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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 documents 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 documentation 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 felt the NLDC had reneged on its promise, and the time for negotiating had passed.

“No,” MacCluggage said, “we’re going through with this.”

“Let’s talk some more,” the woman insisted.

MacCluggage smiled. “There’s no use talking any more because we don’t get the straight story. So we’re just going to the commission. We’re going to get a ruling.” He walked away.

Inside the hearing room, reporter Judy Benson testified first. Brief and to the point, she recounted how the NLDC had denied her access to meetings and documents.

The NLDC had a tougher task. The commission had a simple question to resolve: was the NLDC a public agency subject to freedom-of-information law? The burden fell to the NLDC to prove it wasn’t. As its primary witness, the agency sent its brand-new chief operating officer, Navy Rear Admiral David Goebel, who had joined the NLDC board of directors back when Jay Levin and Claire had revived the agency, over a year earlier. Not long before the hearing was scheduled, the NLDC had hired Goebel as a full-time executive working directly under Claire.

A former deputy director for international negotiations for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Goebel was all business when he stood to be sworn in. Tall and imposing, he raised his right arm, forming a perfect right angle, and promised to tell the truth. Then, in an authoritative, no-nonsense way, he succinctly answered questions from his lawyer.

“Does the State of Connecticut determine what your tasks will be?”

“No,” Goebel testified.

“Does the DECD or any other part of the state provide you with any direction on your day to day activities?”

“No, they make a specific point not to.”

“Who decides what consultants you will retain?”

“We do, NLDC.”

“Do you need permission from the city or the state to get a consultant?”

“No.”

“Or to retain a particular consultant?”

“No.”

“Who decided what properties the NLDC would buy and how much they would pay for them?”

“The NLDC.”

After Goebel’s lawyer finished, the newspaper’s lawyer cross-examined Goebel.

“Am I correct that the state agency, the Department of Economic and Community Development (DECD), attends your meetings? The NLDC meetings?”

“No, not correct.”

“They never attend?”

“They do not attend NLDC meetings,” Goebel said. “They do not attend board of director meetings. They do not attend group meetings, to my knowledge.”

“Sir, am I correct that Fort Trumbull is part of a municipal redevelopment plan?”

“Yes, a portion of that area. Not all of it.”

“Am I correct that there are state statutes and regulations which control how that can be done?”

Goebel’s lawyer objected. After a brief discussion between