Angry that the mayor is dismissing his alternative budget proposal as “irresponsible” – and that she is flaunting the names of nine council members she has potentially lined up to vote against it – City Council President Bernard C. “Jack” Young exploded yesterday at a City Hall budget hearing.

“I think this is a workable plan – I don’t know why there is so much pushback,” Young said at the start of the meeting.

In a letter to the council released yesterday, Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake said Young’s plan would mean nearly two dozen layoffs. “It’s a sad day when the Mayor can create a false impression like that,” Young responded. “Nothing in my plan says that.”

Young then surprised many in the room by reversing his previous position in support of a key mayoral initiative – the three-cent increase in the bottle tax to raise funds for school construction and renovation.

“I will vote ‘no’ on the bottle tax,” Young announced dramatically. (The tax appears ready for passage anyway, with a majority of council members poised to move it out of committee next week.)

Young’s budget plan, which he says would allow all of the city’s fire companies and recreation centers to stay open, drew a raucous, cheering standing-room-only crowd of firefighters and youth advocates yesterday.

But it was a testament to the power of the chief executive that a single line in Rawlings-Blake’s letter blasting Young’s plan could cast such a pall over its prospects.

“After many hours of meeting with council members Reisinger, Cole, Curran, Kraft, Middleton, Mosby, Scott, Spector and Welch we have worked together and come to an agreement to provide funding for important programs and shared priorities,” Rawlings-Blake wrote.

Under the agreement, funding would be restored to three budget items and in return, the Council – which is only empowered to make cuts – would agree not to exercise that power and approve Rawlings Blake’s $2.3 billion operating budget as is.

The mayor pledged to fund “Childfirst” after-school programs and Experience Corps, which hires retirees as classroom aides. She also said that no firefighters would be demoted as a result of her proposal to disband three fire companies.

Where in the budget did she find funds for those three concessions?

By postponing $366,250 toward a software upgrade requested by the Mayor’s Office of Information Technology and by reducing an extra Maryland Stadium Authority payment of $16,000 that “we have deemed . . .unnecessary,” according to the letter.

“Council Should Stop Saying it’s Not in Their Power”

But firefighters were there to stop the company closures completely, a key feature of Young’s proposal.

Under the council president’s spending plan, $7 million would be cut from city agencies (including eliminating 50 vacant positions) and $10 million in revenue would come from other sources, including red-light camera fines.

Young’s proposal would double funding for youth summer jobs and after-school programs and increase recreation center funding by $2.8 million.

Outside City Hall before the hearing, a gathering of about 100 firefighters and recreation center advocates joined forces to lend Young their support.

“These are all ingredients we need to make a safe and productive community,” said organizer Cortly C.D. Witherspoon, president of the Baltimore chapter of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.

“The council should stop saying it’s not in their power,” said Tyrone Barnwell, an organizer for the Safe and Sound Campaign. “They can vote against the mayor’s budget.”

Along with Hathaway Ferebee, Safe and Sound’s executive director, others present to support Young’s plan included: Marvin “Doc” Cheatham, president of the Baltimore chapter of the National Action Network, activist Kim Trueheart, Councilmembers Mary Pat Clarke and Bill Henry, and Frank Patinella of the Baltimore Education Coalition.

Firefighters, for their part, were out in force in hopes of saving three companies from being permanently disbanded in what Rawlings-Blake says is a cost-cutting move: Truck 15 in East Baltimore, Truck 10 in Harlem Park, and Squad 11 in Greektown/Bayview.

“Once you close one of these companies down, it never comes back,” said Michael Campbell, president of Fire Officers Local 964.

“It’s more stress on the fire fighters and it’s unsafe for Baltimore City.”

Walking Lock, Stock and Barrel with the Mayor?

Later, inside City Hall, Young took up their cause with stinging words for their boss, Fire Chief James S. Clack.

“If my second floor is burning down, I want somebody to be able to get up there with a ladder to that third floor and rescue me,” Young said.

“I pay taxes in this city too. This is unacceptable! I want to know why you, the fire chief, don’t stand up for your men?”

Clack calmly replied, “I do exactly what you’re talking about, but I don’t do it in this forum, I don’t do it in public, and I don’t do it in the media.”

At the end of the meeting, Young shifted his attention toward the budget process which ends with a final council vote on the spending plan at the end of the month. He said he would put elements of his plan in the form of amendments and urged council members to consider them.

“Listen to what your constituents are saying over and over and over again. Keep your mind open,” he said, urging them “not to walk lock, stock and barrel with the mayor.”