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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 succumbed, 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 passed 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.