Little Pink House_ A True Story of Defiance and Courage - Jeff Benedict [77]
But Mayor Beachy also knew the game. The next morning, he talked to people in the city’s permit office. He told them to notify him the minute the NLDC applied for any demolition permits. He also huddled with members of the coalition, and the group organized a list of people with responsibility for calling City Hall on a daily basis to find out if the NLDC had filed any permit requests.
George Milne had a lot more on his mind than the potential of a lawsuit against the NLDC. As a Connecticut College trustee, Milne had another crisis to deal with. The conflict between Claire and the faculty had gotten personal and ugly. The faculty wanted Claire out, but she had no intention of stepping down. The standoff put Milne in a tough spot. He chaired the Academic Affairs Committee, yet he maintained a strong loyalty to Claire. With the faculty in revolt, it seemed clear that it wasn’t a question of if Claire would leave but rather when.
Milne was also facing a career change of his own. Just two months earlier, Pfizer had announced that the Federal Trade Commission had given final clearance for a merger with the Warner-Lambert company.
In conjunction with the merger, Pfizer announced a leadership change in New London. Milne was elevated to executive vice president of Pfizer Global Research and Development.
The $90 billion merger meant that Pfizer instantly had a surplus of real estate and office space throughout the country. Rather than expand, Pfizer now needed to consolidate to maintain efficiency. Suddenly, the company’s plans for the New London facility had changed.
Kathleen Mitchell had vowed to take a street fighter’s approach to the NLDC. The coalition repeatedly tried to rein her in at board meetings. She decided to use her weekly cable-television show on New London’s public-access station to go after Claire. After opening one of her shows in late August with a blistering monologue against Claire and the NLDC, Mitchell opened the phone lines for call-ins. One caller complained about Claire’s leadership style at the NLDC. He asked Mitchell what was wrong with Claire.
“Just between you and me, she’s a transsexual,” Mitchell said.
The statement worked. Within days, the NLDC dispatched a communications specialist and mobilized community leaders to go after Mitchell. The NLDC labeled her remarks “detestable” and demanded a public apology. When the Day contacted her for a response, Mitchell defended her statement. “Being a transsexual is … it’s like foreign to my way of life,” she said. “And so is Claire. She’s out of touch with everyone. I don’t know any other way to explain it. She just seems to be on some other plane. I was so frustrated. I guess it was a way of dismissing her.”
When asked if she planned to apologize to Claire, Mitchell balked. “She can wait for a cold day in hell,” Mitchell said. “I will never apologize. I’m going to do and say whatever is necessary to prevent what I think is a violation of people’s rights.”
Primed to demolish homes on Susette’s street, some NLDC board members now started having second thoughts. They were taking the homes of senior citizens and lower-income residents who couldn’t afford a fight, yet they were allowing an Italian men’s club with political ties to remain. “It just doesn’t look good,” one of the board members insisted.
Claire and Jay Levin didn’t seem to have a problem with the double standard. But they didn’t have the job of defending it before the city council. That responsibility fell to David Goebel, and it was an announcement he didn’t want to make. No matter how he spun it, the NLDC’s decision sent a hypocritical message for an organization touting social justice: a politically connected men’s club was deemed to be more important than a person’s home.