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| Affiliation | Republican |
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2000-01-01 |
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| Name | John E. Stripp |
| Address |
Weston, Connecticut , United States |
| Email | None |
| Website | None |
| Born |
August 10, 1938
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| Died | August 07, 2020
(81 years)
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| Contributor | Joshua L. |
| Last Modifed | Mr. Matt
Dec 26, 2021 09:22pm |
| Tags |
Married - Air Force - Congregationalist -
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| Info | State Representative John E. Stripp takes pride in his accomplishments on behalf of his district and in his efforts to enact legislation that protects the environment and encourage economic growth and job creation.
Rep. Stripp?s record of achievement as House Ranking Member (Republican Leader) on the General Assembly?s Banks Committee and his demonstrated leadership abilities led House Minority Leader Robert M. Ward, R-Northford, to appoint him as an Assistant House Minority Leader for the 2003 - 04 legislative sessions.
As an assistant leader, Rep. Stripp helps shape House Republican legislative initiatives; helps organize rank and file members of the House Republican caucus; helps ensure good communication between the House Republican leadership and the members; helps keep the leadership abreast of the concerns and legislative goals of individual caucus members; and helps familiarize new members with House rules and procedures.
Rep. Stripp also serves as the House Ranking Member on the Labor and Public Employees Committee. He is a member of the Appropriations and Banks committees. Rep. Stripp formerly served on the Commerce and Transportation committees.
During the 2002 General Assembly session, Representative Stripp cosponsored a law that established moratoriums on final approval of proposals to build overland electric transmission lines from Bethel to Norwalk and energy and telecommunications lines under the Long Island Sound seabed between Connecticut and Long Island.
The law required an independent panel to review the Bethel to Norwalk overhead power line project and prohibited state agencies from rendering a final decision on it until after the working group completes a study of the proposal and issues its report and recommendations.
The state Bond Commission approved funding in the amount of $80 million to be used to help purchase about 14,496 acres of the Kelda Group?s watershed lands, including 5,521 acres in Easton; 576 acres in Weston; 2,536 acres in Redding; and 642 acres in Newtown.
The Kelda land acquisition is the culmination of years of work by groups (such as The Nature Conservancy), individuals and legislators committed to preserving Connecticut?s rural heritage as a legacy for future generations.
Open Space grants awarded to Redding and The Nature Conservancy in 2002 made possible the acquisition and preservation of two valuable parcels. The grants included $797,966 to purchase the 116.83-acre Granskog Property and $427,500 to acquire the 58.6-acre Edwards Property.
An act cosponsored by Representative Stripp gives the Easton and Redding school districts the option of choosing on-site wastewater pretreatment systems when they renovate or expand existing schools or build new ones.
Representative Stripp, working with Governor Rowland and the Office of Policy and Management, helped secure state grants and funding for Easton, Weston and Redding during his 2001-02 term, including:
$500,000 to help pay for improvements to a school and community artificial turf athletic field in Weston.
$500,000 to enable Redding to implement its Streetscape Enhancement and Traffic Plan for Central Georgetown.
$200,000 to help pay for construction of a new community center in Easton.
$35,000 to help pay for a multi-purpose athletic field in Easton.
A $287,500 state Natural Heritage, Open Space and Watershed Land Acquisition Grant awarded to Wildlife In Crisis, Inc. in Weston to defray the cost of purchasing two parcels of land totaling 4.3 acres to be preserved as open space.
State funding in the amount of $263.405 to finance designs for renovations and improvements to the Israel Putnam Memorial State Park in Redding.
State Library grants for Redding and Weston to help pay for the preservation of historic documents stored at their town halls. Each town received a grant amounting to $2,500.
State funding totaling $16.9 million for four Weston school projects, including: $7,674.081 for alteration and addition and roof replacement projects at Weston High School; $5,014,027 for a new intermediate school; $2,175,732 for alteration and addition and roof replacement work at the Hurlbutt School; and $2,053,500 for alteration and addition and roof replacement projects at the middle school.
During the 2002 legislative session, Representative Stripp supported a new law that established terrorism as a crime in Connecticut. It also created the crimes of contaminating a public water or food supply and damaging public transportation property for terrorist purposes. It also defined fabricating weapons involving chemicals, disease organisms or radiation as terrorist crimes.
All school boards are required to develop policies addressing bullying and ensuring that time is made available during each school day for students to recite the Pledge of Allegiance, under a new law Representative Stripp cosponsored. However, the act does not require individuals to recite the pledge.
School bus drivers are prohibited from idling bus engines for more than three minutes when the bus is stopped (except in certain situations) under a new law Representative Stripp supported. Students? exposure to harmful school bus exhaust fumes has been significantly reduced as a result of this law.
Representative Stripp also cosponsored or supported several new laws that help veterans during the 2001-02 legislative sessions.
One of them requires that military discharge documents filed by veterans with public agencies be kept separate from their other records and remain confidential for 75 years. The act also allows municipalities to increase their optional property tax assessment reduction for low-income wartime veterans and their surviving spouses.
Another adds veterans who served in time of war and received service-connected traumatic brain injuries to the list of individuals eligible to register their vehicles without paying a fee. TBI-afflicted veterans also will receive free special license plates and identification cards.
Also in 2002, Representative Stripp cosponsored an act exempting surviving spouses and children of Connecticut residents killed in the 9/11 terrorist attacks from having to pay tuition at state institutions of higher education. They also were exempted from having to pay state income tax for the 2001 tax year. The law also designated September 11th as ?Remembrance Day? to memorialize those killed in the attacks.
