Part 13 (1/2)

24.

BLURRED VISION.

Admiral David Goebel came across as a guy who liked rules and obedience, not exceptions and excuses. That was only natural. He had spent his career in the military, a world that simply didn't work if the rules weren't clear and followed clearly-by everyone.

The deal Jay Levin had cut with the Italian Dramatic Club wasn't something Goebel would go for: exempting the men's club from demolition posed a conflict. The NLDC had a mandate to present a developer with a peninsula free of all buildings, and the NLDC had the power of eminent domain to achieve its mandate. To Goebel it was simple: if the Italian Dramatic Club refused to sell and relocate then it should be subjected to the same treatment as any other holdout in Fort Trumbull. Goebel urged his fellow board members not to make an exception.

Others at the NLDC saw the wisdom in Goebel's position and agreed with him. Attorney Tom Londregan sided with Goebel too. For Londregan it came down to a simple a.n.a.lysis: a secret deal that exempted one building-a private men's club, no less-had legal danger and political controversy written all over it. Londregan suspected a lawsuit over eminent domain might be brewing. A runner, Londregan had found that legal disputes were a lot like races. Reaching the finish line was hard enough, and facing hurdles would only make it harder. The same holds true for lawsuits. Making an exception for the Italian Dramatic Club, Londregan argued, would create an unnecessary legal hurdle for the city and the NLDC.

Besides, Londregan figured, the Italian Dramatic Club wasn't a strong-enough political force to oppose the NLDC. The fallout for forcing the club to move would be little to none.

But Jay Levin had political clout. And Levin had promised the club's president, Aldo Valentini, that no one would touch his club. Claire was caught in the middle. She liked and respected Levin, but she had no idea why he had made such a promise to the club. And she understood where Goebel was coming from. With pressure mounting to take the club down, Claire agreed to revisit the subject with Levin.

A proposed compromise emerged: the NLDC would pay for the club's relocation to another site outside the development-area footprint. That meant either physically moving the building to a new piece of real estate or simply constructing a brand-new building at a new location. Valentini said he'd consider it. He agreed to host a meeting at the club to discuss the particulars with Claire and Levin. Intent on protecting his interests, Valentini decided to call an old friend to advise him during the negotiations.

Judge Angelo Santaniello had unparalleled stature in New London. At age seventy-six, he had been on the bench longer than most attorneys in the city had been practicing law. Besides presiding over hundreds of trials and mediations, Santaniello had a long history of involvement in the Republican Party. Prior to becoming a judge in 1965, he had served as legal counsel to the Connecticut State Senate for the party. Later, Republican governor Thomas Meskill elevated him to the bench of the Superior Court. He then became chief administrative judge of the civil division of the Superior Court for all of Connecticut. If Judge Santaniello called John Rowland, the governor would take the call.

Santaniello also had special standing among Italians in New London, where he had been a pioneer in the legal profession. He had been a friend and a patron of the Italian Dramatic Club. When Aldo Valentini called him asking for help, Santaniello agreed. Valentini told him that the NLDC wanted the club's land and that Claire had floated the idea of paying the club to relocate its building.

”Before you start talking about moving, let's talk about the finances,” Santaniello told him. He asked Valentini the value of his building.

Valentini said the NLDC had appraised his building at $170,000.

Santaniello a.s.sured him that was nowhere near enough money to build another building like the one the club had. ”So you better know where you're heading and what you're going to do before you start doing it,” Santaniello advised. Valentini wasn't sure what Santaniello meant, so the judge cut to the bottom line: ”They are not going to give you enough money to rebuild and buy the land.”

Valentini asked Santaniello to intervene. Santaniello agreed to call Claire.

David Goebel felt his discussions with Jay Levin over the Italian men's club had been progressing toward a favorable resolution. Then Goebel got an unexpected call from Claire, who had heard from Judge Santaniello. She told Goebel to collect all the doc.u.ments involving negotiations with the club.

