Warehouses Taking Over Our Towns

foxes, barred owls, geese, deer and the occasional coyote. Our approximately 24-foot wide road isn’t a straight run - there’s a sharp S curve that greatly reduces traffic speed, and several more slight curves, especially near the RR tracks, which currently host an active train run. In the winter, it’s easy to see the NJNG liquified natural gas tank that’s on Rt. 547, and in the summer, overhanging trees form a canopy along the S curve. Water pools and gathers at the eastern end of our road, where it’s not unusual to see ducks and Canadian geese swimming in a field that floods after heavy rains.

Bear Creek runs behind the houses to the NE. It is a water aquifer which runs into the Manasquan Reservoir water system. There are several streams and culverts that run under the road due to the high water table. Essentially, it’s remained rural and minimally inhabited for decades.

Now that you have an idea of what Victory Road is like, this letter is to inform each and every resident of Howell and other towns of the newest warehouse proposal. Maybe you’re not aware, maybe you feel it won’t affect you, maybe you even feel that progress and developments have a right to move forward. There are people who believe “Why bother trying to stop it? They’ll do what they want anyway.” But we can’t live with that defeatist attitude. As much as we may love our little back road, we understand our feelings have little to do with an approval or denial, so let’s forget the sentimentality and present some facts: Our road was built with minimal traffic flow in mind. We are concerned about surface wear when it was paved and graded only for minimal traffic, not trucks weighing thousands of pounds whose routes will inevitably cause damage and necessary repair work (the cost of which will be passed on to all

Howell taxpayers). We are concerned that the heavy machinery, destruction of land and construction of a mega warehouse will have an effect on the NJNG liquified natural gas tank. We are concerned about our property values. We are concerned about the effect that the constant flow of tractor trailers will have on our air quality, noise quality and our overall quality of life. We are concerned about the safety of our children when the school buses stop to pick up students or leave them at their homes. Cars traveling on Rt. 547 will be greatly impacted by trucks attempting to turn from Victory. We all have ground wells as our water supply, so we’re concerned about runoff or debris that will leach into our water. If this proposal is passed, it will force residents to hook up to the municipal water supply, which will incur water and sewer financial hardships. And we are more concerned that our planning board may approve these plans without due consideration to the residents, whose concerns, besides being valid and actual, should be tantamount and come before any developer.

The lawyers and professionals hired by the warehouse developers seem to believe this project will be minimally invasive…at least, that’s the impression we get. Lawyers costing upwards of $10,000 are simply out of our financial reach. But there are several Victory Road residents with prior and personal experience to address some of our concerns: among them is a former tractor trailer driver whose lifelong experience says that no tractor trailer can safely and easily maneuver turning into and off of Victory Road from the proposed site. We also have an engineer who has pointed out the obvious paving issues, which could potentially cost Howell thousands upon thousands of dollars in repairs once the summer heat softens the blacktop and creates damage by the heavy vehicles. We all hear a train that intersects Victory and travels several times a week, which will create traffic issues when trucks have to stop. But mostly, we have residents who love the area, love the country atmosphere and are willing to fight to stop this warehouse from moving forward.

The weather’s turning nice….take a ride down into Burlington County or Rt. 537 near Great Adventure, and see how the Garden State is turning into Warehouse Central. We are so sorry to know of the other approved warehouses such as the ones on Fairfield Road or Randolph Road. Not one resident wanted them! It’s time for the powers that be in Howell take notice and help the residents retain our rurality and quality of life.

Diane Lindstrom Howell

for proposing that the State of New Jersey fund private school transportation.

I believe that with the rise in private schools and the number of students attending them the expense of transpor-

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All letters are printed as space allows unless deemed offensive by the editorial staff, and provided they are signed and include address & phone number for verification. Letters may not be printed if we cannot verify them. Names will not be withheld from publication. While most letters are printed as submitted, we reserve the right to tation will be very costly to not only the Jackson public school district, but will also be a burden on the taxpayers. This archaic state mandate (NJSA18A:39-1) which mandates public school districts must provide transportation for students attending private schools does not take into consideration the number of students attending these schools. A prime example is the consistent failure of the Lakewood public school district budget. The money taken from the public school budget for private school transportation impacts the education of the students attending the public schools and our taxes.

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I suggest that the residents of Jackson Township support Assemblyman Alex Sauicke’s Bill (A4461) that would allow Jackson, Howell, Toms River, Brick and Manchester school districts to form a three-year, nonpublic student transportation pilot program to tackle escalating busing costs with state funds.

