Little Pink House_ A True Story of Defiance and Courage - Jeff Benedict [82]
“It’s going to be okay, Susette,” he said in a low voice.
Too hurt to be mad, Susette just looked away and cried.
In twenty years of demolition work, Barberi had never been face-to-face with a crying homeowner. He put his mug down and wrapped his massive arms around her. Susette buried her face in his shoulder.
Barberi had seen enough.
“I’ll never tear your house down,” he said. “If it ever comes to that, I’ll never do it.”
As soon as Barberi left, Susette called Scott Bullock at his Washington law office. Pacing back and forth behind his desk, Bullock grimaced, trying to contain his fury while listening to Susette’s account of the demolitions. Legally, he knew the NLDC had the right to destroy the homes; the agency had ownership of the properties. Politically, however, Bullock saw the move as a brutal tactical maneuver to intimidate Susette and the other holdouts.
“What should I do?” Susette asked.
“Try to hang in there,” Bullock advised.
“I’ve about had it, Scott. I can’t keep living my life with this threat over my head.”
“They were able to do that with those homes,” Bullock said, hearing the desperation in her voice. “But that doesn’t mean they will be able to do it to yours.”
“Okay,” she whimpered. “Okay.”
As soon as he hung up, Bullock stormed into his law partner Dana Berliner’s office and told her what had happened.
Berliner clucked in disbelief. “Why is the city acting so irrationally?” she asked calmly.
“Those bastards tore down those houses to send a message,” Bullock ranted. “This was absolutely unnecessary!”
“Legally, the city owned those homes and had a right to tear them down,” Berliner reasoned. “But they—”
“But they did it to show the inevitability, to show that this is a done deal,” Bullock said, cutting her off, his voice rising. “They did this to show that it’s only a matter of time before they get to Susette’s house and the rest of them who have the audacity to challenge this.”
“Well, it’s not a done deal,” Berliner said.
“Claire takes delight in saying she is engaged in this glorious work of transformation,” Bullock said. “The fact that such tyrannical and petty acts could be dressed up in high-minded rhetoric about the greater good is just disgusting. Some of the worst acts in human history were justified as the pursuit of a greater good.”
Berliner didn’t attempt to slow Bullock down.
“I want to take these people on,” Bullock said. “I want to sue those bastards.”
Attorney Tom Londregan reviewed the petitions signed by the city residents seeking a referendum on the question of whether the NLDC should demolish homes. It was clear that more than enough people had signed the petitions. But Londregan found a different legal defect: timing. The protestors, he determined, should have filed their petitions within fifteen days of the city’s granting the NLDC the power to use eminent domain. The city had made that decision back in January. The time to repeal or put the city council’s decision before the city’s registered voters had passed. Londregan sent the city clerk a two-page memorandum declaring the petition to save the Fort Trumbull homes invalid.
The same day, Scott Sawyer went to court on behalf of the Fort Trumbull Conservancy and secured a temporary restraining order to stop the NLDC from demolishing any more homes. Two days later, a judge lifted the order. The conservancy had no legal grounds to keep the NLDC from demolishing homes that it already owned.
28
PUT A PRETTY FACE ON IT
Late September 2000
The U.S. Coast Guard had been searching for a site on which to erect its national museum. The NLDC figured there was no better place than New London, home to the Coast Guard Academy, perched on 128 acres on the banks of the Thames River, next door to Connecticut College. The NLDC lobbied the coast guard to make its museum part of the large-scale redevelopment plan in Fort Trumbull—specifically on East Street.
After months of discussions, the NLDC put out word that the coast