Pause Off Shore Wind Projects To Ensure Whale Safety

from 2023-02-18 - The Toms River Times

Omarr’s Astrological Forecast

What is killing the whales? There have been at least nine whale deaths along the Jersey shore recently and local politicians and environmentalists feel their deaths are tied to offshore wind projects.

It does seem extremely odd that over the past several months that there have been repeated instances of dead whales washing up on New Jersey’s shoreline in close proximity of nearby offshore wind development. It is also happening at some New York beaches as well. Could it be the cause or just some strange coincidence?

There is a proposal by Congressman Chris Smith backed up by a dozen shore area mayors and some environmental groups to put a pause to such activities until we learn more.

Paul Kanitra, the mayor of Point Pleasant Beach, is among the mayors who have envi-

Remembering

Adriana Kuch

I join our entire community and all of New Jersey in sharing great sorrow for the tragic loss of Adriana Kuch.

In unthinkable moments of grief like these, it’s difficult to convey the words that bring comfort. But as these are the darkest of days for Adriana’s family and friends, it’s important to remember the light that she brought into their world.

From so many accounts of those closest to her, we have learned of her happy and strong personality and her love of all animals and nature, her helping children with special needs, and how she liked jogging with her brothers or walks in the woods.

What was loved about her is already missed about her by those closest to her - and that must always be remembered about her. ronmental concerns about the mysterious string of whale deaths that has left officials and the public speechless.

On average, the Jersey Shore coast and in the tri-state area, there are one, two, or possibly three whale deaths a year but since the offshore wind energy development started conducting sonar testing in December, nine whale deaths occurred.

“That seems a lot more than a coincidence to us,” Kanitra said in an interview on “America’s Newsroom.”

The Biden administration and federal scientists are blaming the deaths on blunt trauma, related to boat strikes but whales use echo sonar location to navigate and it isn’t a stretch to have concerns about the sonar use messing with that ability which might actually be causing the boat strikes.

As Mayor Kanitra and some environmentalists have said, “it’s too much to be a coincidence.”

There is obviously a great deal of rightful anguish and emotion with Adriana’s passing, from her family, friends and within our community at large.

I commend the students who had peacefully protested against harassment, intimidation and bullying in our schools. Working with our police department, we will continue to have a strong presence in our schools, so students, parents and staff have a safe and secure learning environment.

I have spoken to our prosecutor, board members, administrators, teachers, parents and students about this tragic incident. Together, zero-tolerance policies will be implemented, and programs will be launched immediately to address these challenges.

It is critical that as leaders, as administrators, as teachers, as

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Given the usual speed of government, this call for action by Congressman Smith seems right on the mark and prudent in order to act on the side of caution until a full scientific review can be made as to whether there is a connection to offshore wind projects and the deaths of the whales.

It is important get to the truth and as was said constantly during the COVID-19 pandemic, we need to follow the science, so it seems like a smart idea to take a pause for the moment while a scientific based probe into their deaths takes place. Is the sonar work actually the cause? Let’s find out. Doing so may ultimately save whales and other aspects of the environment. Smith’s request to suspend all work on such projects noted a time factor of “until such time that ecological safety can be assured.” I think we can afford to wait until this is done.

Likewise, it is gratifying to see our lawmakers

Letters To The Editor

parents and as a community as a whole, we unify and take this moment and try to learn and understand from it, so we can avoid future tragedies.

Mayor Carmen F. Amato, Jr. Berkeley

Teen’s Suicide Shows A Broken System

Been sitting on my feelings and emotions for several days as emotions have boiled over around me regarding the death of Adriana Kuch.

If you’ve heard the news reports about the 14-year-old who died by suicide after she was attacked at a New Jersey school, and who had been bullied relentlessly - that’s my town. That’s the high school my daughter graduated from.

I don’t need to add my opinions on how the school has handled this, because it was mishandled.

