Rocky Anderson heaped praise and thanks on city employees, residents, local businesses — and even the Salt Lake City Council — during his final council meeting as mayor Tuesday night at the Salt Lake City and County Building.

"I have always believed Salt Lake City is the greatest city in the country," Anderson said, "and because of the devoted efforts of so many, it is now better than ever."

Anderson highlighted several areas in which collaborative efforts of city staff, elected officials and members of the community during his eight years in office have benefitted the city, including making sure the world was welcome during the 2002 Winter Olympics.

Anderson even had something nice to say about his sometimes adversarial relationship with the City Council, praising the joint efforts of the executive and legislative branches of Salt Lake City government for increasing the city's general fund balance by more than 62 percent from 1999 to 2007.

"I have been honored to serve as your mayor and will always count these eight years as the most rewarding of my life," the mayor said to a standing ovation from the council, city staff and about half of those residents in attendance.

City Council chairman Van Turner and vice chairwoman Jill Remington Love presented Anderson with a first-edition copy of Upton Sinclair's "The Jungle," a story of poverty and oppression in the Chicago meat-packing industry in the early 1900s.

Published in 1906, the book got the attention of the president of the United States, leading to an investigation and ultimately to the creation of the Food and Drug Administration and meat inspections.

"We recognize your efforts over the years to make the city a better place in which to live and to do business," Turner said.

In other Salt Lake City Council business Tuesday:

• The City Council discussed a request by Rowland Hall-St. Mark's School for a two-year extension to meet the conditions of council action that allowed the private school to move forward with plans to purchase land from Mt. Olivet cemetery.

The school and cemetery have not yet received congressional approval to complete the land deal, according to a letter to the City Council from Julie Barrett, assistant head of Rowland Hall-St. Mark's.

In April 2006, the City Council voted to change zoning on 13 acres of cemetery land, removing one hurdle the cemetery faced in trying to sell the land to Rowland Hall-St. Mark's. That approval required that conditions be met within two years. Rowland Hall-St. Mark's and Mt. Olivet officials want that pushed back until Dec. 31, 2010.

When Congress created Mt. Olivet in 1999, it included a provision in the land contracts that the property would revert back to the federal government if it were ever used for anything other than a cemetery.