Little Pink House_ A True Story of Defiance and Courage - Jeff Benedict [22]
“As cities go, New London is sized where a single investment of this type coupled with other downstream investments could make all the difference in the world,” Milne said. “You could in fact at least contemplate a transforming set of investments that would do what the city badly needed, which is to build up its tax base.”
For that to happen, Claire maintained, Pfizer had to develop the mill site.
For that to happen, Milne insisted, the state would have to be a partner and commit to a sizable investment.
Claire agreed. She called the governor’s office.
Weeks earlier, Governor Rowland had elevated Peter Ellef to be his chief of staff. Ellef took the call. Claire told Ellef that Pfizer was ready to consider New London. Ready to deal, Ellef scheduled a meeting for Claire and Milne with the governor.
10
THE THINGS WE WANT
A stack of nursing manuals under her arm, Susette arrived home and found antiques on her porch. Instantly she knew where they had come from. It had been only a few weeks since she had journeyed to Tim LeBlanc’s apartment. He had a lot of antiques and a great deal of knowledge about them. They started talking on an almost-daily basis and getting together a couple of times a week. He had even volunteered to help her put in raised flower beds alongside her house.
As soon as she got inside, she called him to thank him for the delivery. Toward the end of the call, LeBlanc’s voice took a serious tone.
“I love you, Susette,” he said.
The phrase jarred her. The words “I love you” had not been spoken to her as a child. Her first husband had never told her that. Neither had her second husband. She didn’t know how to respond.
“What the hell is the matter with you?” she snapped.
“What?” he asked.
“You don’t just walk around saying that to people you just met,” she said. “Don’t say that unless you mean it. Good-bye.”
She slammed down the phone.
Governor Rowland was eager to hear what Claire and Milne had to say about the prospects of attracting a Fortune 500 company to New London. They did not disappoint.
After sharing some brief overview of the possibilities, Claire left most of the talking to Milne. As he would have in a corporate setting, Milne got right to the point with the governor.
“We spent thirty minutes with him,” Milne recalled. “We outlined what would be possible broadly and what would be required to make all of this attractive to anybody, including Pfizer. That included such things as accelerating renovation of the fort, which at that point was just an overgrown jumble of trees and discarded junk; the Calamari junkyard; the whole sewer-treatment center; and all of the issues associated with permitting the site.”
The governor listened intently. Milne made clear that no company—not Pfizer nor anyone else—would take on the mill site unless the state stepped in.
Sharp and shrewd, the governor got the picture. Like Claire and Milne, he preferred to move quickly when opportunity knocked. The governor planned to visit Fort Trumbull himself. In the meantime, written proposals and schematic drawings were needed to take the discussions from a conceptual level to something more concrete.
After meeting with the governor, Milne knew that the prospect of Pfizer’s going to New London was real. He and Claire talked about his role with the NLDC.
“I have to leave the board,” Milne told her. On one hand, he was trying to obtain real estate for his corporation to develop. On the other hand, he was chairing a real-estate development committee for a nonprofit board that was courting his company.