AIG executives' homes on display during Working Families Party bus tour

[Joanne98]

The grimy white bus belongs to Chieppo Charters, which seemed an apt name as it expelled clouds of diesel exhaust into the pristine environs that are home to the first AIG executive on Saturday's tour.

The "Lifestyles of the Rich and Infamous" AIG tour was a media event staged by the Working Families Party. It started in Hartford with a preliminary stop in scruffy Bridgeport.

A posse of press vehicles then trailed the bus for 20 minutes into Fairfield and a realm of houses that are bigger than any one family could possibly need.

Locals would no doubt have stopped and stared, but there were none in evidence as the bus pulled over at Golden Pond Lane, "Chieppo" in big, black letters on the back, a final belch of noxious black fumes rising up into the perfect blue sky.

The sponsors had found an actual victim of the economic downturn to participate in the next stage of the event. Mark Dziubek, a father of five laid off seven weeks ago from the steel rolling mill where he worked for 19 years, had learned of the AIG bus tour on the Internet.

His misfortune made him media-perfect, and the tour organizers included him among three designated to deliver a letter to the first executive's sprawling, $1.7 million manse.

"This ain't my house," Dziubek joked.

The house belongs to Douglas Poling, the son of Red Poling, retired head of the Ford Motor Co.

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http://www.nydailynews.com/money/2009/03/22/2009-03-22_aig_executives_homes_on_display_during_w.html