My opinion on why it was mishandled: Because the state’s Harassment, Intimidation and Bullying law is an utter disaster. It does not address what is happening to kids in any meaningful way. It gives school districts cover to say “We followed the law.” That is all it does.

New Jersey’s HIB law tries to quantify bullying as being directed at “a protected class” - weight, LGBTQIA, people of color - and further tries to quantify it based on how the victim reacts. Did a straight A student have their grades plummet? Did they stop coming to school? Did they have to get counseling?

The reality is kids get bullied across a whole spectrum. Did you get a bad haircut? Are you poor? Are you wearing handme-downs and not the expensive Air Jordans? Do you have freckles, a big nose, are you short, are you tall? Are you a boy who loves theater, loves to cook, loves fashion? Are you a girl who loves to hunt, wants to play football, loves activities we ascribe to boys?

I’ve shared my personal experience with being bullied in the past. I was the new kid in a very, very small town in Pennsylvania.

My black, curly hair, contrasted with my more pale Irish skin drew comments from adults who said “it must be a wig,” and kids picked up on it ... I was called “Wiggy” by classmates. School and grades came easily for me, and that only added to the hate and the bullying. My hair was pulled in class. I was pinched. I was kicked and punched and chased regularly on the playground ... and it continued until my dad was picking me up from school one day and the two boys who were the ringleaders tried to physically attack me. That was what forced the school district to address it.

My grades never slipped. I never stopped going to school (even though I wanted to, even when I was miserable).

Under New Jersey’s HIB law, what happened to me would have been brushed away as not a problem.

THAT is a problem. And it is happening in school districts in Trenton address another issue that involves animals. There is legislation addressing animals who are suffering on factory farms. Mother pigs are artificially impregnated and confined to cages - known as gestation crates - that nearly immobilize them. Baby calves used in the veal industry are locked in similar cages, called veal crates. These crates are so small that the animals can’t even turn around. New Jersey could make history in a positive manner though the passage of legislation that would help these abused animals by passing Senate bill S-1298 and Assembly bill A-1970. These bills that deserve our support, would ban the extreme confinement of mother pigs and baby calves in the Garden State.

Bob Vosseller Assistant News Editor

across the state. Reports of bullying incidents are taken in isolation instead of being addressed, and the resulting accumulation of trauma is having disastrous results. You have the bullies attacking - because they believe they can, because they have gotten away with it all along.

For those who are the targets, despondency sets in, because you are completely powerless to stop the bullying - because the HIB law does nothing to force action by the schools to really take action to protect those who are being bullied. There were absolutely failures in what happened at Central and those need to be addressed, but the real issue is rooted in the very fabric of our society.

We have adults who bully others daily. How many videos have we seen of adults getting in people’s faces and screaming at them on the streets and in stores?

How many times do we see truly vile, hateful comments on social media mocking how someone looks, how they dress, what they eat, how they worship. We have an absolute unwillingness to learn about other people, and a knee-jerk nasty response to someone who doesn’t conform to our view of what should be.

The kids see our terrible example and they learn from us. They think it’s OK to just be hateful, to say whatever mean thing comes to mind, because they see adults do it - in the streets, in the stores, and on social media. And we as adults are completely unwilling to look in the mirror and see how the actions we take are teaching our children to continue that culture of meanness.

We have people lying about what social emotional learning is - teaching children that people are different, teaching them to have empathy for others, and teaching them how to handle anger and frustration and disagreements CONSTRUCTIVELY - and trying to strip it from our schools, all while saying hateful, generalized comments about other people every day instead of taking people as individuals and learning about them.

This is what fuels the bullying culture every day.

We need to stop with the “just suck it up, we all went through bullying” mentality because we’ve NORMALIZED abusive behavior.

We have to stop normalizing being hateful and abusive to other people. Period.

We need school districts all across the country to have real policies that address these issues from the start and nip the bullying in the bud -rather than brushing it off as a child being oversensitive, or telling a child they are a tattletale. Parents have to stop with the “my kid would never” because EVERY child is capable of it.

