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Singer agreed to accompany Paxton on a visit to the Fort Trumbull neighborhood a few days later. They parked a block from Susette’s house and started walking. They found Matt Dery making repairs on his house. Paxton introduced himself and told Dery that Singer was affiliated with the NLDC.

“What’s your perspective on this redevelopment idea?” Paxton asked.

Dery didn’t mince words. “We’re getting bulldozed,” he said, explaining that his mother had been born in the family house and had hoped to die there. But the anxiety created by Claire and the NLDC was sending Dery’s mother to an early grave, he said.

Paxton’s blood began to boil. He asked what the residents were doing to oppose the NLDC. Dery pointed out that many of the residents were elderly and lacked the energy and resources to fight.

As soon as they left Dery’s place, Paxton unloaded on Singer. The fact that Connecticut College had direct involvement in an effort to displace lifetime residents of a historic neighborhood was an outrage, he argued. Singer didn’t disagree. His committee had a meeting coming up. He invited Paxton to make a presentation.

To prepare, Paxton read through press accounts of what had transpired during his sabbatical. He decided to pay one more visit to the neighborhood. This time he brought his wife, Sylvia Malizia, along. An Italian artist, she immediately recognized some of the architecture in the area. Italians from the Adriatic coast had settled some of the neighborhood, and Sylvia’s ancestors had come from there as well.

“They are going to take all these properties by eminent domain,” Paxton told her as he drove her up and down the streets.

“Oh, Fred, they can’t do that,” she said, dismissing his anger as an exaggeration. “This is not for public good. They can only do that for schools or roads or a hospital or something.”

“I’m telling you the NLDC plans to demolish all of this.”

“This is an intact piece of urban neighborhood,” she said.

“I know it.”

While at the stop sign in front of Susette’s cottage, they spotted her on the front porch. Paxton recognized her from newspaper accounts. He parked the car and got out.

“Are you Susette Kelo?”

“Yes.”

“Hi, I’m Fred Paxton. This is my wife, Sylvia. I teach at Connecticut College.”

Unimpressed, Susette nodded.

“We’ve been away on sabbatical. We’ve been reading about what has happened while we’ve been away.”

Unsure what “sabbatical” meant, Susette started talking about the NLDC’s pressure tactics to drive out homeowners.

Paxton immediately sensed her combative demeanor. “We are going to help you, Susette,” Paxton said. “We are going to do everything in our power to not let this happen.”

Susette didn’t know what to think. Paxton and his wife sounded smart. They looked fashionable. Why would people like that care about people like us? she wondered. Appreciative, she told them about Kathleen Mitchell and provided her contact information.

As soon as the Paxtons drove off, Susette called Mitchell and told her that a professor from Connecticut College had agreed to help.

Paxton figured that Claire had told the NLDC’s Social Justice Committee all about the good side of the redevelopment plan. He went to the committee meeting ready to tell them the dark side. He appealed to their liberal way of thinking and got them to reconsider displacing modest-income residents for the sake of a big corporation.

“So we are going to throw people out of their homes and demolish their homes to create a brownfield?” he asked. “For what? People don’t develop like that anymore.”

The committee broke up with an uneasy feeling. Word of Paxton’s presentation quickly reached Claire. Then she found out he had contacted one of the project managers at the NLDC and got him to concede that it wasn’t too late to modify the plan to preserve the neighborhood. Claire immediately went to work to defuse Paxton.

Kathleen Mitchell wasted no time in bringing Paxton on board. She arranged a strategy meeting for the two of them with Mayor Beachy. Together they determined the importance of