Little Pink House Part 15

26.

A FIGHT IN THE FORT.

The day after Bullock's whirlwind visit to New London, the Day Day reported that a D.C. law firm might help the Fort Trumbull neighborhood residents. The story put the NLDC on notice that it might soon have a lot more to deal with than Scott Sawyer. A lawsuit filed by a national firm promised to drastically slow progress and put a real spotlight on the agency and Pfizer. reported that a D.C. law firm might help the Fort Trumbull neighborhood residents. The story put the NLDC on notice that it might soon have a lot more to deal with than Scott Sawyer. A lawsuit filed by a national firm promised to drastically slow progress and put a real spotlight on the agency and Pfizer.

Claire and her board had a decision to make. They could treat the news as a warning and reach out to Susette and the other holdouts with a compromise. Or they could try to crush the residents immediately, before the inst.i.tute had enough time to ramp up and file a suit.

The first option would require the NLDC to spend some money. By offering the holdouts twice the appraised value of their respective properties, the NLDC would probably persuade most of them to drop their opposition. The higher prices would also enable the holdouts to afford housing elsewhere. The second option wouldn't cost anything in the short run. However, this approach came with a much higher risk. If it failed to drive the holdouts out, it would likely trigger a lawsuit that could end up costing the NLDC and the city much more money over the long run.

Claire had been brought to a pressure point. She had fights going on every front. The governor's office had it in for her. She was battling Tom Londregan and City Hall. She had a war going with the press. The Fort Trumbull residents and the conservancy were doing everything possible to portray her as public enemy number one. And the atmosphere on campus had become hostile, with faculty and a contingent of students determined to dislodge her as president.

With this many enemies, the last thing Claire needed was another opponent. It seemed the best course was to modify the plan and ward off a lawsuit from the Inst.i.tute for Justice.

But Claire liked a quote attributed to Henry Ford: "Obstacles are those frightful things you see when you take your eyes off your goal." Her goal was to turn New London's economic fortunes around, and she had no intention of losing focus now. She opted not to compromise. David Goebel agreed with this approach. The NLDC asked the city council to rescind an earlier motion that had halted acquisition and demolition on Susette's block. The NLDC decided it wanted to act fast. But its request required a vote by the city council in a public meeting, and before that could happen the city had to post the item on an agenda made available to the public beforehand. The notice would tip off the opposition, providing time for the coalition to mobilize a crowd of protestors and news cameras at the meeting.

Faced with this, the city council found a way around the minefield. When the agenda for the September 5 meeting came out, it contained no mention of a vote on the NLDC's request to resume demolition. At the tail end of the meeting, long after the public had gone home, the council added the item to the agenda. With no public opposition present, it voted to authorize the NLDC to demolish properties in Fort Trumbull.

But Mayor Beachy also knew the game. The next morning, he talked to people in the city's permit office. He told them to notify him the minute the NLDC applied for any demolition permits. He also huddled with members of the coalition, and the group organized a list of people with responsibility for calling City Hall on a daily basis to find out if the NLDC had filed any permit requests.

George Milne had a lot more on his mind than the potential of a lawsuit against the NLDC. As a Connecticut College trustee, Milne had another crisis to deal with. The conflict between Claire and the faculty had gotten personal and ugly. The faculty wanted Claire out, but she had no intention of stepping down. The standoff put Milne in a tough spot. He chaired the Academic Affairs Committee, yet he maintained a strong loyalty to Claire. With the faculty in revolt, it seemed clear that it wasn't a question of if Claire would leave but rather when.

Milne was also facing a career change of his own. Just two months earlier, Pfizer had announced that the Federal Trade Commission had given final clearance for a merger with the Warner-Lambert company.

In conjunction with the merger, Pfizer announced a leaders.h.i.+p change in New London. Milne was elevated to executive vice president of Pfizer Global Research and Development.

The $90 billion merger meant that Pfizer instantly had a surplus of real estate and office s.p.a.ce throughout the country. Rather than expand, Pfizer now needed to consolidate to maintain efficiency. Suddenly, the company's plans for the New London facility had changed.

Kathleen Mitch.e.l.l had vowed to take a street fighter's approach to the NLDC. The coalition repeatedly tried to rein her in at board meetings. She decided to use her weekly cable-television show on New London's public-access station to go after Claire. After opening one of her shows in late August with a blistering monologue against Claire and the NLDC, Mitch.e.l.l opened the phone lines for call-ins. One caller complained about Claire's leaders.h.i.+p style at the NLDC. He asked Mitch.e.l.l what was wrong with Claire.

"Just between you and me, she's a transs.e.xual," Mitch.e.l.l said.