I also suggest Jackson Township Town Council and the surrounding town councils (Toms River, Howell, Brick and Manchester) petition the state of N.J. to fully fund transportation and special needs services for private schools. This State funding will not only ease the burden on taxpayers, but may also lower the number of private schools approved and built in each town. The state takes in millions from sports betting and now from taxes on the sale of legal recreational cannabis. This cost of private school transportation should not be the burden of the public school districts and the taxpayers.

Frank Resola

Jackson

Why Build Up Downtown Toms River?

At a recent Township Council meeting, a gentleman said that the public was never given the chance to talk about what they want to see in the downtown area. He is right, because if the public was asked, they definitely would not have said “two big apartment towers.”

The mayor and council made this decision for us.

They think that this will bring new business to the downtown area. But why would that matter to the rest of us? There’s maybe 10 very rich property owners in downtown Toms River that will be made richer by this. That’s the reason the mayor and council is doing this. They want to help their rich friends. It won’t affect the rest of us one bit.

If these huge apartment towers get built, the town’s school district will swell with kids. It will raise our school taxes during a time when the school is losing state aid because of bad decisions in Trenton.

Tell the mayor and council that the millionaires who own downtown Toms River are not more important than the rest of us.

Carly Smith Toms River

world by storm. By January the web app had reached a total of 100 million users, and according to a UBS study, it currently is the fastest-growing consumer app in history. Even though ChatGPT seemingly possesses all sorts of useful features, it also raises questions that are directly intertwined with the school system here in the United States. For example: What can ChatGPT offer to our educational system, and are there any potential positives and negatives that can be encountered?

“There are definitely some potential benefits and some risks with AI,” said Mary Cammarata, the Supervisor for ELA, Social Studies, and Fine & Performing Arts 5-12 from the Barnegat Township School District. “[The] potential benefits include opportunities to save time for both staff and students by creating outlines, and developing distractor answer choices for multiple-choice questions… while risks include students relying on technology to fully write responses and no longer using their critical thinking skills.”

Jim Barbiere, the Director of Curriculum, Instruction, and Human Responses at the Barnegat Township School District, believes that this enormously powerful tool can have staggering potential effects. Though, he adds that just like any other tool, this one will be as effective as the user’s ability to wield it.

“For instance, an AI bot could be used to undermine the student’s writing process if students use the tool to cheat and write their essays for them,” said Barbiere. “Alternatively, it could be used to strengthen the student’s writing process by offering different perspectives or providing text [for students] to then edit and revise themselves.”

Barbiere also believes that ChatGPT has a number of great uses that can be acquired by skilled teachers. He considers that the AI Bot can serve as a tool that can rapidly gather background information on certain topics. Furthermore, he says that teachers can prompt the AI to provide material for a variety of different levels, to differentiate instruction and meet the needs of all students.

“With AI, teachers are only limited by the constraints of their pedagogy and imagination,” said Barbiere.

Critics have said that there should be rules regarding using ChatGPT in schools.

According to Barbiere, technology outpaces the ability to legislate it, so in order to give a better explanation, he chose to use the music industry as an example.

“In the 1980s sampling technology got ahead of copyright law so artists were able to sample copyrighted music for free until laws were written to prevent that,” said Barbiere. “So the lesson is [that] we don’t yet know what rules should be implemented regarding AI, other than the basic ground rules of not using it to cause harm… only after a new technology has become prevalent, only then will its full implication be understood.”

When it comes to a potential ban on the AI Bot in school systems, Cammarata believes that this is an uphill battle. She said that students should learn that this is a useful tool, and that teachers should carry the responsibility to ensure their students understand what it means to be ethical in regard to anything they submit.

As for some of the changes that ChatGPT can cause in the future for educational systems, Cammarata foresees that there will be a shift in the thinking about the type of writing assigned to students. She says that she has told her teachers to stop giving “Google-able” type assignments.

“The field of Social Studies has changed the most in some ways because now students can look up any information they want on their phones or Chromebooks,” said Cammarata. “Now students should learn to be practicing historians.”

She ties in her observations with a quote from “What Is Learned in College History Classes?” by Sam Wineburg, Mark Smith, and Joel Breakstone: “The study of history should be a mind-altering encounter that leaves one forever unable to consider the social world without asking questions about where a claim comes from, who is making it, and how time and place shape human behavior.”