Part 9 (2/2)
Serbia closed with a question: ”Would approximately 7080 high end residential units fit with your expectation?”
Satisfied, he marked the e-mail ”High Importance” and hit SEND SEND.
His e-mail did little to change things. Eight days later, Milne and Claire presented Rowland and Ellef with a multipage plan for ”Team New London,” including a diagram showing all existing houses in the Fort Trumbull area totally wiped out and new condos put up in their place, along with a hotel.
Susette frowned when she saw a moving truck parked in front of her next-door neighbor's house. Yvonne Cappelano and her husband had bought their place shortly after Susette had moved in. Residents of Virginia, the couple used the home as a weekend getaway. At first, the couple had supported Susette's effort to save the neighborhood, but Susette could see something had changed. She approached the truck and asked Cappelano what was going on.
”We talked with our lawyer,” Cappelano said soberly, holding back her emotions, as she explained that she and her husband had no choice but to sell. ”There's nothing you can do.”
Susette insisted she would never leave.
”Susette, you have to sell,” she said. ”They're going to put you out on the street.”
”Let 'em try.”
18.
FREEDOM OF INFORMATION.
Under cover of night, Billy Von Winkle approached the NLDC's Dumpster. No one appeared to be around. Unsure what he'd find, he rifled through fast-food wrappers, coffee cups, and half-eaten sandwiches until he hit pay dirt: doc.u.ments. Steve Percy's name was on many of them, including handwritten correspondence. Von Winkle dug further. He came across the original retainer agreement signed between the NLDC and its law firm, Waller, Smith & Palmer.
The Dumpster contained piles of NLDC internal doc.u.ments. It turned out that Percy had a habit of handwriting letters, memos, and internal notes. He also saved files with minutes from internal meetings and confidential correspondence to and from George Milne, Claire Gaudiani, and top officials from the Rowland administration and Pfizer. Some doc.u.ments were torn in half. Others were torn in four pieces. But most of them were easily rea.s.sembled.
Surprised that the agency had discarded so many original records, Von Winkle took them. The NLDC had been playing hardball with him. It was now his turn.
The doc.u.ments showed Pfizer was working hand in glove with the NLDC, while the state gave its stamp of approval for the NLDC to essentially satisfy Pfizer's wishes.
Von Winkle even recovered a confidential letter written to Percy by Pfizer's director of facilities planning and management, Paul Begin, who worked very closely with Milne. ”Dear Steve, To maximize the benefit of the Pfizer investment in New London, we will need the land flexibility to add buildings beyond the initial 1200 person office building,” Begin had written. ”This land flexibility will enable us to ultimately reach an employee population of roughly 2000.
”Upon review of several initial design plans, it has become clear that the properties across from the former New London Mills site along Pequot Avenue are now of extreme strategic importance. Therefore, we ask that the NLDC obtain options on these properties as a top priority, adjusting market values as necessary to reflect this strategic importance.”
Dated March 2, 1998, the letter confirmed that only a month after Milne and Claire had stood with the governor to announce the selection of New London for Pfizer's new facility, the company had already started eyeing more land. The letter also confirmed that the NLDC would pay above-market price for homes and properties when told to do so by Pfizer, something it had been unwilling to do with Von Winkle on his properties.
Other doc.u.ments from the Dumpster revealed that the state had told Percy to honor Pfizer's wishes. Von Winkle found an NLDC confidential internal memo to Claire dated March 27, 1998. It reported on a meeting between top officials from Pfizer, the state, and the NLDC. At the meeting, one of the governor's top administrators, Rita Zangari, recommended that Percy's real-estate firm actively pursue the new properties on the top of Pfizer's get list. She also proposed a new pa.s.sive strategy toward the holdout properties in Susette's neighborhood. ”Rita explained that by continuing to negotiate options we were bidding against ourselves,” the memo said. ”With the MDP [Munic.i.p.al Development Plan] process there will be plenty of time to acquire properties.”
This strategy change seemed to make it more likely that the NLDC would resort to eminent domain to obtain properties from holdouts. If the NLDC paid above-market value for properties that had been added to Pfizer's wish list, funds for the Fort Trumbull neighborhood homes would dwindle.
At the state's request, Percy also put in writing an estimate of how much the New England Real Estate Group would make in commissions from the transactions. ”A good planning number is probably $225,000 to $250,000,” Percy wrote.
Another memo to Claire had one of Rowland's officials asking the NLDC to prepare another bond commission request for funding. The governor chaired the state's bond commission. Rowland's deputy told the NLDC to emphasize Pfizer's additional property needs as the driving force in the additional funding request.
