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September 22, 2005
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.”
Posted by lumi at September 22, 2005 09:19 AM