Furious, Williams bolted from the chamber before the council took a final vote.
Williams was still so angry yesterday that he refused to speak directly with Cropp, according to his aides. City Administrator Robert C. Bobb met with her after the vote. Bobb said the mayor thought he had been badly betrayed.
Linda Cropp acknowledged blindsiding the mayor and council colleagues.
(Preston Keres -- The Washington Post)
|
|
"We met with her and her staff twice [late Monday] and we felt like all of her concerns were answered," Bobb said. "If she had raised these problems the night before, we could have addressed them."
Bobb declined to say whether he still trusts Cropp, who has appeared to pull the rug out from under the stadium deal three times over the past month. "I believe in conspiracy theories," he said, smiling.
Council member Harold Brazil (D-At Large), a baseball booster, called Cropp's maneuver an "ambush" and accused her of tacking the poison-pill amendment onto the baseball bill in hopes of gaining political advantage in the 2006 race for mayor.
Polls show that a majority of city residents oppose public funding of a ballpark.
But council member Jack Evans (D-Ward 2), the mayor's closest ally on baseball, said he believes Cropp was worn down after a daylong barrage of criticism from two ardent opponents of the stadium deal: council members Adrian M. Fenty (D-Ward 4) and David A. Catania (I-At Large.)
"You have Catania on one side and Fenty on the other talking at you for 13 hours. That's enough to drive anyone crazy," Evans said.
Watching the council late Tuesday, a viewer could get the impression that Cropp had been confused. When she first explained her amendment -- which voids the stadium financing package unless the mayor delivers about $150 million in private investments -- Cropp said it would take effect only if the mayor blatantly ignores a viable private-financing package.
Evans initially described the amendment as "friendly." But after Fenty, Catania and Schwartz demanded clarification, Cropp explained, to everyone's surprise, that the stadium deal would die without private funds.
Staff writers David Nakamura and Yolanda Woodlee contributed to this report.
