Little Pink House Part 8

Mitch.e.l.l a.s.sured her the neighbors would come around.

May 16, 1998 Tony Basilica and his wife, Gwen, were in bed asleep when the phone started ringing at 5:45 on a Sat.u.r.day morning.

Tony didn't budge. Gwen answered it. Then she tapped Tony's shoulder.

He opened his eyes, glanced at the clock, and gave Gwen an irritated look.

She put her hand over the receiver. "It's George Milne," she whispered.

"Get the h.e.l.l outta here," he said, in no mood for humor.

She repeated herself, motioning for Tony to lower his voice.

"George Milne," he mouthed. "Are you serious?"

She nodded and handed him the phone.

Tony cleared his throat. "h.e.l.lo," he said, trying to sound awake.

"Tony?"

"Yeah."

"George Milne."

"Good morning."

"I'm not getting you at a bad time, am I?"

Basilica looked at the clock again. "Oh, no, of course not."

"Can you make a meeting?"

"When?"

"Whenever you can get over to Pfizer."

Basilica paused. "You mean this morning?"

"Yes," he said, explaining that Claire was already in his office. "We're here. How about six-thirty or seven?"

Basilica sat up. He couldn't help thinking they were both nuts. "Would you mind if I bring John Markowicz if he's available?"

"No, not at all."

"We'll see you at seven-thirty or as soon as we can get there."

Basilica hung up and handed the phone back to Gwen, shaking his head. He could not believe the president of Pfizer and the president of Connecticut College were so intent on acquiring land in Fort Trumbull that they were having a meeting before six on a Sat.u.r.day morning. He dressed and called Markowicz.

"Hey, how'd you like to go to a meeting?"

"When?"

"Now."

Markowicz waited for the punch line. Basilica explained. Markowicz didn't want to go in unprotected. Neither did Basilica.

Markowicz agreed to bring a one-page memorandum of understanding to the meeting. In it, Basilica would agree to ask the Defense Department to suspend the public auction of the navy base in exchange for Claire's promise to prepare, at the NLDC's expense, an application to acquire the property under an economic-development conveyance by August 31, 1998. If Claire refused to sign the agreement, Basilica and Markowicz would know that the NLDC and the state had no intention of paying for the navy property. If Claire signed it, then Basilica and Markowicz would be protected legally from any recourse that might come from delaying the auction. And the NLDC would have to pay for the navy property. Either way, both men figured the doc.u.ment would tease out Milne and Claire's true intentions.

Just after eight o'clock, Markowicz and Basilica arrived at the Pfizer complex in Groton. A security guard escorted them to Milne, who led them to a private office. Inside, they found Claire at the head of the conference table.

Markowicz and Basilica immediately spotted a series of oversized drawings positioned on easels around the room. They depicted a conference center, a five-star hotel, high-end town houses, a health club, and business offices.

What am I looking at? thought Markowicz. thought Markowicz.

Basilica recognized the area-a ninety-acre swath of land stretching from the railroad tracks to the waterfront, which encompa.s.sed the Fort Trumbull neighborhood and the navy base. He noted that the design plans carried the signature of a firm under contract to Pfizer. Yet none of the land in the drawings actually belonged to Pfizer. Basilica wondered why Pfizer had designed plans to redevelop real estate it didn't own. Markowicz had the same question.

They took seats at the conference table, facing Claire and Milne. A couple of Pfizer employees and an NLDC official filled in the other seats.

While Milne and Claire took turns speaking, Markowicz began connecting the dots. At the committee meeting a few weeks earlier, state officials had asked a lot of questions about how the state could acquire the base property from the federal government without any cost under the public-use provision, suggesting the state might want the land for a marine-education facility. But Markowicz didn't see a marine-education facility on the schematic drawings; instead, he saw private commercial and residential uses, ones that would directly or indirectly benefit Pfizer.

"The issue that came up at the meeting," Milne explained, "was whether a public auction would be the best use of what was a key waterfront piece of property. If there was no infrastructure or other things that were going to support that site, would it attract a strong presence in the area? In other words, would it lock you into a more incremental move?"

But Milne didn't get anywhere with Basilica or Markowicz. "They were strongly recommending that the process proceed down the path they had already ordained," Milne said later.

