{news} Nancy Burton in the Fairfield Minuteman

[David Bedell]

Stripp challenged in battle for 135th district

Fairfield Minuteman, October 14, 2004

by Bill Bittar

Attorney Nancy Burton stood before a map in her Green Party campaign 
headquarters in the Georgetown Business & Professional Center on Redding 
Road Friday afternoon. With a pen, she pointed to the location of the 
Millstone nuclear power plant near New London and to the Indian Point plant 
on the Hudson River in New York State.

"They are terrorist targets," Burton said. "The terrorists who attacked the 
World Trade Center flew right over Indian Point, and it came out in the 
Congressional 9/11 investigation that they had considered Indian Point as a 
target. That would have obliterated the entire New York metropolitan area 
and New England as well."

Burton, of Redding, has been trying to close down both plants since 1999. 
She said the Indian Point nuclear plant is within 30 miles of Easton and 
Redding and within 25 miles of Weston.

The lifelong Democrat recently registered in the Green Party to challenge 
longtime incumbent, Republican John E. Stripp of Weston, as representative 
of Connecticut's 135th District, which covers Easton, Redding and Weston. 
Burton, a public crusader, is running on an environmental platform.

Stripp, 66, who has supported environmental issues, including casting votes 
in favor of the historic Kelda lands and Trout Brook Valley purchases, 
preserving thousands of acres of open space, said he welcomes the challenge.

"It's the American way," Stripp said. "Everyone is entitled to run if they 
so choose and I'm ready to run a vigorous campaign."

Burton, 55, who accused Stripp of ducking her requests for a debate, said, 
"I'm in it to win." But Stripp said the late start of Burton's campaign made 
it harder for a third party to plan a debate.

"We did a meet-and-greet with the League of Women Voters in Weston last 
Sunday," Stripp said, "and I was there and she was there."

Stripp criticized Burton's plan to shut down the nuclear plants. "One of the 
problems is that 46.7 percent of Connecticut's power comes from those two 
nuclear plants," he said. "If we close them down, we'll need more 345 
kilovolt lines running all over the place to get energy."

He added he supports energy conservation, using his vote for the Clean Car 
Act, eliminating sales tax on hybrid vehicle purchases, as an example.

Who's who?

Stripp is vice president of Fairfield County Bank Corp. He has also had 
senior lending and corporate financial positions with commercial banks, 
including Citicorp and several Connecticut banks. The former Weston Board of 
Finance chairman was a House ranking member (Republican leader) on the Banks 
Committee.

Stripp has lived in Weston for over 40 years, and he and his wife Judy have 
two grown children and four grandchildren.

In addition to being an advocate for acquiring open space, Stripp has stood 
for lowering taxes.

Stripp said people should vote for him because of "my experience, my 
knowledge of the legislative process, and my ability to use that knowledge 
to help the 135th district and the people that live there.

"I will continue to fight to protect our ecology and continue the fight to 
mitigate cell phone towers and ensure that the 354 kilovolt power lines 
coming through the district are underground instead of overhead," Stripp 
said.

Burton and her husband William H. Honan, the former culture editor of the 
New York Times, have three grown children. They moved to Redding from New 
York in 1984.

A former court reporter for the Associated Press, Burton has taken on 
nuclear power plants and corruption in the judicial system in her law 
practice. One of her clients was the Green Party, which asked her to be 
their candidate this year.

Among her accomplishments, Burton won a week-long temporary restraining 
order shutting the Millstone Unit 2 nuclear reactor down during the winter 
flounder spawning season. Burton also formed the Connecticut Coalition 
Against Millstone. She said the two nuclear power plants near the district 
could be shut down because they are only needed when there is a shortage, 
adding the Millstone plant does not directly serve Fairfield County at all.

She won a string of victories against high-density zoning developments in 
the state before running into trouble three years ago.

On Nov. 2, 2001, Judge A. William Mottolese issued an order barring Burton 
from practicing law in the state for five years for allegedly misleading a 
group of Monroe residents opposed to a housing plan into signing on as 
plaintiffs in a lawsuit to stop the development. Burton denied the charge, 
adding she has never had a client complaint in her 20 years of practicing 
law.

Burton, who is still licensed to practice law in New York state and on the 
federal level, said she had made enemies by taking on the nuclear power 
industry, and fighting against racial and gender discrimination, as well as 
fighting for the environment.

