She's unconventional, intelligent, very funny, sometimes outlandish, compassionate in a bullish sort of way and like a pit bull when she commits to a cause.

That's Kathleen Mitchell, the self-identified community organizer who's rattled more than a few cages in New London.

Depending which side of a cause she's on, people will like her or loathe her. But it's not uncommon that even those who have battled Mitchell eventually learn to appreciate her. Either that, or she converts them to her side.

The 66-year-old has dedicated her adult life to correcting perceived injustices, one small cause at a time.

As she once told teenagers who grumbled to her about the myriad of injustices visited upon them by seemingly everyone in the world,

"Life isn't always fair but it doesn't mean you shouldn't try to make a difference anyway."

She says she tries every single day to right a wrong.

"When a situation strikes me as being unfair to someone, I often try to stay uninvolved at first because I know that once I get involved it is going to take up a good deal of my time and energy and, to be fair, my family's time and energy, too, because I usually involve them or they involve themselves."

She's been a force in a number of controversies in New London over the past 30 years and some, like the eminent domain battle in Fort Trumbull, were more public than others. She never owned property there, but vehemently believed the government had no right taking someone else's home or business.

"We may have lost the battle but we won the war," she says, of the 2005 U.S. Supreme Court ruling in the city's favor in the Fort Trumbull fight. The national uproar created over eminent domain was no doubt a victory for opponents, Mitchell says.

Born and raised in the City of Groton, Mitchell ended up in New London decades ago when she took a job as a case manager in the day-care program for the Thames Valley Council for Community Action (TVCCA). About 1990, when TVCCA threatened to close two day-care centers, Mitchell led a successful parent protest to keep the centers operating.

In 1994, she stunned stalwarts on New London's Democratic Town Committee when she led an insurgent slate of candidates and overthrew longtime party-endorsed favorites in the then-3rd District. That coup both won and lost her city supporters. To this day, some Democrats marvel at the political mastery and prowess Mitchell employed; others see her as an annoyance.

But in Mitchell's mind, she's not political in a partisan kind of way. She's not a member of the town committee; and although a registered Democrat, she says she doesn't consider herself a member of the party.

"I vote for what I think is right."

Her heart rules her, she says, and her heart is always tugging her in different ways.

"I argue with God about issues; about what I want to do and think are the right thing. And I often do what I please, but damn if I don't get guilted into what I don't please some of the time," she says.

A cigar-smoking former hairdresser, college-educated, twice divorced mother of four children fathered by three different men, Mitchell has been sober and drug-free for more than 30 years. The self-admitted former philanderer, drinker and prescription pill-popper credits "that anonymous program that I'm not supposed to talk about" for helping to hoist her life back to an upright position.

"Let's face it, I'm outrageous at times. But if I didn't laugh I'd be a wreck over the mess I've made out of my life," she says, sipping her light and sweet coffee on her front porch early one morning, dressed in a purple T-shirt and matching pajama-like pants emblazoned with the donkey-like character Eeyore.

"I can't change the past but I can make amends," she continues. "And I won't be held hostage by all the mistakes with my husbands, my children. If I sulked I would have killed myself a long time ago."

She's clearly comfortable in her own skin. She likes the person she's become and she easily pokes fun at herself — about her disheveled appearance, her crushes, her past sins. She'll bring a basket of candy or loaves of bread to share at public meetings, a way of uniting people, she says.

"It helps level the playing field. It's easier to relate when you can talk to them as neighbors or friends," says Mitchell.

At Goddard College in Vermont, her proposed thesis presentation was "Community Tap Dancing as an Effective Tool in an Urban Setting." She never delivered it, but still believes the idea has merit in resolving community problems.

She's a regular at New London's City Council meetings and usually gets an eye from Mayor Rob Pero when she talks too long during the public comment portion, often carried away on tangents that some observers see as only marginally related to the topic at hand.

Like at a recent council meeting she elucidated councilors, announcing, "I used to be a little hottie," when she was voicing opposition to the Coast Guard's request to purchase a portion of the city's Riverside Park. Her point is that she dated cadets in her younger years. The connection is perfectly clear to Mitchell.

Despite her digressions and occasional outbursts, it's obvious to most people that Mitchell is bright and articulate, especially when she needs to be.

"She's an enigma wrapped in a mystery, as Churchhill said of Stalin," says former New London resident Robert Fromer, who's also prone to fighting the public's battles.

"Kathleen is the people's champion. A very intelligent and intellectual person with afflictions," he says. "Kathleen will hold a conversation with the monkey while the organ grinder is in the room."

But she's as literate as she is quirky. She's a voracious reader and left alone in someone else's car she'll read the vehicle manual or registration to pass the time, though she's happier with a volume of Henry David Thoreau or Martin Luther King Jr.

Her heroes include Lech Walesa, Lenny Skutnik, Rosa Parks and Barack Obama, and she frequently laces conversation with historical references or famous quotations.

She's an unwavering advocate of the underdog who's worked predominantly in the social services and as a community organizer, Web page designer and doing investigative work and research for law enforcement, law offices and other agencies and businesses.

For years she hosted a cable television public access show, "Views From the Edge of the Field," and has started another show this summer.

Most warm mornings she holds court on the front porch of her Pequot Avenue rental, next door to Stash's Café, where friends and family stop by to talk, and strangers who happen by get dragged into the conversations.

There's something about Mitchell that disarms people; makes them open up to her. Some say it's her honesty; but more likely it's her humanity. She'll dish it out, but she takes it, too. And she doesn't like hurting people.

"As abrasive as I can be, as upfront as I can be, it's difficult for me to say things I know are true but at the same time I know will hurt or embarrass someone," she says.

But she says them anyway.

"Life isn't fair but it should be, and those are the causes I go for," she says, explaining how and when she takes sides.

She's fighting to save Riverside Park now, supported deposed high school football coach Jack Cochran last year and is enmeshed in the city's public housing authority tenant squabbles.

Those are just a few of her causes, and she's always open to new ones.

Her strengths, she says, are her people skills, her sense of humor and that she never abandons an issue.

"I won't quit. I don't care if I drive everyone into the ground," Mitchell says.

And that's what opponents say, that a Kathleen Mitchell assault

feels like a pile-driver pounding in.

"If you fire up her passions on an issue she is devoted to, you'd better be prepared for the ensuing conflagration," says City Councilor Michael Passero.

She lives simply, supporting herself with occasional jobs that interest her and with her Social Security and disability payments.

She's not the best housekeeper; and although a good cook, she prefers take-out or to be taken out. Books are her first passion, but the Internet and Facebook also occupy a lot of her time, and so do her children and grandchildren.

"I just feel like I have so many things to do, so many things to finish," she says. "There's just always something new."