A Monday budget meeting of the Lincoln City Council devolved into personal attacks after Councilman Jon Camp was accused of proposing another $250,000 cut to the fire department because he has a personal vendetta against the department.

The flareup occurred during a meeting in which the council voted on tentative changes to Mayor Chris Beutler’s proposed 2007-2008 budget. The council still has several other steps to go through before finalizing the budget in August.

But the budget cut that ignited a partisan feud was Camp’s proposal to cut another $250,000 from the fire department and divert the money to street construction. That’s in addition to the $250,000 in discretionary cuts the mayor had already proposed.

Camp said the money could be found by reducing overtime, reviewing the department’s work injury program and changing the way people are deployed.

But two Democratic council members — Dan Marvin and Jonathan Cook — accused Camp of targeting the department as part of a personal vendetta.

“I think some members don’t like the fire department,” Marvin said during the budget meeting. When Camp attempted to interject, Marvin said, “That’s my opinion Jon and I’m allowed to express my opinion.”

Marvin cited an Omaha study that showed the amount of money Lincoln’s department expends per capita on salaries, sick leave accrual, vacation, pensions and uniform allowances is below average compared with other cities in the region.

Councilman Cook also called Camp’s proposal a “crazy cut,” and suggested it was based on animosity toward the fire department that dates back to when the fire department took over the ambulance service years ago.

“I kind of feel that some members of this council will just never move on,” Cook said, saying the fire department is overly scrutinized for issues as trivial as firetrucks going to grocery stores. Police officers aren’t scrutinized when two police cars meet in a parking lot, he argued.

“You could do that with any department and it gets to the point where it’s an attempt to micromanage a department. To play, in this case, fire chief.“

He said Camp’s proposal to cut services to existing Lincoln residents and instead build new roads so landowners in new areas “can get wealthy” contradicts the theory that growth pays for itself.

Camp said he was disappointed that Cook and Marvin threw “emotional, political rhetoric” into the debate. He said the fire department is good and efficient but can do better.

He criticized interim Fire Chief Danny Wright for not being able to answer his questions recently about things like the number of fire calls.

“The real problem is they don’t want accountability,” Camp said.

He said the department misled the public about how it could provide ambulance service faster, better and cheaper; botched a firetruck purchase last year; had a fire chief resign in connection with the truck purchase and then spent $180,000 to help try to find a new chief.

He cited a “political system heavily monitored by the fire union” and suggested Cook and Marvin opposed his cut because they’ve received generous contributions from the firefighters union.

He said it’s high time the city stop using “1890 methods to fight fires” and stop deploying “seven to nine people” to every emergency call. And he said the suggestion that reducing the budget would imperil residents was just an age-old scare tactic the department often employs.

Democrats on the council questioned the need for a quarter-million-dollar cut when the budget proposed by Mayor Beutler is balanced. Marvin said while Camp brings a lot of things to the council, his “personal animosity toward the fire department” is unhealthy.

“You always are focused on going after the fire department and I don’t think it’s professional, Jon,” Marvin said.

Councilman Ken Svoboda attempted to douse the discussion by saying, “I don’t think we gain anything by having these discussions very publicly.” But he was unable to extinguish the flareup when Cook returned to the issue later.

Cook said if they were going to talk about campaign contributions, they should probably talk about big contributions to Camp from the Lincoln Independent Business Association, which he said has one influential member who used to run the private ambulance service and “may hold a grudge.”

“It’s all amateur fire chiefing up here,” Cook said. “Sometimes I think Mr. Camp and Coby Mach and John Baylor could get together and be co-fire chiefs. Each one of them could spend eight hours a day and work on fixing the department as they see fit because it clearly seems to be what they want to do.”

Mach is the head of LIBA and a radio commentator and Baylor is the host of a radio talk show.

In response, Svoboda said it was unfair for Cook to criticize the LIBA campaign contribution when he and “the majority of the council had a personal vendetta against a traffic engineer and they got his position eliminated” last year.

“If we’re going to start throwing stones, we should look at our own home first,” Svoboda said.

In the end, the Republicans on the council (John Spatz, Robin Eschliman, Svoboda and Camp) voted to cut the fire department budget by another $175,000 — and divert the money to streets — while clarifying that they didn’t want any firefighters to be cut in the process.

The three Democrats on the council — Marvin, Cook and Doug Emery — voted against the move.

After the meeting, Fire Chief Wright said it would be very tough to find another $175,000 in budget cuts.

“I’m not sure we have anywhere to go,” he said.

After the council meeting, Mayor Beutler released a statement saying he was disappointed in the council’s decision because it could mean a reduction in firefighters and service.

He said he’ll be hiring a new fire chief in the next few weeks, and that chief may want to reorganize the department, “and these cuts may not fit into the new chief’s plans.”

Beutler must approve the budget passed by the council.

Reach Deena Winter at 473-2642 or dwinter@journalstar.com.