Not A Lot Of Good Will From Tina

In December 2010, Tina Dragone was mad as hell. And she wasn’t going to take it anymore.

Goodwill was about to move a few hundred yards down the Post Road — to the old Peppermill site, across from the store Dragone named after herself. It’s “Westport’s premiere (sic) style destination.” (According to the website, anyway.)

She gave the Planning and Zoning Commission a piece of her mind.

She raged about the “32 arrests” at the current Goodwill. She talked about larcenies, shoplifting and stolen handbags. (Goodwill’s attorney replied that there had been 7 police calls that year — some from people locked out of their cars.)

Dragone said that Goodwill hires “ex-convicts.” She pronounced “this kind of element coming into our neighborhood” to be “ludicrous.”

And, she concluded ominously: “We are really afraid.”

Dragone got pilloried by “06880” readers.

But it’s now 2012 — not 2010 — and with the new Goodwill opening to out-the-door lines, I decided to see if the Dragone Lady had softened. I wanted to give her a chance to say, yeah, I just sent over a welcome-to-the-neighborhood fruit basket.

I called yesterday afternoon. I told her who I was, mentioned the “controversy,” and asked what she thought now.

She put me on hold. For 5 minutes. Then she returned.

Click!

Perhaps she hung up on me. Maybe we got cut off? (What you believe probably correlates to whether you think President Obama is a Muslim or Christian.)

I called right back. Someone else answered.

I asked for Tina. The new woman asked if she could help.

I explained again why I was calling.

She didn’t hang up immediately.

Instead, she said, “We’re really busy right now.”

Then she hung up.