The statement worked. Within days, the NLDC dispatched a communications specialist and mobilized community leaders to go after Mitch.e.l.l. The NLDC labeled her remarks "detestable" and demanded a public apology. When the Day Day contacted her for a response, Mitch.e.l.l defended her statement. "Being a transs.e.xual is ... it's like foreign to my way of life," she said. "And so is Claire. She's out of touch with everyone. I don't know any other way to explain it. She just seems to be on some other plane. I was so frustrated. I guess it was a way of dismissing her." contacted her for a response, Mitch.e.l.l defended her statement. "Being a transs.e.xual is ... it's like foreign to my way of life," she said. "And so is Claire. She's out of touch with everyone. I don't know any other way to explain it. She just seems to be on some other plane. I was so frustrated. I guess it was a way of dismissing her."

When asked if she planned to apologize to Claire, Mitch.e.l.l balked. "She can wait for a cold day in h.e.l.l," Mitch.e.l.l said. "I will never apologize. I'm going to do and say whatever is necessary to prevent what I think is a violation of people's rights."

Primed to demolish homes on Susette's street, some NLDC board members now started having second thoughts. They were taking the homes of senior citizens and lower-income residents who couldn't afford a fight, yet they were allowing an Italian men's club with political ties to remain. "It just doesn't look good," one of the board members insisted.

Claire and Jay Levin didn't seem to have a problem with the double standard. But they didn't have the job of defending it before the city council. That responsibility fell to David Goebel, and it was an announcement he didn't want to make. No matter how he spun it, the NLDC's decision sent a hypocritical message for an organization touting social justice: a politically connected men's club was deemed to be more important than a person's home.

But Goebel's military background had trained him to respect the chain of command. On September 18, he reported to the council that the Italian Dramatic Club would be allowed to remain and that the owners of the club would retain t.i.tle to the property. Members of the city council didn't get it. The press didn't get it either. The Day Day started asking questions. n.o.body involved had a good answer. "I think the NLDC recognized that as the city changes, aspects of the city's heritage have to remain sacrosanct," Jay Levin told the paper. started asking questions. n.o.body involved had a good answer. "I think the NLDC recognized that as the city changes, aspects of the city's heritage have to remain sacrosanct," Jay Levin told the paper.

If the implications hadn't been so serious, Levin's answer would have qualified as comedy. Everyone involved in the decision started backtracking. Justice Angelo Santaniello denied having helped the club. Steve Percy, of the NLDC, became indignant at any suggestion that politics had played a role in the outcome. But politics was the only reason the club had been spared. The building had no more historical value to the city's heritage than the historic homes and streets in the Fort Trumbull neighborhood did.

Susette didn't know anything about the Italian Dramatic Club until she read in the newspaper that it had been spared the wrecking ball. The comments by Levin, Santaniello, and Percy infuriated her. She called Mitch.e.l.l.

"I am rippin'!" Susette said. "This is all a political s.h.i.+t show."

Mitch.e.l.l had read the article. She shared Susette's anger, and Levin's insistence that the Italian Dramatic Club had special historical significance had her laughing.

"Levin is full of s.h.i.+t," Susette shouted. "There's nothing historic about the IDC. Why can't he see the historic value of the houses that we live in? Matt Dery's father's house is an original whaling house." Mitch.e.l.l agreed. "Unless the IDC is where the mob bosses from Providence come to meet," Susette said, "it's no historic landmark."

Mitch.e.l.l got a kick out of Susette's pa.s.sion. "Well, what would you like to do?"

"I want you to write them and tell them they're all full of s.h.i.+t," Susette said. "And that I'm not going to stand for it." Mitch.e.l.l doubted that would be productive. Susette didn't care. "They're coming in here and making up this c.r.a.p about saving a historic building," Susette said. "But they've already torn down all these historic homes. Our houses are actually historic. We all know it's a crock of c.r.a.p. We all know it's politics. They sit there and say politics had nothing to do with it. Politics has everything to do with it in New London."

"I'll write the letter," Mitch.e.l.l said.

After hanging up, Susette couldn't stop fuming. She walked two blocks to the men's club. Three cars were parked outside. Otherwise, the place looked abandoned. Tall weeds poked through cracks in the pavement leading up to the door. She knocked. No one answered. She opened the door and stepped inside.

Male voices rose from the bas.e.m.e.nt. She slowly made her way downstairs. Three men were seated at a table, eating cheese and drinking wine. They turned and gave her a funny look.

"I'm Susette Kelo, and I live on East Street," she said.

The men looked at each other. "This is a men's club," one of the men pointed out. "Women are not allowed in."

"Don't worry, I won't be here long," she said, looking around. She felt like she had walked into a scene from The G.o.dfather The G.o.dfather. "I just want to know what you guys did to make it so you could stay, because I want to stay too."

Caught off guard, the men said nothing.

"We don't want to stop the development," Susette continued. "We just want to keep our homes."