We need to support the kids who stand up for others being bullied, rather than punishing those kids. (Yes, this happens.)

We need real conversations about our society.

No one is willing to have them.

Karen B. Bayville

That’s 58 percent to 42 percent. In that election, Roosevelt, up to that time, had scored the largest victory in presidential history - capturing 42 of the then 48 states.

In 1936, Roosevelt lost to Kansas Governor Alf Landon, 1,536 to 1,214. It was his best year in Dover Township with 44 percent. FDR carried 46 of the 48 states that year.

In 1940, running for an unprecedented third term, Roosevelt lost to Republican businessman Wendell Wilkie 2,017 to 1,150, a 64 to 36 margin. Wilkie won eight states.

In 1944, FDR lost again: 1,814 votes for New York Governor Thomas E. Dewey to the then war-time president’s 1,021, again, 64 to 36 percent. Dewey carried 12 states.

In 1948, President Harry Truman, who had succeeded to the presidency upon Roosevelt’s death, ran for the Democrats and was clobbered by Dewey in the Dover vote, 2,175 to 683. That’s 76 to 24 percent. Dewey also carried New Jersey that year, but lost the election.

Dover Township liked “Ike” - the retired General Dwight D. Eisenhower, who, in 1952 carried the town with 3,238 votes against the Democratic candidate, Illinois Governor Adlai Stevenson, 1,224 votes.

Four years later, Eisenhower, the Republican, again carried the township: 3,938 to 1,489, or 73 to 27 percent. There were nine election districts and Eisenhower carried them all. (Today, there are 63 election districts in Toms River.)

In 1960, Eisenhower’s Vice President, Richard M. Nixon, ran against Massachusetts Senator John F. Kennedy. There were ten election districts and Nixon, the Republican, carried all of them. While Nixon narrowly lost New Jersey, in Dover Township he captured 61 percent of the vote – 4,528 to 2,905 according to Clerk Applegate’s handwritten sheet. The official tally would give Nixon another 180 votes and Kennedy 101, but the final, certified percentage margin stayed the same. The additional votes in the official tally were probably what were then known as “absentee ballots” which were not listed in Applegate’s paper sheet.

Despite the local vote here, Kennedy was elected and with his assassination in 1963, Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson became President. In the 1964 election, it was Johnson against Republican Senator Barry Goldwater of Arizona. President Johnson did something in our town’s history that a Democrat had never done before in the 20th century: he carried Dover Township. The clerk’s tally sheet recorded 6,035 votes for Johnson and 4,302 for Goldwater. The President won 11 of the 12 districts - losing in only one beachfront election district.

As time marched forward, the only other Democrat to carry the township in the 20th century was President Bill Clinton when he ran for re-election in 1996 and by then our election records were no longer maintained in handwritten, paper form. Records not only have informative value, they also have intrinsic value. This means that a document itself, separate from its content, has value too: its physical qualities, its format, and the condition that it’s in. That’s why documents such as the Declaration of Independence, the United States Constitution, and the Bill of Rights are safely secured in temperature and humidity controlled, impenetrable glass cases in the National Archives in Washington, D.C. With this in mind, our presidential election records here in Toms River were preserved in glass casing for future generations.

Bringing History To Life

An old basement, lost records, hard work, and some luck - it all makes presidential history come alive in Toms River! Happy Presidents’ Day!

SOURCES: Dover Township Presidential Election Results 1932-1964; New Jersey Legislative Manual; Wikipedia COMING UP: What else was discovered in the Town Hall basement?

J. Mark Mutter is the retired Clerk of Dover and Toms River Townships. He was elected to the Dover Township Committee for three terms and served as Mayor in 1993 and 2000. He chaired the township’s 225-year anniversary committee in 1992, its 250-year anniversary committee in 2017, and its 200-year anniversary committee of the bi-centennial of the United States Constitution in 1987. He is writing a book on the history of Toms River.

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