During the 2000 General Assembly session, Representative Stripp supported a new law that established a Charter Oak Open Space Trust Account within the General Fund to pay for two open space acquisition programs ? the Charter Oak Open Space Trust Account and the Charter Oak State Parks and Forest Account.
In 1999, Representative Stripp took part in a ceremony marking the transfer of the 758-acre Trout Brook Valley parcel from the Bridgeport Hydraulic Co. to the Aspetuck Land Trust, Weston and the Department of Environmental Protection. A significant share of the funding that enabled the parcel to be preserved came in the form of a $6 million open space grant from the DEP. The funding was made available under the 1998 Open Space Act, which Representative Stripp co-sponsored. Trout Brook Valley abuts existing open space parcels owned by the Aspetuck Land Trust and is now an integral part of the largest contiguous ecosystem in Fairfield County, which includes Devil?s Den.
As the House Ranking Member (Republican Leader) on the Banks Committee, Representative Stripp co-sponsored and helped draft a 1998 law to encourage out-of-state financial institutions involved in national and international trade and investment activities to move to Connecticut. The legislation has helped create many new jobs and further strengthened Connecticut?s economy.
Representative Stripp supported several economic development initiatives during the 1999 and 2000 legislative sessions. They included:
An act allowing the state Department of Economic and Community Development to assist businesses in developing the expertise they need to begin exporting to foreign markets.
An act that created a high-technology infrastructure fund within the Connecticut Development Authority to provide financial assistance to companies for information technology projects.
A law that extended state-reimbursed property tax abatements and corporate business tax credits to firms that supply goods and services for telecommunications, communications, and computer hardware, software, or networking. To qualify for the tax benefits, companies must build new facilities and create jobs.
An act that provides sales tax exemptions for the services businesses obtain to calibrate machinery and to meet quality assurance standards.
Representative Stripp has always supported tax relief for Connecticut?s overburdened taxpayers. In 1999 and 2000, he supported several tax cuts that became law. Among them were:
An increase to $500 in the property tax credit residents can take against their state income tax liability.
Elimination of the Gross Receipts Tax on hospitals, which provides badly-needed tax relief to Connecticut hospitals.
A measure that eliminated all state income tax on Social Security income for joint filers with adjusted gross incomes of less than $60,000 and for single filers with adjusted gross incomes of less than $50,000.
A seven-cent cut in the gasoline tax.
A sales tax free week in August when clothing costing less than $300 per item is exempt from the six percent state sales tax.
Representative Stripp also has supported budgets that reduced taxes on individuals, families and businesses, including the phase-out of the inheritance tax, an earlier seven-cent per gallon cut in the gasoline tax; and a $487 million reduction in state income tax rates. Tax cuts helped pull Connecticut out of the prolonged recession of the early 1990?s and played a significant part in the unparalleled economic growth the state enjoyed for the second half of the 1990?s. The corporation business tax cut, which reduced the tax from 11.25 percent to 7.25 percent by 2000, has been widely praised for improving the state?s business climate, encouraging economic growth and creating new jobs.
In 1999, Representative Stripp strongly supported a law that promotes academic excellence in our public schools. Among other things, the law requires school boards to review and revise promotion policies to foster student achievement, reduce social promotion and help failing pupils.
Representative Stripp also co-sponsored the 1998 early reading success law, which targets K-3 students reading below grade level for intensive instruction. Those new laws, as well as other education initiatives Representative Stripp has supported, have gone a long way toward meeting the demands of Connecticut?s employers for a well-educated and skilled work force.
During the 2000 legislative session, funding for school construction projects in several 135th District towns was secured. The grants included:
$7,582,637 for an extension-alteration project at the Joel Barlow High School in Redding.
$3,342,564 for an extension-alteration project at the Helen Keller Middle School and $859,615 for an extension-alteration project and to correct code violations at the Samuel Staples Elementary School, both in Easton.
State spending growth has decreased significantly since Governor William A. O?Neill?s last term (1987-90), when spending growth averaged 7 percent over four years, adjusted for inflation. By comparison, under Governor Rowland, spending growth has averaged 2.4 percent, adjusted for inflation, since he took office eight years ago.
Representative Stripp was first elected to the House of Representatives in 1992. He was re-elected in 1994, 1996, 1998, 2000 and 2002.
Representative Stripp received his B.S. degree in Engineering from Pratt Institute and earned his M.S. in Management from Columbia University. He also completed the Senior Bank Executive Program at Harvard University.
During his business career, Representative Stripp has served as a manufacturing executive with A.M.F, Condec Corporation and Branson Ultra Sonic. The last of these positions was General Manager of Branson's Automation Division.
More recently, Representative Stripp has had Senior Lending and Corporate Financial positions with commercial banks, including Citicorp and several Connecticut banks.
Representative Stripp is a vice president of the Bank of Westport.
Active in local and civic organizations, Representative Stripp served from 1983-1992 on the Weston Board of Selectmen. He was a member of the Weston Board of Finance from 1973-1981, completing his service on the panel as chairman. He also chaired the Weston Land Acquisition Committee from 1987-1989.
Representative Stripp was a member and former chairman of the Weston Republican Town Committee. He was vice chairman of Weston's Ethics Committee, the body that drafted an Ethics Policy for the Town of Weston.
He and his wife Judy have two grown children, Dianne and Jeffrey, as well as four grandchildren.
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