Little Pink House Part 30

Bullock wanted to clap.

Senators and their staff surrounded Susette as soon as the hearing concluded. Some praised her courage and determination. Others expressed dismay at the Court's ruling. A staffer from Senator Edward Kennedy's office handed Susette the senator's card. "If you need anything, call his office," she said. "He'll do anything to help you."

Once outside, Bullock patted her on the shoulder. "You did great in there today," he said.

"Well ... I tried," she said.

44.

LEAVE NO FOOTPRINTS.

Mathew Greene liked and respected Dave Goebel. He always had. Without him, Greene believed, the NLDC would have crashed and burned a couple of years earlier. As soon as Goebel came on board as chief operating officer under Claire, he had almost single-handedly made the agency run effectively. The guy was immensely organized, paid strict attention to detail, and knew how to run a complicated organization with many moving parts.

Goebel's best a.s.set was his military background, but it was also his biggest liability, Greene had come to observe. The military couldn't survive without a rigid, top-down approach of giving orders and getting results. But democracy only worked when power flowed from the bottom up-from the people to elected leaders. Goebel never seemed to appreciate the public-relations implications of trying to run the politically empowered NLDC like a military unit. There might have been legal grounds to issue eviction notices, for example, but it was a lot like spanking a child in public: the law might permit it, but it always looks brutal when a big person strikes a little one.

Under Goebel's leadership, the NLDC had gone too far this time. The city council was looking for a reason to can him, and the eviction notices fit the bill. Greene knew the city would not back down-Goebel had to go. And so did Joplin.

To save the agency, Greene felt obligated to speak his mind. "I have a lot of respect for you," Greene told Goebel. "You've taken a lot of hits. But I think you should resign."

Goebel disagreed.

Greene tried again. "You can stay on as a consultant," he said. "But you can't be the lead guy. We gotta move forward."

Steve Percy jumped to Goebel's defense, lecturing Greene and declaring adamantly that Goebel would not step aside. Ignoring Percy, Greene told Goebel that he had met face-to-face with members of the city council and learned that the council was considering a lawsuit against the agency.

"Mat, you don't know everything," Goebel said.

Greene didn't like the sound of that. "Well, I'm your legal counsel. I should know everything."

The implication was that the NLDC was also contemplating legal action against the city council.

Greene reminded the board that the NLDC had been created to do a specific job. "We weren't created to become a political body," he said. "Let's do it and get it done." The board was not persuaded. It decided to back Goebel and Joplin. Steve Percy publicly dismissed the city council's demand to remove Goebel and Joplin. "The loss of their leadership would significantly undermine the ability of the NLDC or anyone to carry out the goals of the MDP [munic.i.p.al-development plan]," he told the press.

Greene resigned and washed his hands of the agency he had represented for nearly eight years. Three days later, the city council formally voted 60 to cut ties with the NLDC within two weeks.

The state knew it had a serious problem on its hands. If New London dissolved the NLDC, state law required the city to appoint a successor, a new agency to implement the munic.i.p.al-development plan. Additionally, the NLDC had its name on scores of contracts with vendors, developers, and lending agencies. Every contract would have to be revised to reflect the change in agencies. All of this was going to take lots of time, money, and lawyers to sort out. Clearly the city council hadn't considered any of this. Rather than looking ahead at the long-term implications, the city council had reflexively decided to teach Goebel and Joplin a lesson.

Despite the state's dissatisfaction with the NLDC, the prospect of seeing the development plan fall into the hands of an inept city council was pretty scary. The state had $70 million on the line. It didn't want to see a dysfunctional political body of ever-changing personnel and unpredictable personalities end up in charge.

Governor Rell turned to her deputy commissioner of economic development, forty-one-year-old Ron Angelo, a fast-rising star in the administration who had the kind of skill set a governor needed in times of political crisis. Angelo had an instinct for seeing the finish line and knowing what kind of tough decisions had to be made to get there. Best of all, he left no footprints.

Remarkably, Angelo had almost no political experience. Before joining the governor's administration a couple of years earlier, he had owned two highly successful companies and had spent some time in the banking industry. His approach to business and problem solving had been influenced by the lessons he had learned from his father. One simple lesson had come from their many hours of playing chess together. Angelo's father had helped him see that to succeed in chess you have to execute each move in antic.i.p.ation of the next two or three moves.

Politics is a lot like chess. And when Angelo sized up the situation in New London, he saw a city council that had focused on only one move: wiping out the NLDC. Angelo called the city's new mayor, Beth Sabilia, and said the state had real concerns about the city's plans for the NLDC. Angelo suggested a more cautious approach.

Sabilia said the city council was tired of taking a beating for the NLDC's methods. Dave Goebel, she said, looked like a hatchet man.

Angelo got all that. The state wasn't too pleased with Goebel either. Calling Susette a liar and serving eviction notices was pouring salt into open wounds. From the state's perspective Goebel was the wrong man in the wrong place, doing the wrong thing at the wrong time. But blowing up the NLDC wasn't the right move, at least not before executing some other moves.

