New London — The mayor on Monday again asked the City Council to authorize the city to take title to parcels of land on the Fort Trumbull peninsula before the Renaissance City Development Association meets on Sept. 18, but support for his request appears to be tepid.

"It has been nearly a decade since eminent domain was used at Fort Trumbull. It is time for the City to reclaim its own destiny," Mayor Daryl Justin Finizio wrote in an email to the council Monday.

Last week, Finizio told the council he would present it with a resolution that would give him the authority, on behalf of the city, to take from the Renaissance City Development Association control over most parcels of land on the Fort Trumbull peninsula. His email Monday included a resolution to request and accept the titles to those properties.

Finizio said last week he wants the City Council to give him that authority before the RCDA meets next on Sept. 18.

"The November election could change the position held by various state leaders on this matter," Finizio wrote. "In order to effectuate a transfer by the election, if that is the desire of the council and the people of the city, the council should act on this resolution before September 18th."

But city councilors said Monday they don't understand why Finizio is in such a hurry.

"What's the rush? It seems to me to be an arbitrary timeline," Councilor Martin T. Olsen said. "This conversation needs to be fully vetted and explored. When we tend not to do that, mistakes are made. Let's not go into this pell-mell and not be clear or not fully understand the repercussion of whatever decision we make as a group."

City Council President Wade A. Hyslop said Monday he has no plans to call a special council meeting this week to address the mayor's request. The council is not scheduled to meet until Monday, Sept. 15.

Councilor Michael Passero, who chairs the council's Economic Development Committee, said the matter would have to go before his committee before the full council takes any action on it.

"If he believes that this needs to be done (by the 18th) then he needed to get that resolution to the council weeks ago," Passero said. "With such a big issue just the fact finding alone could take a long time, the costs involved are staggering and with an issue like this I can't see rushing it or being forced to make my mind up without being able to do my due diligence."

Councilor Erica Richardson said she thinks the council will "probably not" take up the issue of Fort Trumbull title transfers before the 18th.

"That deadline is pretty quick, and I really want the time to review and completely understand ramifications of doing that," she said. "I do think the city needs to take control and get something done down there, but I don't want to jump in and make things worse."

Finizio wants the RCDA to convey to the city certain parcels not bound by federal Defense Base Closure and Realignment laws. The Naval Undersea Warfare Center was located for many years on federal property on the peninsula.

RCDA Board President Linda Mariani said Monday that the RCDA's Board of Directors is open to discussing the possibility of transferring control over the Fort Trumbull land, and has invited Finizio to attend its meeting on the Sept. 18 to address their concerns about the feasibility and necessity of the transfer.

"We were hoping we'd be able to have an intelligent discussion about it at the meeting when the mayor comes," Mariani said. "If it proves to be a benefit to the city the RCDA doesn't have any need to hold onto this property, we really just want to do what's best for New London."

Mariani said that by having a community development corporation hold title to the properties, the city is shielded from financial and legal liabilities associated with owning real estate.

In his email, Finizio wrote that those arguments are "without weight or merit."

"There will be little change in the position of the city relative to our liability," he wrote. "These arguments are advanced now as the last attempt by NLDC/rcda to remain in power, retaining ultimate control over this land instead of that control being held by the city."

Finizio's email, which is more than 1,700 words long, recounts his personal reaction to the 2005 Kelo v. City of New London Supreme Court case, his view of its local and national implications, and the politics surrounding the issue.

Securing the transfer of the deeds to land in the development area would effectively eliminate the RCDA and fulfill a promise Finizio made as a mayoral candidate. A major part of his 2011 campaign platform was a vow to abolish the New London Development Corp., as the RCDA was formerly known.

"Repeatedly, I stated in that campaign: everyone matters equally. The very existence of NLDC/rcda stands in opposition to that view of equality," Finizio wrote in his email to the City Council on Monday. "NLDC/rcda is a private corporation. Its members are nearly entirely wealthy, conservative and white. You have to pay to join. This organization does not, in the least, reflect the diversity, or the economic demographics, of the vast majority of New Londoners."

Finizio ended his email by urging the council to act so that it may "write a new national narrative for our city."

"I hope the council will act, and act in time," he wrote. "After 16 years of failure and national embarrassment, the time has come to wipe the slate clean and start fresh, with the city and its people in charge of our land and in control of our destiny."

c.young@theday.com

Twitter: @ColinAYoung