The oldest of the three men looked her in the eye. "We're sorry for you," he said. "But it is better not to fight. It will cost you too much money."

She wondered how much they had paid and to whom to get their way. Again, she asked what they had done to save their club.

"We didn't have anything to do with it," one of the men said. "We're really not sure what happened."

The longer Susette stayed, the friendlier the men became. In the end, they repeated their advice not to fight the NLDC.

By the time Susette returned home, Mitch.e.l.l had finished a draft letter for her. She read it to her over the phone: We the people who live in the Fort Trumbull neighborhood are heartened by the recent announcement that the City has decided to save the Italian Dramatic Club. We view this as a significant step in preserving the cultural diversity of our historic neighborhood.We call upon the City Council and New London Development Corporation to sit down with us, the residents of Fort Trumbull, in a sincere effort to reach a plan of action that is acceptable to all of us. We cherish this neighborhood and its proud history and we are optimistic that we can allow progress and preserve our historic past.

Susette wanted to hammer the NLDC. Mitch.e.l.l suggested using the Italian club decision as a basis to demand equal treatment.

Susette wanted to bash Levin. "He went there and he a.s.sured them that nothing was going to happen to that building," she said.

Mitch.e.l.l couldn't believe Susette had walked into the Italian men's club unannounced. She encouraged her to avoid accusations in the letter. Susette trusted Mitch.e.l.l. She had her deliver the letter to her house, and Susette signed it as chairperson of the Fort Trumbull Neighborhood a.s.sociation and sent it to the city council and the NLDC. "If they're willing to work with the IDC," she said, "maybe they'll work with us."

Mitch.e.l.l had another idea: a pet.i.tion. She already had a draft, and she showed it to Susette. It read: "We, the undersigned, support the efforts of the Coalition to Save the Fort Trumbull Neighborhood to amend the Munic.i.p.al Development Plan to save a majority of the residential neighborhood and business at Fort Trumbull."

By securing signatures from 5 percent of the city's registered voters, the coalition could force the city to hold a referendum on whether the homes in Fort Trumbull should be demolished or preserved.

Susette liked it. She offered her home as headquarters for the pet.i.tion drive. Mitch.e.l.l worked with the coalition to organize a vigil on East Street. On the first night, dozens showed up. Clipboards and pencils rested on tables on the sidewalk in front of Susette's house. The next night, even more people showed up. Lines of residents outside Susette's home got longer each night.

Not to be outdone, Claire organized her own pet.i.tion, t.i.tled, "Citizens in Favor of New London Development." Claire and members of the NLDC began soliciting signatures. Pfizer president George Milne put his signature on the pet.i.tion first.

Claire had more clout than Susette and attracted signatures from influential people who had prestigious t.i.tles. But Susette had a groundswell of everyday people behind her and got far more people to sign her pet.i.tions. Once she and the coalition had more than enough signatures to satisfy the city's legal requirements, the coalition presented the pet.i.tions to the city clerk for certification. The clerk forwarded them to attorney Tom Londregan for review.

27.

LINE IN THE SAND.

September 28, 2000 When Mayor Beachy gathered with coalition members on Susette's street for a morning prayer vigil, he felt good about the number of signatures on the pet.i.tions that had been submitted to City Hall. While the city reviewed the pet.i.tions, the coalition kept close tabs on the permit process, and the NLDC still hadn't secured permits to demolish any structures on Susette's block. At the end of the vigil, Fred Paxton's wife, Sylvia, a.s.sured the group she had called City Hall first thing that morning. "No houses are coming down today," she reported.

At the end of the prayer service, the group agreed to go elsewhere for coffee. After coffee, the mayor's wife, Sandy, had a hunch. "Let's drive back through the Fort," she told him.

The mayor agreed.

Wearing a sleeveless flannel s.h.i.+rt that showcased his ma.s.sive arms, Chico Barberi maneuvered the jaws of his excavator toward the corner of a house at the top of East Street. An NLDC official in a hard hat stood behind the excavator, directing Barberi which homes to demolish. Susette, Von Winkle, Matt Dery, and other neighbors stood near the excavator, shouting over the machine at the NLDC official.

"You n.a.z.i," one of them shouted.

"I'm just following orders," the official said.

"That's what Hitler's regime said," one of the homeowners shouted.

Suzanne Dery huddled on her property, crying.

Mayor Beachy couldn't believe his eyes. Less than an hour earlier, the street had been quiet and vacant.

"Beach, I've had it," Sandy seethed. "Stop the car and let me out."

He parked. Sandy got out and instructed him to go home and retrieve the quilt she had been making. She planned to sit on the front steps of the home Barberi was approaching. She wanted the quilt to work on in order to keep her hands from shaking.

