As this dispatch from intern Bharat Ayyar shows, Eric Gioia wasn't the only Council member who yelled at Mark Page today:

High above the action, seated on the upper level at the Council Chambers at City Hall, third and fourth grade students from P.S. 60 observed Friday's hearings on the budget.

"Pay attention. There'll be a test later," quipped Finance Committee Chair David Weprin.

As different members of the council lined up to grill Mark Page, the director of the city Office of Management and Budget, on the '09 budget, which must be approved by the end of June, it quickly became clear that much of the debate would center on education.

District 7 Councilman Robert Jackson of Manhattan butted heads with Page at the hearing on issues of funding and what he said was the city's wavering commitment to the Contracts for Excellence with the state.

At a hearing earlier this week, Schools Chancellor Joel Klein said that it would take $400 million to maintain city schools at 07-08 levels. Without that money, Klein made it clear that cuts would be made. The mayor's proposed budget allocates $428 million less for education than what had originally been planned. Various Council members have said that they will not allow the budget to pass if "there's a dime being cut from the classroom."

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Robert Jackson didn't approve of fellow Councilman Eric Gioia’s line of questioning at a hearing on the Council's phony-appropriations scandal this afternoon.

“I think it was political grandstanding on the part of Eric Gioia and his run for public advocate. But, quite frankly, I don’t know if he received any brownie points in that.”

Councilman Eric Gioia grilled the city’s budget director about the slush fund scandal during a heated Council hearing in City Hall just now.

Gioia asked, pointedly, whose job is to make sure there are no phony organizations in the city budget and what guarantees exist to ensure there are no fake groups in this year’s budget.

The budget director, Mark Page, said at one point that he felt like he was “being grilled by a local prosecutor.” He added, “I’m not sure this is the forum for you to be asking me these questions.”

When pressed about whose job it was to catch the phony groups, Page said that his agency got a list from the City Council, implicitly laying the blame with the head of the City Council, Christine Quinn. (One of her top aides, Chuck Meara, was sitting in the front row in the City Council chambers during the hearing, taking note of the exchange.)

Page told Gioia, “Your question about assurance from me that there’s nothing fraudulent in the line items [of the budget], logistically, is -- looking backwards -- is a problem for me as to how to do it.”  read more »

Here’s a shot of Manhattan City Councilman Robert Jackson seconds before Christine Quinn ordered the balcony cleared of the boisterous protesters who were yelling about the Harlem rezoning the Council was about to pass.

“Jackson you’re a snake. Jackson, you’re a sellout to your people,” one women yelled down from the balcony. Another man yelled out, “Uncle Tom!”  read more »

It’s a pretty crowded room upstairs in the City Council chambers, where testimony about congestion pricing is being given by city Transportation Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan and the Director of Long-term Planning and Sustainability, Rohit Aggarwala.

In one exchange, Aggarwala told City Councilman Robert Jackson, “[Y]ou don’t have to get 20 percent of the people off the road to have 20 percent reduction in traffic.” She continued, “Sometimes, if you take one or two cars off, it takes a crowded, congested condition and it turns it into traffic that can flow.”  read more »

City Councilman Robert Jackson, an avid runner, has a metaphor (exhortation?) for the Clinton campaign.

“You run the best race you can and you finish the race," he said.

And where exactly is that finish line?  read more »

Continuing with our marginally useful compilation of Hillary Clinton-designated Democratic National Convention delegates for next year, here's who the campaign picked in the Harlem-based 15th congressional district, according to a reader in the district and confirmed by a knowledgeable Democrat.

The delegates are: Assemblyman Keith Wright, City Councilwoman and Charlie Rangel ally Inez Dickens, Assemblyman Adriano Espaillat (who championed the original driver's license policy that tripped up Clinton during the last debate), City Councilwoman Melissa Mark-Viverito (who has close ties to 1199), City Councilman Miguel Martinez, and disabled activist Pamela Bates.

The alternate is City Councilman Robert Jackson.

At a joint appearance on the Upper West Side to recommend improvements to city middle schools, Christine Quinn and Michael Bloomberg announced a push for expanded school days, raises of as much as $10,000 for some teachers, Regents courses in all middle schools by 2010 and clarified disciplinary powers for educators.

UFT president Randi Weingarten said the recommendations could turn around every middle school in the city.

"Let’s make this real,” she said. “Let’s turn around our middle schools.”

Robert Jackson, chairman of the City Council's Education Committee, made his own comment on the current state of the city’s middle schools. On his way into JHS 100, he said, "What, no air conditioning?"