Little Pink House Part 14

His question was the perfect cue for Milne. Pfizer officials had advised him to steer clear of the Italian Dramatic Club. Dozens of property owners were being forced out of their homes through eminent domain. If Pfizer financed the relocation or new construction of the Italian club's building, the company would have all sorts of demands for similar treatment. Milne made it clear that Pfizer could not get involved.

Valentini dug in his heels, insisting his club would remain unless someone paid for a new building. He had Jay Levin's word that no one would touch him. Without a commitment from Pfizer, Santaniello knew talking further would be futile. The NLDC had neither the money to move him nor the will to go against Levin's promise.

Everyone at the table realized the club would stay put. Now only a political question remained: how to spin this to the media and the public.

Steve Hallquist had a major concern about suing the city: personal liability. What if the city countersued? Wouldn't personal a.s.sets and personal property be put at risk?

Sawyer recommended forming a limited-liability corporation (LLC) to shield them from liability. Rather than suing as individuals, the Steffians and the Hallquists could have the organization sue.

Hallquist liked the concept. "Let's call it the Fort Trumbull Conservancy," he said.

Sawyer explained the group would have to choose officers and establish by-laws. Later, Steve and Amy met privately with John and Sarah to map out the organization.

"Who is going to be what?" Steve asked.

"I'm going to be the president," John said. "Sarah will be the vice president."

Two positions remained: secretary and treasurer. "Which ones do you want to be?" John asked.

"Well, I suck at being a secretary," Steve said. "And Amy's already taking copious notes. So she'll be secretary, and I'll be treasurer."

Normally, a treasurer handled finances and the secretary kept records, but Sarah made it clear that the Fort Trumbull Conservancy would do things a little differently. The treasurer would never see the financial books, and the secretary would never see the legal bills. The money would pa.s.s directly from Sarah to the attorney.

More than twenty-five members of the neighborhood coalition joined the Fort Trumbull Conservancy. The by-laws afforded them the chance to vote on the conservancy's decisions and on strategies related to litigation.

With the conservancy in place, on July 18, 2000, Scott Sawyer filed a lawsuit on its behalf seeking to prevent the NLDC from demolishing homes in the Fort Trumbull neighborhood.

Scott Bullock had now been monitoring events in New London for two months through weekly updates from Peter Kreckovic. Bullock had heard enough. The time had come to visit Fort Trumbull and interview the homeowners in search of prospective plaintiffs. He telephoned Susette and confirmed he'd be visiting the area in late August. He told her he wanted to meet with neighborhood residents. Susette volunteered her home as a meeting place.

Bullock asked her to round up as many neighbors as possible. "I've already done that," she said. "I've just been waiting for you to say you are coming."

Bullock liked the sound of that. He had already pegged her as the head fighter, a perfect candidate for the lead plaintiff role. They discussed possible dates and settled on August 28.

"Is it okay if I tell the newspaper that you're coming?" Susette asked.

Bullock paused. The Inst.i.tute for Justice still had not decided whether to intervene, partly due to the fact that the city had not yet filed any eminent-domain actions. In every potential eminent-domain case, Bullock's first objective was to persuade the munic.i.p.ality not to resort to eminent domain. News that a national law firm was interviewing prospective clients might not be a bad idea, Bullock reasoned. If the city saw a lawsuit coming, perhaps it would change its plans.

"Sure," Bullock said, "I'd be glad to talk to a reporter."

Susette hung up and called Billy Von Winkle. "I've got some news," she told him.

A little while later, he pulled up in his Jaguar. "We're taking a ride," he said.

She hopped in and immediately started talking about Scott Bullock's visit. Eager to sue the city and convinced the Inst.i.tute for Justice would save the neighborhood, Susette told Von Winkle she couldn't wait to tell the newspaper.

"You gotta be careful," Von Winkle said.

"Why?"

He warned her that the NLDC would punish her if she went too far.

"You know I'm not afraid of those people," she said.

Von Winkle pulled the car over. "Red, you gotta listen to what I'm telling you here. When they offer you the money you better take it. If you don't they'll throw you out and you'll get nothing."

"What are you talking about?"

He detailed the NLDC's strategy for getting rid of all property owners in the fort area, citing information from the NLDC's confidential files.

