Little Pink House_ A True Story of Defiance and Courage - Jeff Benedict [29]
God, I hope we don’t use eminent domain to do this, MacCluggage thought.
Then, on his first day back at the newspaper, MacCluggage heard that Claire had been telling people he had broken his agreement with her. He figured he’d deal with the situation head-on. After all, Claire had never been shy about calling him up when she had a complaint about press coverage. “Reid, this is Claire,” she had begun one phone call to his office shortly after becoming president of Connecticut College. “You know that story you had today was bull-a-sheet-a,” she had said, mimicking the way her Italian father used to say “bullshit.”
As far as MacCluggage was concerned, Claire had the story wrong this time. He called her at the college to arrange a meeting. Claire insisted she was too tied up to meet with him. MacCluggage said he would come at the soonest opening in her schedule. She said she’d have her chief of staff get back to him to arrange a time to meet.
That evening, MacCluggage and Claire were scheduled to be dinner guests at the home of Rear Admiral Malcolm I. Fages, commander of Submarine Group 2 at the naval base in nearby Groton. Both their spouses also attended, along with a number of other guests. MacCluggage and Claire exchanged chilly greetings. Otherwise, they confined their dialogue to superficial cocktail talk. At the end of the evening, they said good-bye. It was the last time the two would speak to each other.
Susette usually didn’t bother reading the newspaper. But after spotting the Pfizer headline and talking to Von Winkle, she started buying it every day. A couple of weeks after the Pfizer news broke, she read a story quoting Steve Percy. He said he hoped the NLDC wouldn’t have to resort to eminent domain to take property from owners who refused to sell. But he wouldn’t rule it out.
Eminent domain? Susette had never dealt with eminent domain, the government’s power to take private property for public use. States and municipalities can legally seize an individual’s land, but the Fifth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution limits the power to instances of public use, and it requires just compensation.
Susette put down the paper and called Von Winkle. He had seen the story, too. “You know what this means, don’t you?” he asked.
“I know what eminent domain is,” she said. “It’s when they come in and take your farm and put in a road.”
He laughed. The city had its eye on much more than a farm. Von Winkle remembered the last time New London had used eminent domain, in the 1970s. The city had cleared entire blocks, wiping out neighborhoods under the banner of urban renewal, but the city had never carried out its development plan; it had left acres of vacant lots. Like so many urban-renewal plans, it had run out of money, and the results never materialized. “It’s not like New London is a stranger to eminent domain,” Von Winkle said. “The city takes everything it wants.”
He repeated his intention to sell as long as the city offered him a fair price.
“But I don’t want to leave,” Susette said.
“You’re probably going to have to sell,” he said.
“Or what?”
“Or you’ll get nothing.”
News of the paper’s reference to eminent domain swept through the neighborhood. Most residents were scared. Aldo Valentini got mad. He ran the Italian Dramatic Club (IDC), a private men’s club located two blocks from Susette’s house. Built by Italian immigrants after World War I, the club had been a cultural center for Italian musicals and plays in the thirties, forties, and fifties. More recently it had become a hot spot for politicians seeking votes and financial support. No elected official made it through New London without attending ziti-and-garlic-bread dinners and making speeches at the IDC.
Valentini ran the IDC with an iron hand, controlling everything from exclusive membership