermarkets to provide health insurance to workers. Other bills that were passed included finance, land use, and other state and federal legislation, most notably amendments to the city’s noise code and graffiti removal laws. City Council members also voted in a bill to provide language assistance to non-English-speaking parents of public school students, as well as a bill that will create a new city advisory committee focused on accelerating the use of emerging broadband technologies.

Despite the large number of bills passed, the meeting was punctuated with debate as council members traded concerns and sometimes barbs over bills that did not garner unanimous consent, including the language assistance bill, and legislation that some members felt was not as polished as it should have been, the noise bill in particular.

Council members also debated an education amendment that Council Member John Liu yesterday said would allow parents who don’t speak English to receive critical school documents in languages they understand.

But council members Andrew Lanza and Dennis Gallagher opposed the bill, which Mr. Gallagher called “fiscally irresponsible.”

Mr. Lanza, asked council members how they would respond when parents asked why city schools can’t afford arts programming, even as they provide report cards in foreign languages. He said, “Let’s spend this money on ways to improve the education of our children.”

Despite heated words at times, council members reserved praise for all of the outgoing legislators: Mr. Miller, Margarita Lopez, Eva Moskowitz, Philip Reed, Bill Perkins, Madeline Provenzano, Tracy Boyland, and Allan Jennings.

In addition to well-wishing, several members at the meeting took the opportunity to voice support for the city’s transit workers, some of whom were marching outside City Hall during the second day of their strike over a new contract. Digging into Mayor Bloomberg for his harsh words to transit union leaders in previous days, Mr. Perkins said, “It’s outrageous that someone comes across the Brooklyn Bridge in a designer leather jacket, designer jeans, and designer shoes and calls working people thugs.”

Ms. Lopez used her last City Council meeting to advocate for disabled New Yorkers, particularly those stranded during the transit strike, and urged her colleagues in heated words to pass laws relating to livery and public transportation in order to provide equal access for the disabled.