Executive councilors engaged in a heated debate Wednesday over competing priorities for the next 10-year highway plan.

Councilor John Stephen, R-Manchester, urged the group to trim spending from highway and bridge work elsewhere to make room for the $144 million reconstruction of Exits 6 and 7 on Interstate 293 in his home city.

In his own district, Stephen suggested reducing the scope of road work in Hooksett, Londonderry and Bedford to try to find consensus.

“If we are going to have to look at finding cuts in other areas, then so be it,” Stephen said during a work session of the Governor’s Advisory Council on Intermodal Transportation.

But Councilor Karen Liot Hill, D-Lebanon, said the major reshuffling of project spending would break faith with a process that had the Department of T

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