"The unforgivable act was breaking the taboo against reporting judicial 
misconduct," she said, "and having done that I suffered the ultimate 
retaliation. I was expelled from the club of Connecticut attorneys for five 
years, based on hokey, contrived and malicious attacks meant to silence me 
as a public advocate."

Environmental issues

Burton, whose campaign slogan is "clean air, clean water, clean government," 
said Stripp "consistently votes in favor of big business, big insurance and 
big utilities." If elected, she said she would push to have all legislators' 
votes posted on the Internet.

Stripp said he voted for legislation that required the state's six highest 
polluting power plants - known as the sooty six - to operate with "tougher" 
environmental standards by reducing mercury emissions and other pollutants. 
He also said he worked to ensure that those plants are only used when needed 
as surplus power during peak periods.

Burton believes state legislators, including Stripp, should have clamped 
down on the dirty plants sooner. She accused Stripp of voting against an 
earlier bill to clean up the plants and a bill requiring powerful 345 
kilovolt power lines running through residential areas to be buried 
underground.

"We do about 500 bills a year," Stripp countered. "I have to look at them. I 
did vote to clean up the sooty six. She knows that. I would certainly have 
voted to bury the lines."

Burton also accused Stripp of voting against House Bill 5344, requiring 
nutritious lunches in the state's public schools. Stripp said he voted 
against an earlier version because there were too many unfunded mandates, 
before voting in favor of an improved version that came down from the 
Senate.

"I think the problem is she doesn't have a good grasp of the legislative 
process," Stripp said.

The desk in Burton's campaign office is lined with artificial sunflowers. 
"The sunflower stands for clean, renewable energy and respecting nature and 
the limitations of the plant," she explained.

If re-elected, Stripp promised to focus on indoor air quality problems, 
which he said intensified with reports of mold problems at Samuel Staples 
Elementary School in Easton. "I view it as one of the top priorities in the 
next few years," he said.

The veteran legislator recalled the $6 million state appropriation to 
preserve Trout Brook Valley in Easton and of the $85 million state purchase 
of development rights on pristine acreage owned by the Kelda Group, a water 
company. "I feel that mat's ground that I hold," he said of protecting the 
environment.

As a selectman, Stripp said he had teamed up with then Weston First 
Selectman George C. Guidera in buying the development rights to the Devil's 
Den Nature Preserve. Stripp had also served as chairman of the Weston Land 
Acquisition Committee for two years.


"I would advocate harder," Burton said of land preservation, "and I would 
have more results at the end of the day. I would fight for farmland 
preservation, which is an issue in Easton. I would make it possible for all 
the farms in the district to remain farms forever with a helping hand from 
the state."

Though Stripp said he is strong on environmental issues, he added he also 
believes in offering incentives to attract business to the state. He said 
being "business friendly," and keeping the tax rate down leads to job 
growth.

Improving travel

Stripp said opening up Connecticut's congested highways should be worked on 
in a variety of ways. He said he supported Governor M, Jodi Rell's providing 
funds to buy used rail cars to upgrade Metro North's commuter line as well 
as buying new cars. Last winter, commuters suffered several delays when 
train cars broke down in the snow and some cars did not have heat.


"When the cars on the commuter line are better, more people ..will use it," 
Stripp said. "We have to make it convenient, on- time and reasonably 
comfortable."

These measures would get more cars off of 1-95 and the Merritt Parkway, 
according to. Stripp, who said the Merritt becomes clogged when motorists 
try to avoid the highway. "We're the gateway and choke point for all of New 
England going to Maine, Boston, New York and Providence," he said of 1-95.

Tax advantages could be offered to companies with convenient car pooling 
programs, and the Bridgeport ferry and more buses should be utilized, 
according to Stripp.

In addition to adding more lanes in some places, Stripp said he will 
continue to support the project creating a barge terminal in Bridgeport that 
could free up some 1-95 congestion coming through New Jersey and New York. 
Currently, ships anchor in Port Elizabeth, N.J., and containers on dollies 
are loaded onto trucks enroute to Connecticut, according to Stripp.

Burton attributes the problem to overdevelopment.

"We're going to have increased congestion and choking due to rapid 
overdevelopment," Burton said.

Burton said she had led a moratorium drive in Redding 10 years ago to halt 
new developments until the town zoning commission could enact "appropriate 
restrictions."

"There was support," she said. "But the first selectman would not support 
it. The quality of life in this district will spiral downward as 
overdevelopment occurs. That's bad for our communities and bad for 
business."

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