Goebel didn't appreciate the judge's sudden intervention. Nonetheless, at Claire's request, he had paperwork and engineering plans put together for the judge, along with a list of available buildings and parcels of land for the men's club to move to or build on. He had all the information delivered to Judge Santaniello.

After Santaniello reviewed the doc.u.ments, he attended a meeting at the club with Claire, Levin, Valentini, and a couple of others. Santaniello and Levin knew the club well; Claire didn't. When she arrived, a couple of members met her outside. ”We can't bring you in the front door,” one told her.

”Oh,” Claire said, a.s.suming the front door was broken or otherwise impa.s.sible. ”I don't mind.” They led her in through a bas.e.m.e.nt door.

Inside, one of the men leaned toward her. ”You know,” he said, ”you couldn't come in the front door because women never enter that door.” Valentini entered the room. ”But don't tell him I told you,” the man whispered to Claire.

Unfazed, Claire got down to business.

”Where will you find suitable land?” Santaniello asked her.

Claire rattled off a few possibilities.

”What makes you think you could raise this building without it falling apart?” Santaniello asked.

She had no answer.

”Who is going to foot the bill?” Santaniello pushed.

Claire had no answer for that either.

Santaniello figured Claire didn't like having him involved, since power brokers usually don't get along with other power brokers. But Santaniello wasn't in a popularity contest. He wanted to know where the money would come from. Levin indicated he might be able to get $300,000 in federal money.

Santaniello had his doubts. To him, Pfizer represented the most logical source for funds. After all, it was Pfizer that wanted the land cleared. It was Pfizer that had a big financial stake in what transpired next door to its new facility. Yet Pfizer was not at the table. To Santaniello this was a mistake.

Valentini liked the prospect of getting Pfizer money in the mix. The group needed to determine whether Milne would consider financing the preservation of the Italian Dramatic Club. The meeting ended with the group committed to feeling Milne out as a possible source of funding.

Ever since meeting John and Sarah Steffian, Susette had more confidence that she'd be able to keep her home. The Steffians were smart, wealthy, and very generous. Their willingness to engage an attorney had Susette antic.i.p.ating good news when she arrived at the coalition meeting.

But Steve Hallquist had bad news. He had approached many top lawyers and law firms in the city, and they all said no. None of them wanted to sue the city on behalf of the coalition. Some simply said the case could not be won. Others said they had a conflict of interest due to ties to city officials, Pfizer, or Connecticut College.

Mayor Beachy had a suggestion. He had been privately talking to lawyers in the city too. One had recommended Scott Sawyer, a young lawyer with a solo practice. Beachy said he didn't know Sawyer but that he seemed like someone the coalition should pursue.

”Amy and I know Sawyer,” Steve Hallquist said. A year earlier, Sawyer had helped them resolve a simple property-line dispute. ”We'll call him.”

The private off-campus meeting held by Connecticut College faculty ended up being a planning session to oust Claire as president. She was criticized for everything from finances to her leaders.h.i.+p style. Some faculty were so angry they wanted to go directly to the board of trustees with a letter spelling out the school's financial woes and demanding Claire's resignation. Others suggested a less confrontational approach-sending a small group of respected senior faculty to talk with her directly and encourage her to step down voluntarily. This approach would spare Claire any public embarra.s.sment and keep the school's financial woes out of the newspapers.

The more diplomatic approach prevailed. But the half dozen senior faculty who enjoyed good relations with Claire failed to make the kind of headway their colleagues wanted to see. And with only a few weeks remaining before the end of the spring semester, a small group of professors drafted a pet.i.tion calling on Claire to resign. Mobilized and energized, the leaders of the pet.i.tion drive needed only two weeks to get 78 of the school's 105 tenured professors to sign it. Before submitting it to the board of trustees, one of the professors tipped off the Day Day. On May 7 the newspaper broke the news of the pet.i.tion.

The news was stunning. The college president who had used her clout to spearhead an economic revival in New London had suddenly become vulnerable. It was the talk of the town from the Fort Trumbull neighborhood to City Hall. It was hard not to suspect that her extensive time commitment to the city had led to her neglect of the campus.

