Toms River Council Election 2023: Michele Williams

TOMS RIVER, NJ — Election Day 2023 is near, and Toms River voters will be going to the polls to cast their ballots for candidates at the local, county and state levels.

In Toms River, there are eight candidates for the three available four-year terms on the Township Council.

Patch sent a questionnaire to all eight candidates seeking their responses. Here are the replies from Michele Williams.

Your Name: Michele Williams

Age (as of Election Day): 75

Campaign Website: None

Party Affiliation: Democratic

Family: I’ve been married to my husband Kevin for 41 years and we have two children. Allison, living in Manalapan, with her husband, Michael, and our grandchildren, Ethan and Mackenzie. Kevin resides in Cranford, with his wife, Natalie, and our grandchildren Charlotte and Miles. After many summers spent in Shelter Cove, our family permanently moved to Toms River in 1989 from Jersey City. My husband, Kevin, is a retired West New York police sergeant where he also served as PBA president for many years. He recently retired as a permanent part-time investigator for the Ocean County Health Department.

Does anyone in your family work in politics or government? This includes any relatives who work in the government you're running for. No

Education: Bachelor's in elementary education, Jersey City State College; Master's in educational leadership, administration and supervision, Seton Hall University; master's in theological, liturgical and pastoral studies, LaSalle University; NJ Teacher Certification, all subjects, K-8; NJ Certification, Principal and Supervisor.

Occupation: Retired Principal, St. Joseph Grade School, Toms River, 2003-2017; Principal, St. Aloysius Elementary School, 1999-2003; Director of Religious Education, St. Justin the Martyr Church, 1992-1999

Previous or current elected or appointed office:

I am currently a Toms River Regional Schools Board member in my 6th year, second term, having been elected in 2017 and again in 2020. In 2019, we conducted many town hall meetings and thus gaining the trust of our voters, the $147 million referendum was passed, so today and into the future Toms River students will enjoy a modernized environment and infrastructure.

In both terms, I ran on a platform to increase social emotional learning and increase the presence of school counselors. SEL programs have increased each year and in 2022, a school counselor is in residence in each of our twelve elementary schools and that still holds true today.

In five of my six years on the board, I chaired the Insurance and Benefits Committee. I also represented our board at the county and state level as delegate. Additionally, I have achieved the designation of being a New Jersey Schools Board Association Certified Board Member. My term expires Dec. 31, 2023.

Why are you seeking elective office?

I believe I have the educational background, leadership, supervisory, administrative experiences, and skills required to move our township forward. I have lived a life of service beginning in my high school years at St. Dominic Academy, Jersey City, tutoring children in the projects. I still have that desire and passion to serve, determined to build capacity, problem solve, foster communication and trust in our township government. We deserve leadership that is responsive to the needs of our community and strategic in its planning. I bring these skills to the table. In the 2024-2025 school year Toms River Regional Schools will face a fiscal cliff in our schools’ budget. With 6 years living this concern I will bring an urgency to the council that no other council candidate can. We need leadership that is creative, thinks outside of the box, can bring people together and get things done as we did in the passing of the Schools Referendum in 2019.

As principal, I developed a budget and lived within it. My community consisted of more than 50 teachers and support staff, whom I hired and supervised; my parents and my students, who numbered over 900 at one point. We achieved many innovations to St. Joseph Grade School, demonstrating my ability to be fiscally sound yet prepare for the future. I had no local tax dollars to accomplish this, only tuition, parish support, and creative alternate sources of revenue! I include a few of these innovations to demonstrate attention to infrastructure as well as education: air-conditioned 2 school buildings & installed ceiling fans in all classrooms; keyless entries on all exit doors; master key project; computerized phone system; complete wireless connectivity; smartboards in all classrooms; construction of a fully equipped STEM lab; performing arts curriculum, band grades 6-8, dance grade 6, declamation/speech grade 7, drama grade 8; full-time school counselor; social emotional learning embedded into the weekly curriculum; iPad carts each containing 30 iPads throughout the school for primary use; BYO iPads program, grades 6-8, and all teachers issued an iPad and laptop.

Drawing more activity to the downtown area has been a topic for years. The proposed downtown development on the former Red Carpet Inn property was unpopular. What would you propose to bring more activity to the downtown area?

Downtown Toms River, the Business Improvement District was established in 2002 to begin this process to promote and implement the economic revitalization of the Downtown Toms River. Twenty years later progress has been made with the Downtown Shops @53 Main and the many events and activities that bring our community together throughout the year. I would love to see the expansion of the Shops @ Main much like one I visited in Kansas City, Missouri, called Made in Kansas City. It houses many artists of all mediums, clothing, art, jewelry, food, etc., as the title suggests, all made in Kansas City. It is a must stop for all tourists. I believe this is starting to come together with the TRAC, the Toms River Artist Community, occupying the Wells Fargo building.
In addition, small shops, antiques, boutiques, eateries keeping with the historic look of downtown would draw people to the area. We can begin this by incentivizing merchants to this location with permit discounts in the construction phase. While in support of a vibrant downtown, we cannot neglect the rest of our township where vacant storefronts fill many strip malls. We need to grow our local economy townwide, promoting small business growth and big brand stores that go elsewhere.

Downtown traffic has been a source of complaints for years. There was a proposal for a downtown loop and Toms River was awarded a $5.6 million grant for the project, which the New Jersey Highway Authority has proposed tying into for a Garden State Parkway project. What would you propose to address downtown traffic issues?

The $5.6 million grant was awarded to Toms River in 2018. In the past 5-plus years a lot has happened, and a lot hasn’t happened. The complete Parkway project will not begin until 2025 and it will be in process for 4/5 years. A new mayor and 3 council members will be installed in 2024. I believe it is prudent to revisit the grant issue with up-to-date community input and expert traffic guidance.

The state Department of Education has contended that Toms River is not paying its fair share of property taxes to support its schools and that has been a critical piece of the school funding cuts the district has faced.

The residents of Toms River cannot afford to pay more taxes! Allow me to backtrack with a bit of history. Funding the state share of SFRA, School Funding Reform Act, 2008, set out how the state would fund its portion of the schools’ adequacy budget. Several districts, such as ours, were held harmless and no cuts were made. However, in 2018, a controversial law, S2, was passed that modified how the state allocated funding for each district and began implementing cuts so that districts paying more than the local share, as calculated by SFRA and modified by S2, began receiving additional funds while others, not meeting the local share as calculated by SFRA and modified by S2, like Toms River, began receiving less. In this formula, S2 determines the LFS, local fair share, based on property values and wealth calculation. This has skewed the numbers for Toms River and about 100 other communities. Yes, some property values are high, such as water properties, but most aren’t and most of our residents are not wealthy.

Our state legislators representing our district must do a better job in advocating for our children, the same must also be said for our local municipal leadership. Former councilman Terrance Turnbach was instrumental in obtaining additional state funding for our schools. As councilwoman-at-large, I would strive to follow his example. In my current role as a member of the Toms River Board of Education, I have heard state leaders defer to municipal leaders over school board members time and again during legislative hearings when school funding is discussed. As councilwoman-at-large, I intend to take an active role in those discussions.