Ultimately, Basilica looked to Markowicz, who pushed copies of his memo across the table to Milne and Claire. The heading read: "Memorandum of Agreement between Naval [Undersea] Warfare Center Local Reuse Authority and New London Development Corporation."

"This doc.u.ment is a compromise," Markowicz said.

All the elements of the agreement, including the dates, Basilica explained, were negotiable.

Without saying a word, Claire read the memo and then tucked it in her bag. The memo made it clear that Basilica and Marko-wicz weren't getting on board with her plan.

Markowicz attempted to explain the doc.u.ment, but Claire cut him off. She announced she had to catch a ferry into the harbor, where she was scheduled to meet George H. W. Bush, the former president, and escort him into New London. She said good-bye and walked out.

The meeting quickly lost steam and adjourned.

Claire never signed Basilica's proposal. Instead, she distributed it to members of the city council, along with a cover letter. "The attached is a Memorandum of Agreement that LRA Chair Tony Basilica gave to me recently," she told the council. "I am forwarding it to you for advice." Claire also took a shot at Basilica. "The Chair of LRA has known since November that a new plan for this land was preferable to Pfizer," she wrote. "I understand that neither the Executive Committee nor the full LRA has met since before the Pfizer decision was made. Consequently, the city has lost six valuable months for rethinking the land use and proper conveyance from the Navy."

She also gave the city council reason to get concerned about Basilica's demands on the NLDC: "If NLDC accepts Mr. Basilica's requests to undertake this work, citizens may see this as an NLDC 'land grab' and not as a request from Basilica."

Claire was tired of jousting with Basilica. The seeds for removing him from the committee had now been planted.

Days after the meeting at Milne's office, Markowicz received a letter from two of the governor's commissioners. "The Munic.i.p.al Development Planning Process now underway for the Thames Peninsula area is a major community development effort that is needed in order to induce the Pfizer development project," they wrote. The plan to auction off the property came together before Pfizer announced its intention to develop in New London. "It is now prudent to re-evaluate this plan," they continued. "If we fail ... we may jeopardize the maximum development potential of this site and possibly Pfizer's commitment to the region." Markowicz got the message: Pfizer didn't want the base sold at an auction; if the auction went forward, Pfizer might not come to New London.

The end of the letter went further, pointing out that the governor had just committed hundreds of millions of dollars to three other cities for ma.s.sive redevelopment projects. "Clearly, this indicates that New London will no longer have the sole attention it enjoyed to date in these types of ventures," they wrote. "We will appreciate your cooperation." Markowicz noted the letter had been copied to Peter Ellef, Claire Gaudiani, and the city council.

Then Markowicz got a call from Jay Levin. He wanted to know why Markowicz wasn't supporting the governor's agenda in New London. Markowicz wasn't sure he knew the agenda. That was the problem. Levin advised him to be more open-minded.

Markowicz didn't care for Levin's strong-arm tactics.

The call ended abruptly.

The next day, Markowicz's secretary at the Corporation for Regional Economic Development knocked on his office door. Markowicz had been executive director for the nonprofit for a couple of years. His secretary told him a tall man in a business suit was at the front desk, asking to see him.

"What does he want?" Markowicz asked.

The names of every director on the corporation's board, she said.

Markowicz told her to find out who the man worked for. She came back a minute later with the answer: Jay Levin.

Markowicz knew what was coming. Levin planned to call board members and push them to pressure Markowicz to get behind the Rowland administration's wishes.

The receptionist turned over the list of names, and the man left.

June 1, 1998 The phone in Tony Basilica's law office was hot. His allies from City Hall informed him that a movement was afoot to force him off the committee overseeing the navy-base property.

Later that night, Basilica got a call at home from a reporter.

"Mr. Basilica?"

"Yes."

"Did you know you were removed from the committee?"

"No."

"Well, you were."

Without commenting, Basilica hung up.

Earlier that evening, the city council had voted 43 to dump Basilica and Markowicz from the committee. Peg Curtin, Basilica's political adversary on the council, was named as his replacement as the new chair of the navy base reuse committee. Mayor Beachy was one of the three who voted against Basilica's removal. "It's politically driven and politically motivated," Beachy told the newspaper. "It's a bad mistake."