Von Winkle also found a hand-drawn ”Cash Flow Diagram” showing tens of millions of dollars going from the state through the NLDC to various properties and initiatives. It appeared to have been drawn by Percy and used at a private meeting he attended with officials representing Milne and the governor in March 1998.
Many of Percy's letters had to do with money. In a handwritten letter to Jay Levin in March 1998, Percy asked him for help with fund-raising for the NLDC. ”We will need whatever funding a.s.sistance you can help us get from DECD,” Percy said. ”Nice to be working with you, as always, my friend.”
Overall, the doc.u.ments established a series of direct links between the governor's office, Pfizer, and the NLDC. Claire seemed to serve two functions. For Pfizer, she was a go-to person willing to charge hard for the corporation's interests; for the governor, she appeared to function both as a funnel and a s.h.i.+eld. By piping money through Claire's organization for property acquisition on behalf of Pfizer, the state was using the NLDC as a layer of insulation between it and Pfizer.
Von Winkle brought plastic garbage bags full of doc.u.ments to the bas.e.m.e.nt of one of his buildings, where he hid them away for safekeeping. Recognizing the Dumpster as a gold mine of intelligence, he started making regular visits after hours.
Attorney Tom Londregan had finished law school in 1969 and joined a Connecticut unit of the National Guard, where he had served with another young law graduate, Christopher Dodd. Before the Vietnam War ended, Londregan and Dodd started practicing law in New London. While Dodd quickly transitioned to politics, Tom Londregan joined his brother Frank's law firm, Conway and Londregan, in New London. After Frank became mayor of New London, Tom became the city's attorney.
Few people had better legal and political connections than Tom Londregan. Near sixty with gray hair and old suits, Londregan hadn't always appeared to be a powerful lawyer. But over a thirty-year career he had handled hundreds of cases and established himself as one of the most polished, accomplished lawyers in the city. Few things happened in New London political circles without Londregan's knowledge. And the mayor and city council took no significant steps without first securing Londregan's legal opinion.
Londregan strongly supported the Pfizer plan and the clearing of the peninsula. From the beginning he had been carefully examining each step in the process for the city council and the mayor. He knew it was only a matter of time before eminent domain would be used by the city, and he'd be busy defending it.
December 1998 Working at his desk, Tom Londregan got buzzed by his secretary. Claire Gaudiani was on the line. Londregan knew Claire well. Her husband, David Burnett, was Londregan's tennis partner. Londregan picked up the phone.
”I'm very disappointed in you,” she snapped.
”For what?” Londregan snapped back.
”You refused to cooperate and be helpful to my attorney.”
”When was this?”
Claire had retained Hartford lawyer Peter Hirschl to advise the NLDC. At Claire's request, Hirschl had called on Londregan for a.s.sistance in drafting a resolution on behalf of the city that would expand the NLDC's power. Londregan had explained that as the city's attorney he didn't draft resolutions for the NLDC. The NLDC had its own lawyers.
Claire told Londregan she didn't appreciate his refusal to help.
Londregan countered by saying he didn't appreciate that a Hartford lawyer making double what he made basically expected Londregan to do his work for him.
The conversation became ugly.
December 21, 1998 Publisher Reid MacCluggage paced the hallway outside the hearing room at the Freedom of Information Commission in Hartford. Normally he did not attend such hearings. This one, however, had taken on a personal element for him. Ever since MacCluggage had rebuffed Claire's attempt to influence how his paper treated the Pfizer announcement to build in New London, the NLDC had made life difficult for his reporters. Requests for doc.u.ments had been denied. Meetings had been closed.
MacCluggage had not been called to testify before the commission. He had come to show moral support for his reporter Judy Benson.
Suddenly, a woman in a business suit approached and identified herself as a Connecticut College administrator working for Claire. She had driven nearly an hour to give MacCluggage a very urgent message.
”I talked to Claire this morning, and she wants you to drop the suit,” the woman said.
MacCluggage didn't find that very urgent. ”We're about ready to have the hearing,” he told her.
”No, she wants to talk with you. She wants to talk with you. She thinks somehow we can ... You have to drop the suit.”
MacCluggage had little patience for these last-minute tactics. For nearly a year the paper had been trying to obtain doc.u.mentation from the NLDC. A formal complaint had been filed. At one point the NLDC had offered to settle by promising to comply with FOI Act requirements. But it never did. The Day Day felt the NLDC had reneged on its promise, and the time for negotiating had pa.s.sed. felt the NLDC had reneged on its promise, and the time for negotiating had pa.s.sed.
”No,” MacCluggage said, ”we're going through with this.”
”Let's talk some more,” the woman insisted.
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