Former Skinhead Teaches Students About Life Without Hate

By Stephanie Faughnan OCEAN COUNTY

– because of how many carloads of people were going to see the Power in the Pines show. After waiting five years, waiting even longer due to traffic built up the anticipation.

Saturday’s weather was rainy, which made even more people pile into the event on Sunday. Even though the base opened its gates for the event at 9 a.m., the enthusiastic visitors were already preparing to swarm each one of the three entrances in (Air - See Page 23)

– A former leader of an international hate group is now spreading a different message: how to be compassionate to others and how to break a cycle of anger and violence.

Arno Michaelis was the keynote speaker at a leadership conference at Ocean County College, held in

─Photo by Stephanie Faughnan Arnold Michaelis is a former white supremacist who hopes to inspire kids to be kind and compassionate. (Hate - See Page 5)

Space: Continued From Page 1

of 1 cent per $100,000 of assessed valuation. This brings in about half a million dollars a year, he said.

However, since land is so expensive, most towns borrow money for the purchase and then pay off the debt with the money brought in by taxes.

Amato estimated that about two-thirds of the open space fund goes to debt service.

Since real estate is so expensive in Ocean County, municipalities find that the best way to get more property is to partner with other entities, usually the county.

The Ocean County Natural Lands Trust Fund brings in more than $10 million in funding every year based on a 1.2 cent tax on every property in the county - both residential and commercial. There are also Green Acres funds for keeping things pristine or Blue Acres for waterfront land. These are state programs and usually take a lot more time and paperwork to accomplish.

The town is looking to buy more land, especially if it is in portions of five acres or more, Amato said. In order to purchase land for open space, the town needs a property owner willing to sell and the funding to close the deal.

The mayor said these comments during a presentation of the township’s updated Recreation and Open Space Inventory. This is a map and description of all such land in town. It amounts to more than 1,000 acres acquired since 2012. The properties include beaches and parks, but also woodlands.

Probably the most significant buy was the former pulverizing plant in 2014. Located in the woods beyond Route 9, a developer initially wanted 4,000 homes on 774 acres. Eventually the plan was scaled down to 2,500 homes. Even that would add more than 5,000 cars onto Route 9 and potentially even more children to the school district. The county wound up purchasing this land.

“Route 9 would have been a nightmare,” Amato said. The road can’t even handle the amount of traffic it has now. “As the late Senator (Leonard) Connors used to say, Route 9 used to be a cow

Councilman James Byrnes did some quick math based on how much it costs to educate a child and estimated that this single development would have increased school budgets by $6 million.

He said that when he first heard about towns buying up land, he thought that they would be giving up a ratable – something they can tax for revenue. Now he said he sees that it saves money by having less services needed.

“Let’s make Berkeley more green,” he said. It’s this consideration that shows increasing taxes to buy land will save money on school taxes and municipal taxes, he said.

Recent purchases include Victorian Pines, which would have been 35 homes near the trestle; and Berkeley 9 estates, also known as the WOBM pit, which would have either been 91 houses and a commercial building or 190 apartments.

The open space inventory also includes a handful of lots that used to have single family homes on it before Superstorm Sandy. Because these were considered “repetitive loss” areas that would be destroyed in any significant flood, they were purchased by the county to be open space.

Amato credited Council President John Bacchione for being on the Ocean County Natural Lands Trust Fund Committee and helping select some local purchases to that group. He also thanked County Commissioner Virginia Haines and before her, John Bartlett, for overseeing this.

Referendum

Amato is resigning from the mayor’s seat at the end of this year. He is running for State Senate. The council and the new mayor would take up this charge, and the council members all spoke highly of open space.

In order to change the open space tax, it has to go to a public vote. This will likely be in the general election of November of 2024.

Nearby Toms River has a 1.5 cent open space tax. Twice they asked residents to increase it with referendums, but they voted it down both times. Officials there have said they were surprised that the votes went down considering the public often complains about traffic and over-development. They said that if they had done a better job promoting the increase, it might have changed more minds.

collaboration with the prosecutor’s office and the Cultural Heritage Commission. The mission was to empower students and encourage them to positively impact their communities.

Michaelis is the author of “My Life After Hate” and came to provide some insight into his personal history. The speaker’s past included founding an international white supremacy group, acting as a reverend of a racial holy war, and performing as the lead singer in a hate metal band.

From Wisconsin, Michaelis now speaks to groups as an activist for love and compassion. In a thought-provoking speech, he challenged students to reflect on their role as upstanders or bystanders in society. He said he valued the power of storytelling: the narratives people believe in and share will shape their lives and interactions with the world around them.

Michaelis drew from his own past and shared some of the mistakes he made. He admitted that during his youth, he was not an upstander nor a bystander but rather someone who actively caused problems for himself and others.

However, the former skinhead said he has since dedicated his life to working in the field to counter violent extremism. In doing so, Michaelis said he’d learned a great deal about the often tragic backgrounds that contribute to their radicalization.

Many have experienced childhoods marked by suffering, abuse, and hatred, with some even enduring sexual trauma. He emphasized how such trauma can break a person, leading them to perceive hate as an escape from their pain. He likened the allure of hate to that of a dangerous drug capable of trapping a person in addiction and misery.