Sandy walked past Barberi's machine and plopped down on the doorstep. The mayor sped home. When he returned fifteen minutes later, a larger crowd had gathered on the street. Officials from the city's building department were on the scene. They had failed to alert him that the NLDC had secured demolition permits.

"d.a.m.n you," Beachy shouted, his face red and quivering as he crossed the street.

A building official tried to explain that the NLDC had slipped the paperwork in at the last minute.

Beachy didn't want to hear it. He threw his hands in the air and stormed off, taking a position next to his wife. They crossed their legs and sat side by side, blocking the machine's path.

The decision to demolish homes on East Street had made the fight personal for Beachy and his wife. When they had first moved to New London, in the 1970s, they had lived across the street from the demolition site, in officers' quarters at the Naval Undersea Warfare Center. At night, their four sons would take a break from homework, hop the navy base fence, and get a sandwich at the deli on the corner of East Street, two doors up from the houses now facing the wrecking ball.

"There's no way in h.e.l.l I'm standing by while these guys try to demolish these houses," Beachy said.

Barberi shut off his machine and folded his ma.s.sive arms, frustrated at being unable to complete his job. Susette and her neighbors continued shouting obscenities at the NLDC official.

Kathleen Mitch.e.l.l pulled up in her car. She had been listening to her police scanner and heard a dispatch to East Street. Mitch.e.l.l looked at the crowd standing across the street from Beachy and his wife. Most of the onlookers opposed the NLDC. Yet no one else dared to sit shoulder to shoulder with Beachy. Mitch.e.l.l looked at Susette before crossing the street and taking a seat next to the mayor and his wife. If it meant getting arrested, so be it, she thought.

Susette wanted to follow Mitch.e.l.l, but Von Winkle stopped her. "You don't want to look like a troublemaker," he said.

Two police officers approached. "Mr. Beachy, Mrs. Beachy," one of them began. Neither of the Beachys said a word. The officer advised them that they were trespa.s.sing and putting themselves and others in physical danger.

"You might as well arrest us because we're not leaving," Mitch.e.l.l said.

"Will you walk down here and get in the police car?" the officer asked, looking at the mayor.

Beachy turned to his wife. "Don't walk to the police car," he told her. "Make them carry you out."

Abundantly overweight, Mitch.e.l.l didn't feel like getting carried. "I'm not going to let you carry me," Mitch.e.l.l said, cracking a smile. She walked to the police car and climbed into the backseat.

"We don't want to have to carry you," an officer said to the mayor.

"We're not leaving voluntarily," he replied.

One officer grabbed Beachy's wrists. Another grabbed his ankles. Together, they lifted and hauled him to the police car.

Mitch.e.l.l watched through the rear window of the cruiser as the officers stuffed their own mayor into the back of another police car. What have we come to? What have we come to? Mitch.e.l.l thought. She had never imagined the dispute would last this long and be this difficult. Mitch.e.l.l thought. She had never imagined the dispute would last this long and be this difficult. We're fighting the big boys now. This isn't just local politics. We're fighting the big boys now. This isn't just local politics.

Barberi fired up his excavator and began tearing the house down. Within fifteen minutes, a house that had stood for a hundred years had been reduced to splinters and rubble.

Susette covered her face with her hands. Tears streamed down her face. Steely-eyed, Von Winkle didn't blink or speak.

Barberi moved his excavator toward the house next door to Susette's.

"The City of New London doesn't care about us," Susette shouted at her neighbors. "They don't give a s.h.i.+t about any of us. They've got a plan, and it doesn't matter what we want or what we do to try and prevent their plan. They are going to do what they want."

The noise of the machine and falling debris drowned out her voice.

Barberi used the excavator jaws to tear off the front quarter of the house. The windows shattered, sending gla.s.s flying in every direction. Hysterical, Susette ran into her home and emerged with a broom. Standing only feet from the machine, she frantically swept the gla.s.s and debris off her porch while a thick cloud of dust overtook her and the outside of her house.

In the noise and confusion, Barberi didn't realize Susette was within feet of his gnawing machine. He raised the jaws to tug away another part of the house.

"Hey!" the city's fire chief shouted at the NLDC official from the street. "You can't let this happen."

The NLDC official didn't respond.

"Is anyone going to stop this?" the chief yelled.

Everyone looked at him and said nothing.

The chief motioned for Susette to come away from the house.

She ignored him.

Barberi slammed the bucket of his excavator into the side of the house. Shattering gla.s.s sprayed Susette, speckling her red hair.

"Hey, Chico, knock it off," the fire chief shouted. Barberi looked over his shoulder, struggling to hear the fire chief above the roar of the machine's engine.

The chief put his index finger and thumb together and ran them across his throat in the motion of a cut. "You have to stop," he yelled. Finally discovering Susette, Barberi killed the engine. He took out his cell phone and called the police back to the scene.