"Well, how do you know this?" she asked.

"Because I have the doc.u.ments."

"How in the h.e.l.l did you get them?"

"I've got my ways."

"Tell me."

"I've been picking up their garbage."

"You've been what?"

"I've been diving every night."

Susette burst out laughing. Von Winkle had been rifling through coffee cups and half-eaten sandwiches to get to hundreds of internal records. "Oh, my G.o.d," she said, laughing hysterically. "Those dummies don't even know it?"

Von Winkle laughed.

"n.o.body else in the world would ever think of picking through the NLDC's garbage," she said.

"We're never gonna win," he said, the smile disappearing from his face.

"Huh?"

"You know, it's like this, Red," he said. "Pfizer is behind this. The governor is behind this. We're never gonna win."

Susette stopped laughing.

August 28, 2000 Expecting to see boarded-up buildings and dilapidated houses, Scott Bullock navigated his rental car through Fort Trumbull. Instead, he found neat, small houses with seacoast charm: weather vanes, wicker furniture, and porches facing the water.

"This is depressed?" Bullock said to himself. He had grown up in the economically devastated Pittsburgh of the seventies and eighties. The Fort Trumbull neighborhood didn't look depressed to him.

He coasted down East Street and came to a stop across from Susette's house. It was surrounded by flower boxes and white lawn furniture. An American flag waved from one corner of the house. A hand-painted plywood sign leaned against the front steps: "This Land Is Ours! Not Gov. Rowland's. Not NLDC's. Help Us Save Our Homes."

Bullock stepped out of the car and retrieved his briefcase.

"Did you find everything okay?" Up on the porch, Susette rested her arms on the white railing. Kathleen Mitch.e.l.l and Steve and Amy Hallquist stood with her.

Bullock climbed the steps and extended his hand. "Hi, I'm Scott Bullock. I'm blown away by the view here," he said.

"This is where we always meet, at Susette's place," Mitch.e.l.l said.

"This," said Steve, "is ground zero."

Susette pointed to the cranes towering over the tall buildings rising from the Pfizer property next door. "C'mon inside," she said. Nearly twenty neighbors shook Bullock's hand and expressed relief that he had come. The group crowded into a circle of chairs Susette had set up in the kitchen. Peter Kreckovic introduced Bullock and turned the floor over to him.

Bullock started with some brief background on the inst.i.tute and its interest in the Fort Trumbull dispute. He made it clear that no decision had been made to represent anyone in New London. "I'm here to hear your stories," he said, "and to offer some thoughts that I have on ways of fighting this and things that you need to do to try and organize to fight against this."

He asked the people in the circle to provide their names and addresses, indicate whether they owned or rented, and explain what their interests were in opposing the property takings.

The first man indicated he owned a business in the area. "I don't own the property," he said. "I just rent the property."

Bullock made a note on his pad: "Out of luck." In eminent-domain cases, tenants are powerless unless the owner is dedicated to fighting.

The next man owned a house in an area where the city planned to build a new roadway leading to Pfizer. Bullock dismissed his situation, too. There was little legal basis for opposing instances when a munic.i.p.ality took property for roadways.

Then Susette spoke. She explained that the NLDC planned to take her entire block. Her story ignited the others, who started talking over each other.

"What are they planning to build on this block?" Bullock asked.

"Nothing," Susette said.

"Nothing?" Bullock asked.

"For this block there is no plan," Steve Hallquist said.

"They just want to get rid of it," Susette said.

Bullock had studied a lot of eminent-domain cases. In virtually every case he'd seen, the government planned to take private property for some use. He'd seen disputes over whether the intended use qualified as public use. But he had never come across a situation where a local government had no plan for the land it seized.

There could be a case here, Bullock thought.

"Will you take our case?" Susette asked.

Bullock liked her bluntness. Yet he didn't want to give her false hope. "We are very interested in this," he said. "But there are a lot of things I still have to check out."

Among the top priorities Bullock had was determining the true motives of Susette and her neighbors. They made clear they didn't like the NLDC and its plan to take houses. But how many would stay in the fight once the NLDC started waving more money in front of them? Bullock referred to this point as the plaintiffs' "come to Jesus" moment.

