{news} Andy Derr quoted in New London Day

[David Bedell]

(See last paragraph)

http://www.theday.com/eng/web/news/re.aspx?re=BD91A803-3909-4B33-8379-AAC3E9552E0E

NLDC Told Top Officials Must Be Fired
Otherwise agency will be dissolved, City Council says

By DAN PEARSON
Day Staff Writer, Education Reporter
& TED MANN

Published on 9/21/2005

New London — Citing an overwhelming lack of trust and confidence in the New 
London Development Corp., the City Council said Tuesday night that it will 
dissolve the agency within a week unless it dismisses its president and 
chief operating officer.

In strongly worded statements, the council also said residents should be 
aware that the NLDC can take no action on behalf of the city unless the 
council approves it.

“Time and time again the leaders of the NLDC, despite assurances to be 
honest, have failed to live up to their promises,” Councilor Beth Sabilia 
said. “Boy, were we mistaken.We were bamboozled. I don't believe the city 
can achieve any peace and progress with the current leadership of the NLDC.”

Members of groups that have opposed the NLDC's use of eminent domain to take 
homes in the Fort Trumbull neighborhood said they took some comfort from the 
council's action. But some said the council's action was “hot air and window 
dressing” because it did not rescind the power of eminent domain.

“They have begun a step in the right direction. But they didn't mention 
eminent domain once, after sitting there for hours listening to people tell 
them to take that off the table,” said Neild Oldham, chairman of the 
Coalition to Save Fort Trumbull. “The action the councilors took tonight 
shows that they have made such a mess they have no idea themselves how to 
get it right.”

After years of frustration with the NLDC's performance, councilors 
unanimously passed a vote of no confidence Tuesday in the NLDC, the city's 
implementing agency for the $73 million Fort Trumbull redevelopment project. 
The council said the NLDC board must remove President Michael Joplin and 
Chief Operating Officer David Goebel and replace them with a leadership team 
“to the council's satisfaction” or the council will dissolve the NLDC.

The action comes after the NLDC failed to meet contract deadlines and to 
include city officials in its operations, particularly a decision this month 
to send eviction notices to property owners without informing state 
officials or councilors of their intent.

Councilor Rob Pero said this “was when the bomb kind of blows up” in his 
mind, because the evictions occurred only two weeks after the NLDC assured 
councilors in writing that it would not undertake any forced removals of 
residents.

Sabilia told a crowd of more than 100 people who attended Tuesday's meeting 
at New London High School that no councilor or city employee had prior 
knowledge that evictions would be sent. She again said Goebel and Joplin 
were “cowboys” acting “recklessly and dangerously.”

After the eviction notices were delivered this month, Gov. M. Jodi Rell said 
she, too, had lost confidence in the NLDC's handling of the redevelopment 
project and called on the NLDC to rescind the notices, which it did. But the 
NLDC Board of Directors did not remove Joplin and Goebel from their 
positions, as some councilors had hoped.

“My faith in the NLDC is non-existent,” Mayor Jane Glover said Tuesday.

Reached Tuesday night after the council vote, Joplin said it is “unfortunate 
that cooler and more rational heads are not prevailing.”

“This seems to be an impassioned decision,” he said, “and those kinds of 
decisions are never healthy for the long-term interests of the city.”

Joplin said that, notwithstanding the comments of some members of Rell's 
administration that she has lost confidence in the agency, he has been 
assured multiple times by state officials that they want him to remain in 
control of the NLDC.

And he added an emphatic defense of Goebel, whom he called “an outstanding 
administrator.”

“If Dave Goebel goes, I'm going with him,” Joplin said. “Because no one 
takes a fall for me. ... The city has made a passionate but an unfortunate 
mistake.”

Rell, who did not send a representative to Tuesday's meeting, has not called 
specifically for Goebel's or Joplin's dismissal. Asked about the dismissals 
earlier Tuesday, she said, “(The council) may want to look at individuals 
within the NLDC,” but “that will be the City Council's decision.”

“In all candor, this has been handled poorly and people are tired of it. 
Let's have a vote of either confidence or no confidence ... and let's get 
past this,” Rell said.

The meeting originally was scheduled for Monday evening at City Hall, but 
was recessed after the fire marshal blocked entrance to the meeting because 
the crowd would have exceeded the room's capacity, which was lowered to 49 
after the city failed to repair a fire escape. City police were called in to 
control the crowd, which prior to the meeting staged a protest of the NLDC 
and its use of eminent domain.

Before Tuesday's council vote, dozens of speakers implored the council to 
take back power from the NLDC and rescind its eminent domain authority.

“Please end the fiasco that has swamped this city and made us an object of 
derision around the country and around the world,” said Andy Derr, a Green 
Party candidate for the council. “We have become the city that takes its 
residents' homes. Let's be the city that refused to do that.”


© The Day Publishing Co., 2005