Angelo's message got through. Behind the scenes, the city council modified its approach. Reading between the lines, city officials suspected that the state was sufficiently irritated with Goebel that it wouldn't protect him. On the other hand, it seemed equally clear that the state wanted Joplin to stay on board to ensure some stability and hands-on experience atop the agency. Desperate to do something to restore its political credibility with the public, the city council decided to focus exclusively on Goebel: either he would go, or the city would follow through on its unanimous vote to disband the agency.

This time Goebel and the NLDC's board acknowledged they were in check. Ending the feud with the city, Goebel resigned. As soon as he did, the city council reversed its 60 vote and agreed to keep the NLDC intact. Joplin stayed on as the president.

45.

JUST PRAY.

Susette believed in luck. And the four-month period since the Supreme Court decision had come down proved to be the hottest good-luck streak of her life. It seemed like every time her phone rang something else good had happened. The city council was imploding. Dave Goebel got toppled. Eminent-domain-reform legislation was making its way through statehouses across the country. Gra.s.sroots movements were active in many of the country's major cities. Best of all, Susette and her neighbors were still in their homes.

It was late in October when Susette got a call from Von Winkle. "Have you talked to Rich?" he asked her.

She usually didn't talk with Beyer unless something was up with the city or the NLDC. She figured something must have happened. "No, I haven't talked to him. Why do you ask?"

"Oh, I was just wondering if you had talked to Rich," Von Winkle said before making small talk and hanging up.

A short while later, the phone rang again. It was Beyer calling from YaleNew Haven Hospital.

"Susette?"

She could tell Beyer was crying. She had a feeling the group's luck had just gone bad. "What's the matter, Rich?" she asked.

"My little girl," he said, his voice trailing off.

"Rich, what's the matter?"

Beyer started sobbing.

"Rich, you gotta tell me what's the matter. What's the matter?"

"My little girl is dying."

Attempting to calm him down, Susette asked for more information.

Beyer's eight-year-old daughter had suffered a deadly asthma attack and had been rushed to the hospital in New London before being transferred to YaleNew Haven on life support. Her brain was no longer functioning due to lack of oxygen.

"What can I do? What can I do?" Beyer pleaded.

Susette knew where this was headed. She had administered to children with acute asthma. First came respiratory arrest, followed by cardiac arrest. Without life support, the child's heart would simply stop and she would die.

"Rich," she whispered, choking back tears, "I think the only thing you can do is pray. Just pray, Rich."

She hung up and buried her face in her hands. Then she called Von Winkle and exploded at him for not warning her before she talked to Beyer. "Why didn't you tell me?" she shouted.

"Well, I thought he would have called you."

"You should have told me," she cried. "You should have told me!"

There was a long pause.

"What do you think is going to happen?" Von Winkle said softly.

"She's going to die, Billy," she said. "She's going to die."

Von Winkle didn't know what to say next.

Susette gathered her composure. "I want to go down to New Haven and see Rich. Will you take me?"

"No. I'm not going."

"Why?"

"Susette, let me tell you right now. If anything like that ever happens to me, just leave me alone."

The next day, Beyer's daughter pa.s.sed away.

A consultant specializing in conflict resolution, Dr. Robert Albright II got a clear mandate from the governor to find a way to settle the standoff in Fort Trumbull that totally averted forced evictions. And to do it quickly.

Albright had mediated bitter disputes involving steelworkers and miners and their respective management in America's rust belt. In such cases, he always began by getting the heads of the labor unions and management to simply start a dialogue. Albright decided on the same approach in New London, reaching out to Londregan and Bullock.

Bullock welcomed Albright's arrival and wasted no time submitting a comprehensive proposal to resolve the standoff. Rich Beyer, the Cristofaro family, and Byron Athenian and his mother were willing to have their houses on Parcel 3 relocated to Parcel 4-A. This approach would completely free up Parcel 3 for development. It would also confine all the holdouts' properties to a small cl.u.s.ter on Parcel 4-A, where the city had no development plans. Bullock pointed out that this would save the state a significant amount of money because none of the property owners would have to be paid compensation and the city could commence construction immediately. "It could be a cla.s.sic 'win-win' solution for all concerned," Bullock told Albright.

But Londregan shot down the idea. At this stage, why deviate from the ruling? The city had waited seven years to carry out its development scheme. The last four and a half years had been stalled by tough, expensive litigation. Along the way, the city had taken a tremendous beating. For starters, all the negative publicity around the lawsuit had prompted Pfizer to back away from its previous commitment to help pay for the hotel. Without Pfizer's occupancy guarantee, the developer no longer wanted to proceed with the hotel construction.

On a much broader scale, lenders and investors had fled the overall redevelopment project due to the stigma slapped on it by the eminent-domain dispute. No inst.i.tution wanted to back a project built on land that had been acquired under one of the most despised Supreme Court decisions in decades.

Rather than compromise, Londregan dug in. He told Albright that law, ethics, and precedent made it impractical and improper for the city to go along with Bullock's suggestion to relocate the homes. Instead, Londregan gave Albright a simple response: Albright should tell the state to refuse to consider Bullock's proposal.

