It was Susette Kelo who first made pink the color of protest in New London, painting her beloved house to protest the government’s taking it away from her by eminent domain, for a project that never happened.

The home snatchers, the government establishment, finally prevailed in U.S. Supreme Court, but lost big time in the court of public opinion. Who today thinks taking Kelo’s home was right or just?

Kelo pink paint got splashed on the doors of the state Capitol last week, as Kevin Blacker, who has made righting the wrongs of corruption at State Pier a personal crusade, took New London’s protest palette to Hartford.

Blacker is frustrated. And why not? I think he is as justified in his protests as Kelo.

The Connecticut Port Authority is a stew pot of corruption, and its signature project, the remaking of State Pier, is an embarrassment that the establishment run by Democrats, the governor and the lawmakers who control the Capitol which Blacker vandalized, keeps trying to sweep under the rug.

When I caught up with Blacker by phone Wednesday, after his night in jail, he noted that corruption at State Pier, like his vandalism ― he wore a yellow vest to be sure and stand out ― are out in the open.

Blacker will face the music for his.

Those who have profited off the port authority, from the petty, hiring family and friends and taking improper gifts and perks, to the grand, closing down marine commerce in New London to benefit your own competing port, so far have not.

Indeed, with the recent news that the competing port of New Haven is supporting a new job-rich housing manufacturing sector, lost to the port of New London, which is now closed to traditional commerce, Kelo’s protest pink seems especially appropriate.

Kelo lost her house. New London has lost the ability to use its deep water port for traditional commerce, no longer able to import raw material and use its excellent rail connections for manufacturing synergy.

They busted the longshoreman’s union in New London, to benefit the non-union port of New Haven.

The politically connected in New Haven have stolen marine commerce from New London.

Pink house. Pink pier.

Blacker, as I am, is also frustrated that the politicians who run the state are letting the governor get away with a giant scam, continuing to build out the pier with its spiraling and excessive cost overruns while refusing to tell the public how much they are spending.

Does anyone believe they don’t know how much it is costing? Honestly?

It’s an embarrassment for every single lawmaker in Hartford behind those pink doors that Connecticut is bleeding money out of the pier project in the tens of millions of dollars and won’t explain how much is being spent and what’s going on.

It’s been months since Gov. Lamont said the utilities who will use the pier would be asked to contribute to the overruns. Clearly they said no.

And maybe we shouldn’t blame them, since the feds have been investigating all that spending, with the suggestion it was part of the port authority’s culture of corruption.

Lamont promised the utilities to cover the overruns and then put in charge a guy later targeted in federal criminal subpoenas, with the governor saying he had the utmost confidence in him.

Should the utilities pay for that colossal misjudgment?

I don’t see anything self serving in the protests by Blacker, who seems to me to be genuinely outraged by the way the establishment has robbed New London of its pier, not unlike the way they once took Kelo’s home from her.

I’m sorry he couldn’t have painted the dome of the Capitol pink.

This is the opinion of David Collins.

d.collins@theday.com