Last night, D.C. Council Chair Vincent Gray’s office sent out a terse press release admonishing Mayor Adrian Fenty for not making his agency directors available for this morning’s budget hearing. Only City Administrator Neil Albert would be there, he had been told, meaning more than a dozen agency directors were being held back by the executive. This was classic Fenty — just straight out refusing to play ball with the council whenever it tries to carry out its oversight duties. So you could understand Gray issuing a statement like this one:

“This is another sign of the continuing disrespect the Mayor has shown for the Council’s statutory duty to conduct oversight of such important matters as the District’s serious revenue problems,” Gray said last night.

But something happened between 8:30 p.m. last night and 10 a.m. this morning, because it looks like most of the agency directors are or will be in the house at the John A. Wilson Building today. How did this get smoothed over? During his opening remarks at the start of the hearing, Gray took the time to acknowledge from the dais some serious intervention on the part of Albert himself in getting the mayor to tell his people to show up.

“I’d like to personally commend our city administrator for working to convince the mayor to change course and have these agency directors come testify,” Gray said.

So is Neil Albert the only guy in town who can get the mayor to act like a grown-up?