Two things were clear: the gloves had come off, and Claire was challenged with a revolt. Her personal secretary, Claudia Shapiro, couldn't believe the faculty had actually gone public against Claire. Shapiro, soft-spoken and in her sixties, had started working for Claire the year she became the president. She found Claire very demanding yet irresistibly likeable. On birthdays and Jewish holidays, Shapiro always discovered a gift from Claire hidden in her desk drawer, usually signed ”Aheba, Claire,” Hebrew for ”Love, Claire.”

Shapiro saw sides of Claire that few people saw. She acknowledged that Claire's dominant personality surely had its flaws. ”She had a habit of offending people,” Shapiro said. ”Then people forget the good parts about her and they hold grudges.”

But to Shapiro, Claire's qualities far outweighed any imperfections. ”She was a workaholic, very driven and very aggressive,” she said. ”People loved this when she started. But after she made a few mistakes, these same qualities were disdained.” And certainly she didn't deserve to be run out, Shapiro felt.

Privately, some professors agreed. ”For all the criticism of Claire,” one senior professor told Shapiro in confidence, ”when a parent brings a child to our campus, all the things we brag about were brought in by Claire.”

None of that mattered now. There was blood in the water and the notion of a faculty revolt against a college president immediately attracted national attention. The Chronicle of Higher Education Chronicle of Higher Education, the leading periodical for academia, ran a two-thousand-word story t.i.tled ”A Promoter of Town-Gown Cooperation Finds Development May Be Her Undoing.” It outlined the dispute between the faculty and Claire, quoting professors who had turned solidly against Claire. The Chronicle Chronicle also reported that it had obtained a videotape of Claire speaking at a black Baptist church in New London right around the time she was trying to garner support for the NLDC's plan to demolish the Fort Trumbull neighborhood. In her speech, Claire likened her leaders.h.i.+p at the NLDC to the social-justice movements led by Jesus Christ and Martin Luther King Jr. also reported that it had obtained a videotape of Claire speaking at a black Baptist church in New London right around the time she was trying to garner support for the NLDC's plan to demolish the Fort Trumbull neighborhood. In her speech, Claire likened her leaders.h.i.+p at the NLDC to the social-justice movements led by Jesus Christ and Martin Luther King Jr.

”Like them,” the Chronicle Chronicle reported Claire's saying to the Baptist congregation, ”I'm operating outside my specialty. Does that mean I'm going to make mistakes? Yes.” But in her speech Claire urged the congregation to support her work. ”Jesus is calling us in this city to witness,” she said. ”You and I are called to be transforming interveners, like the Messiah, like Martin Luther King.” reported Claire's saying to the Baptist congregation, ”I'm operating outside my specialty. Does that mean I'm going to make mistakes? Yes.” But in her speech Claire urged the congregation to support her work. ”Jesus is calling us in this city to witness,” she said. ”You and I are called to be transforming interveners, like the Messiah, like Martin Luther King.”

The board of trustees had a huge problem on its hands; its financial woes and the internal battle between Claire and the faculty had oozed into public view.

Shapiro instantly saw the change in Claire. One of the things she most admired about Claire was her physical beauty and her fearlessness about showcasing it through a bold wardrobe. Suddenly, Claire was showing up for work looking terrible, after staying up until four in the morning each night dealing with a crisis. ”She had such a vision,” Shapiro lamented. ”In many ways it may have been unrealistic.”

25.

TIME IS NOT ON OUR SIDE.

Steve Hallquist had secured an appointment with Scott Sawyer. John and Sarah Steffian planned to attend. But other members of the coalition feared that a local lawyer wouldn't have enough firepower to stop the city. ”This is bigger than us,” said Peter Kreckovic, a local artist who had joined the coalition. ”We need outside help.”

No one disagreed. Yet no one knew any out-of-town law firms that specialized in personal-property rights. Plus, the cost of landing that kind of firm seemed prohibitive.