Commissioner George Bowman fresh from a New York trip to meet with sewer bond lenders says he's confident a plan will be worked out. "They said we did more in two-weeks than the other team did in six-months."

Bowman wouldn't elaborate on the plan pitched but previously indicated that the county is open to raising new revenues to pay off the debt by: extending a 1-cent sales tax, raising property taxes, and expanding occupational taxes among other options.

But negotiations were disrupted Thursday morning after word reached Wall Street that Commissioners Bobby Humphryes and Jim Carns had endorsed a plan by Retirement Systems of Alabama Pension Chief David Bronner calling for the county to declare bankruptcy, and sell out to the RSA for $2 billion.

Bowman says Wall Street investors were outraged by the news. Outraged because investors would be out as much as $1.2 billion.

Attorney William Slaughter is heading the new negotiating team. He was incensed by the Bronner move, calling it tasteless to announce a plan before even sitting down with the commission. "I think that was the most irresponsible statement of a public official that I have heard in my lifetime."

Slaughter adds the Bronner proposal does not work, because municipal bankruptcy is not the same as corporate Bankruptcy.

Commissioner Shelia Smoot who had been open to hearing Bronner out, on Thursday, now says that the plan would do Jefferson County more harm than good. "Our reputation, our integrity, how we build, how we operate this county is at stake when you go bankrupt."

But Commissioner Jim Carns says the Bronner plan is not only responsible, but the best option for the county if negotiations fail. "If we're going to have to go bankrupt, and I don't know yet if we do; I'd say the indicators are there that we will, there's no softer landing than to have RSA being the ones we're dealing with."

CBS 42 did contact David Bronner's Montgomery office, but he declined to comment on this story.