The bottom line was that the fate of the navy property had been taken out of the hands of Basilica and Markowicz and placed in those of a committee of six people that included Claire, Milne, Curtin, and members of the NLDC and city council. Within days, Milne declared it was time to level the navy buildings that Basilica had planned to sell or lease. "You'd be better off tearing it all down and starting off fresh," Milne said. "They look sort of like basic factory buildings."

16.

I'M SOMEBODY Susette desperately needed followers. Door-to-door outreach in her neighborhood had yielded little result. Kathleen Mitch.e.l.l suggested organizing a neighborhood cleanup day. Susette had spent her whole life getting her hands dirty and sc.r.a.ping her way through tough times. She posted signs on telephone poles and street corners, advertising free hot dogs and soda, and about two dozen people showed up at her house on the appointed day. She handed them garbage bags, rakes, and brooms. After the cleanup, everyone went back to Susette's place for a barbecue.

It wasn't a big turnout, but Susette and Mitch.e.l.l were pleased. A number of people in attendance pledged to help fight the NLDC. Every little bit helped, they figured.

Days after Kelo held her neighborhood cleanup, the NLDC held its own event to build support. It reserved the Radisson Hotel and invited influential people capable of donating money. By the end of the evening, the NLDC had raised tens of thousands of dollars and added sixty new members.

Susette soon realized she was up against more than the NLDC. Ten days after she held the neighborhood cleanup, Governor Rowland appeared across the street from her pink house and held a press conference. He pledged $15 million in state money for relocating residents of the neighborhood.

That son of a b.i.t.c.h, Susette said to herself.

The letter from Claire still sat on her kitchen table. For weeks she had ignored its invitation to telephone Steve Percy.

I'm going to have a meeting with these people, she thought. I'm going to tell them that I'm somebody and they aren't going to do this to me. I'm going to tell them that I'm somebody and they aren't going to do this to me.

She called Percy's office and scheduled a time to see him.

I have to look important, she told herself.

She pulled her best outfit from the closet, a greenish-brown, full-length sweater dress with long sleeves. She had picked it up for a few dollars at a secondhand store. The dress's earthy tones flattered her red hair. She slipped the dress on and looked in the mirror. Ribbed, it hugged her long, slender figure, accentuating the curves. She liked what she saw. She put on a pair of brown zip-up boots and headed to Percy's office.

It was an attractive red brick building with big windows and stylish green window trim. He greeted her in the lobby and led her into an office with easels holding maps and design plans. Percy introduced a couple of NLDC employees.

Feeling out of her element, Susette promptly forgot their names.

Percy asked how they could help her.

"I'm here to find out what's going on," she said. "What's the plan?"

Percy grabbed a pointer and started discussing a munic.i.p.al-development plan while pointing at different areas on a map. Susette got lost. She knew nursing, not commercial-development lingo. Even the maps were confusing. Rather than using an aerial map or photograph depicting buildings, homes, and landscapes, Percy worked off a plot plan. All Susette recognized was the little square where her house stood at the corner of East and Trumbull streets. But her home was invisible. Maybe that was the point, she thought.

Yet nothing Percy said clarified why the NLDC needed her house.

"Is this for Pfizer?" she asked.

Percy acknowledged that Pfizer would receive some indirect benefits, but he insisted the takings were not directly for Pfizer.

Susette felt his explanation just didn't add up. Claire had told the newspaper about building s.p.a.ce for clinics, along with biotech buildings, around the fort. That would directly benefit Pfizer. "What about eminent domain?" Susette asked.

"The plan is going to benefit the city," Percy insisted.

"But what about eminent domain?" she repeated.

He conceded that eminent domain remained an option in instances where people refused to sell.

Susette swallowed hard and clasped her hands to prevent them from shaking. She felt powerless. It was as if she hadn't owned the only home she had ever owned. She finally possessed something she could call her own-and these people were going to s.n.a.t.c.h it away from her.

They want us out, she thought she thought. They want to frighten us.

Percy emphasized that the plans for the neighborhood were still in the conception stage. Nothing had been finalized or approved.

"If you try to take my property away from me," she said, "the whole world is going to hear about it."

Eager to hear how things had gone in her meeting with Percy, Von Winkle stopped by Susette's house that evening.

"So what happened?"