Michaelis said his personal story somewhat deviated from the typical narrative associated with former extremists. Despite growing up in a seemingly idyllic household, he revealed that his father’s alcoholism was a significant source of his own suffering. While his father was not a mean drunk, his excessive drinking and prioritization of leisure activities over work put the burden of providing for the family on Michaelis’s mother, who worked tirelessly to make ends meet.

“I grew up watching my mother suffer,” said Michaelis. “I could see how badly she was hurting, and it hurt me.”

However, Michaelis admitted that he distanced himself rather than offering help to his mom. By the time he was in kindergarten, he was already a bully. Michaelis said as he grew a bit older, he got a big kick out of parents and teachers being afraid of him.

By age 14, Michaelis was already drinking alcohol, which intensified his antisocial tendencies, fueling his desire to shock and repulse others. Michaelis admitted to adopting white nationalist ideologies through exposure to white power music, which glorified a distorted worldview centered on hatred towards marginalized communities. The room of approximately 400 students was hushed as Michaelis recounted the allure of using symbols like the swastika to provoke and repulse people.

A society driven by hate and violence inevitably produces evil and violence in return, he said. He highlighted the tragic consequences that befell his friends as a result of their involvement in hate-fueled actions. Michaelis’ closest friend ended up in prison for a shooting incident, while another lost his life in a street fight, both victims of the hate and violence they had embraced.

Michaelis emphasized that casting blame on others not only hindered problem-solving, but also exacerbated issues and increased a continuing cycle of blame. Ultimately, the speaker learned something from co-workers who treated him well despite his actions to them.

“What was most exhausting was when people I claimed to hate treated me with kindness,” said Michaelis. “And that’s really what drove home how wrong I was to be a violent racist.”

During the seven year period he was involved in white supremacy groups, Michaelis said all the hate he professed, mixed with violence and alcohol, caused him to break up with his girlfriend. Michaelis was suddenly a single dad to an 18-month-old baby and decided it was time to stop.

By then it was 1994; Michaelis said he left hate groups and went from being a white power skinhead to a raver in Chica- go. His new friends noticed his swastikas tattoos but were into the party scene and accepted him as he was. He has since covered up the tattoos.

At this point in his life, Michaelis told the students he’s just trying to undo the harm that he’s done. He encouraged them to practice kindness, gratitude and forgiveness.

“It will make you happy,” said Michaelis. “It will also lead people around you to be happy, and it will make you an upstander in the world.”

He was introduced by Dr. Henry Jackson, OCC’s Executive Director of Academic Success.

“Here at OCC, we’re going to make this a tradition to try and get our students to be upstanders,” he said. “And not bystanders.”

Ocean County Prosecutor Bradley Billhimer told the students he hoped the conference would give them a transformative experience shaping their high school years and motivating them to celebrate diversity and treat others with respect.

Billhimer explained his role as the chief law enforcement officer in the county, saying that his office prosecutes between 5,000 and 6,000 cases each year. The prosecutor’s office also investigates criminal cases in conjunction with local police departments.

“We have members of our office that are on pace to speak to over 100 schools this year,” shared Billhimer . “The goal of all that outreach we do is so we don’t see you as a defendant.”

Cable: something that’s going to roll out later and offers a reduction on distribution charges.

Every bill has a charge for the distribution – which is for the power lines – and a different charge for the electricity itself. This is significant because some programs allow you to

Continued From Page 1 buy your electricity from another provider on the grid, and have it delivered by JCP&L’s lines. A 10-megawatt solar farm is being built on the township’s former landfill behind the Public Works building on Pinewald-Keswick Road. This will allow residents to opt in to receiving solar power. The rest would go into the grid. It is expected to save customers money as well as save the town money because the company performing the work will also cap the landfill for free.

Brown, the JCP&L liaison, likely came to the council meeting in response to the Township Council’s resolution opposing a proposed 7.5% rate hike. The State Board of Public Utilities would have to approve the rate request.

The increase would amount to an $8.45 monthly increase for the average residential customer.

The last rate change was in 2020, the company said. Since then, there has been more than $794 million in investments to modernize and strengthen its electric grid. Improvements were made to sense outages and automatically transfer customers to an adjacent circuit. There were also upgrades to company substations in Monmouth, Ocean and Morris counties that provide for additional capacity and redundancy and expansion of a substation to accommodate significant growth in electric demand in Ocean County.

South Toms River Recreation 2023 Farmers’ Market

SOUTH TOMS RIVER – The Borough of South Toms River Recreation 2023 Farmers’ Market is now accepting vendor applications. The market will be held on Thursdays from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. from May 11 to October 26, located on the waterfront: 134 NJ-166 Mathis Plaza.

They are excited to be preparing for the 2023 Borough of South Toms River Recreation Mathis Plaza Farmers’ Market. They hope that your small business will join in creating a thriving market at this excellent location.

What kind of vendors are we looking to partner with?

• Produce

• Flowers/Plants

• Handcrafts

• Baked Goods

• Coffee

Specialty foods and beverages for home consumption

Commercial beverage sampling and local business advertising are welcome. (All health department certification is the responsibility of the vendor.)

Full Season: May 11 to October 27 (24 weeks paid in full before the start of the season) - $550. Payment plans available.

Partial Season (6 weeks or more) - $35 per week to be paid the first of each month. Must submit dates with paid application.

Drop In Vendor - $55 per day on a space available basis.

Request your 2023 vendor application by emailing strrecreationfarmersmarket@gmail.com or filling out this form forms.gle/pYGGaf4un2aNdXBr5.