"We don't negotiate property sales for our clients," Bullock explained. "That's just not what we do. We fight to protect people's property."

The members of the group nodded. Bullock liked them already; they reminded him of the people he had grown up with in his working-cla.s.s neighborhood.

"So if we were to take the case," he said, "we'd want to know that you were committed for the long haul." Promising he would pull out every stop to fight on the homeowners' behalf, Bullock expected in return an ironclad promise that the homeowners would stay in the fight when the pressure was turned up and offers for financial compensation came.

Hallquist and Mitch.e.l.l liked what they heard. After the meeting broke up, Susette took Bullock on a walk through the neighborhood. She told him something about every house on the street.

"There's Billy Von Winkle's place," she said, pointing to the deli at the top of her street.

"Who is Bill Von Winkle?" Bullock asked. Susette smiled and filled him in. Bullock laughed at the stories, especially the one about putting chicken manure in the City Hall elevator.

"He's a character," she said.

"Can I meet him?" he asked.

She led him to the deli. "I'll wait for you at my place," she said.

Bullock entered the deli. It was empty except for a short, stocky man wearing blue jeans and a partially zipped, hooded sweatshirt and a baseball cap that bore the words "Mayor of Smith Street."

"Are you Bill Von Winkle?"

"That's me. Who are you?"

Bullock introduced himself as a public-interest lawyer from the Inst.i.tute for Justice.

Von Winkle had known Bullock was in the neighborhood meeting with people. "So what do you think our chances are?" he asked. Bullock outlined a series of legal reasons why the city should be stopped from seizing private property in Fort Trumbull. Confident, but not c.o.c.ky, Bullock's approach appealed to Von Winkle.

"Why don't you sit down?" he said. Bullock pulled up a chair. Von Winkle told him the neighborhood's history and how he had worked across the street at the old navy facility. In between stories, he told jokes about the people and the places surrounding his deli. The whole time, he looked Bullock right in the eye. It quickly became apparent to Bullock that Von Winkle had spent a good portion of his adult life on these streets.

"So do you think you're going to come help us?" Von Winkle asked.

"Well," Bullock said, "we are looking into the case pretty seriously right now."

Von Winkle explained that he had a lot riding on the outcome. His livelihood rested on all the rental properties he owned in the neighborhood. He had spent years personally renovating outdated buildings to get them in shape for residential occupancy. It angered him that the city could just take away his buildings and his income stream to accommodate a big company's moving into the area. "It's not right," he said.

Bullock detected an edge in Von Winkle's tone, a certain fighter's instinct-an essential ingredient for the kind of plaintiff it would take to endure a bruising legal battle with a city determined to bulldoze the neighborhood.

On the other hand, he was very independent and dangerously unpredictable. Von Winkle had purposely stayed away from the initial neighborhood meeting with Bullock at Susette's house. And he was notorious for doing things on his own. Stunts like his could be a huge liability in a lawsuit.

"By the way, where did you get that hat?" Bullock joked, "Are you the mayor of Smith Street?"

A painful expression swept over Von Winkle's face. "This is Mr. Pasqualini's hat," he said, removing it from his head.

"Who is he?" Bullock asked softly.

Von Winkle explained that he was one of the senior citizens who had died since the NLDC had threatened to take their homes. "He was the mayor of the neighborhood," said Von Winkle. "I wear the hat to pay respect and carry on Mr. P.'s tradition."

Bullock nodded.

"Mr. P. went to his grave worried about eminent domain," said Von Winkle. "People think eminent domain killed Mr. P." Tears welled up in Von Winkle's eyes. He lowered his voice. "What a great guy he was," Von Winkle muttered, running his rough hand across his brow. "I miss him."

Bullock had seen enough. He had come to New London to size up potential plaintiffs. Susette and her home were clearly the flashpoint of the fight. She had the right facts and a tough-as-nails att.i.tude to wage a legal challenge against the city. Von Winkle wore the cap of a dead man who had gone to his grave fearing that his house and neighborhood would be lost to eminent domain. Von Winkle had a score to settle. He would do more than fight to protect his own property: he would fight to avenge a wrong.

Bullock returned to Washington. If the inst.i.tute took the case, he wanted Von Winkle as a plaintiff alongside Susette.