Oakland’s City Council president wants to cut the city’s new Department of Transportation and fire its director, just as he embarks on a $100 million plan to fix deteriorating roads and fill potholes.

It’s one of several major changes that Council President Rebecca Kaplan proposed in an alternative budget Friday, which became an opportunity to undermine Mayor Libby Schaaf, a longtime political foe.

Among Kaplan’s most salient amendments is the elimination of city transportation chief Ryan Russo, which would save about $200,000 a year. Kaplan wants to absorb the department — known as OakDot —back into Public Works. Barring that, she wants her colleagues to come up with a clear division of labor between the two departments.

Kaplan would also slash $7 million from the Police Department, begin a sanctioned homeless encampment program and restore eight full-time park maintenance positions.

Schaaf released her $3.2 billion, two-year budget early last month, calling for increased spending on fire inspectors, homeless services and affordable housing. Several council members, including Kaplan, derided the plan, saying it doesn’t go far enough to fund those priorities.

Kaplan will present her own version of the budget next Monday, and the City Council has until June 30 to wrangle over details and vote.

Some observers saw Kaplan’s amended budget as a not-so-subtle swipe at Schaaf, given their tense history — Schaaf beat Kaplan in the 2014 mayor’s race. Yet others support parts of Kaplan’s agenda. The removal of OakDot, in particular, tapped into a fraught debate about how Oakland should handle its famously bad roads: The city is facing a $500 million street maintenance backlog, and critics of OakDot say the department has done little to help.

“The real question is how effective has this all been,” said political consultant Jim Ross, noting that Oakland’s pavement has gotten so bad that a rogue group called the Pothole Vigilantes began cruising the streets at night, finding craters and filling them with asphalt. Ross ran Kaplan’s ill-fated campaign for mayor in 2010 but backed Schaaf in 2014.

Schaaf created the Department of Transportation three years ago, intending to transform the urban environment in Oakland, create a bike lane network and secure funding for major infrastructure projects.

Yet as OakDot moved forward with plans to change the look and feel of Oakland’s streets, it hit resistance from all sides. Merchants and residents in North Oakland objected to bike lanes that took away space for parking and traffic. Hills residents revile the paving plan because it devotes more funds to the flatlands in East Oakland.

And Kaplan, who characterizes herself as a long-standing transit wonk — she sat on AC Transit’s board before winning her City Council seat — lambastes the department for adding an extra layer of bureaucracy. That makes it harder to get projects approved and start construction, she said.

“This is wasting time for the agencies and for the public,” she said.

The mayor and council president have already gone to battle over the paving plan, after Kaplan pressed a resolution that would have allotted at least half the work to city staff, instead of relying mostly on outside contractors. Schaaf panned the idea, saying it would slow down vital work that’s already behind schedule. In the end, the council released the first $35 million in paving funds and decided to study the staffing issue.

A spokesman for Schaaf had scorching words for Kaplan’s budget revisions.

“Council President Rebecca Kaplan’s budget proposal is so reckless it would throw Oakland into financial and operation chaos now and for years to come,” Justin Berton said.

On the transportation issue, he added: “Our residents want roads repaved now — not eliminate the Department of Transportation and delay the adopted repaving plan.”

Yet others say Kaplan’s political calculus may have nothing to do with transportation.

“Clearly this has hit a nerve,” said public affairs consultant Larry Kamer, referring to Berton’s statement. “And maybe that’s what it was designed to do.”

Two council members declined to talk on the record about the alternative budget, and most appeared reluctant to publicly take sides in the fight. A spokesman from OakDot deferred questions to the city administrator.

Councilman Loren Taylor, whose district spreads through East Oakland, urged his colleagues to be cautious before making a final decision to eliminate Russo’s position.

“It’s not something I want to rush through. There is a lot more discussion that is needed,” he said. “It seems like making a change that quickly, of that magnitude, is something we will need more time than we have for our current budget deliberation.”

Councilman Noel Gallo, who supported the Department of Transportation at its genesis, said he will stick by it when the council votes on the budget this month.

“If transportation was still under Public Works, it would take five times as long to get any job done,” he said.

Transportation consultant Stuart Cohen, a friend of Kaplan’s, shared those sentiments. He warned that if Oakland wants to keep pace in an era of rapid economic growth and new forms of mobility, it needs a stand-alone transportation department. Councilman Dan Kalb agreed, saying Saturday that he opposes merging OakDot with Public Works.

Kaplan insisted this isn’t a mayor’s race rematch — she’s just doing her job.

“The mayor, when she was a council member who was running for mayor, wrote a law that requires the council president to propose an alternative budget,” Kaplan said. “That used to not be the case. The fact that she’s proposing a budget, and now I’m proposing an alternative budget, is not a soap opera — it’s the law. And it’s the law that she wrote.”

Rachel Swan and Sarah Ravani are San Francisco Chronicle staff writers. Email: rswan@sfchronicle.com, sravani@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @rachelswan, @sarravani