From Bullock's standpoint, it was Londregan-not the homeowners-who had most hurt the city. More than anyone, Londregan had led the city's relentless quest to defeat the seven property owners. This obsessive approach had put the entire ninety-acre development plan at risk. Now his equally stubborn position had everyone on a fast track to a confrontation in the streets of Fort Trumbull.

"Londregan is unbelievable!" Bullock told Susette. "He truly doesn't care about New London. The new city council needs to fire him, fast. Rell is pretty smart, though. I think she will choose 90 percent of the public over Tom Londregan!"

46.

OPEN THE CHECKBOOK.

Frustrated, Bullock reached out directly to Governor Rell's chief council, Kevin Rasch, pointing out that Londregan's arguments were silly and dead wrong.

The dialogue didn't sound encouraging to the governor. She asked Albright for a progress report.

Albright had underestimated the depth of the distrust and disdain between the two sides. He had even tried talking directly to city council members and the holdouts. But that proved difficult too. Individual council members had personal scores to settle and had competing ideas on who was at fault. None of them had a solution to the standoff. About the only aspect they were in sync on was the position that the city would not back down to the holdouts. And when it came to the homeowners, most of them wouldn't even return Albright's calls.

All his years dealing with unions and management had not prepared Albright for the situation in New London. "I gotta tell you, this one is as polarized as anything I have ever encountered," he told the governor's advisors.

That wasn't what the governor's advisors wanted to hear. They wanted a quick fix.

Albright tried explaining that the animosity and distrust in New London had built up over eight years. It wasn't realistic to expect it to dissipate in a few months.

But the state wanted results. Albright had been on the job for five months with a mandate to settle the dispute and so far no one had agreed to settle. It was now time to resort to the most reliable tool for fixing any legal dispute: money.

The governor had set aside $1.4 million to compensate the holdouts. Her staff implored Albright to find out if generous financial incentives might entice any of the holdouts to go peacefully.

Albright went back to work.

March 13, 2006 Word quietly spread through Fort Trumbull that Matt Dery's eighty-eight-year-old mother, Wilhelmina, had finally succ.u.mbed, dying in the same house she had been born in. That was all she had ever wanted when the battle to save her home had started, eight years earlier-the opportunity to exit life in the same place where she had entered it.

Her age and the relentless stress of the litigation had prevented Wilhelmina from attending all the court proceedings, legislative hearings, press conferences, and protests. The fear of losing the only home she had ever known had been hard enough to cope with even so. Friends and family were convinced it had shaved a few years off her life.

But her quest to hold on to her home had kept Matt going when he often had felt like giving up. He had owed it to his mother to press on. In one respect, her death marked a milestone and a victory for Matt and his family: they had hung on until Wilhelmina let go.

With the governor's checkbook at his disposal, Albright met with the city first. Any attempt to pay Fort Trumbull property owners more than the fair market value of their properties would require the city to sign off on it. The city council and Londregan said they would go along with the offers since the state was footing the bill. But they insisted on a deadline. The city council thus pa.s.sed a resolution saying that anyone who didn't accept the state's offer of cash settlement by May 31st would be out of luck. After that, the city would withdraw its consent and would commence evictions.

With the city on board, Albright reached out directly to the holdouts he thought were most likely to listen. As soon as Bullock found out about it, he lost respect for Albright. Mediators, he reasoned, are supposed to be neutral. By flashing money around, Albright looked more like someone doing the city's bidding on the state's dime. The whole approach was an insult to what this case was all about. He called Albright and expressed his displeasure. "This case was never about money," Bullock told Albright.

May 28, 2006 With the deadline just days away, Susette and some of her neighbors were discussing their options over beers at Matt Dery's house. Susette didn't know what to think. The governor had been the holdouts' best ally since the Supreme Court decision. But nearly a year had pa.s.sed and the city hadn't backed down. It now appeared that the governor was losing her patience with the whole situation and just wanted to see it go away, one way or another.

Suddenly the phone rang. Matt's wife, Sue, took it in another room. When she returned moments later, her face looked like she had seen a ghost.

"I have very bad news," she said.

Everyone stopped talking.

"Derek Von Winkle was shot and killed tonight," she continued.

Susette put her hand over her mouth. "Oh my G.o.d," she whispered.

Twenty-five-year-old Derek Von Winkle was Billy's son. Earlier that afternoon, police had found him and his stepbrother, who was confined to a wheelchair, dead in their duplex in a neighboring town. Both had been shot to death. Investigators arrested an eighteen-year-old acquaintance of the men and charged him with two counts of felony murder, robbery, possession of a sawed-off shotgun, possession of marijuana with intent to sell, and possession of hallucinogens with intent to sell.

The news rocked the holdouts. In a seven-month span following the Supreme Court decision, three family members from the fort had died: Beyer's daughter, Dery's mother, and now Von Winkle's son.

Susette wanted to go find Billy right away. But she remembered what he had said when Byron's daughter died: "If something like that ever happens to me, leave me alone."