Victory for Victory: How Betty Lou Velez-Gimbel Won the Fight Against Victory Road’s Warehouse Application
Photo by Betty Lou Velez-Gimbel / Facebook.
Two years ago, tucked away on her down-home farm on Victory Road, Betty Lou Velez-Gimbel received a letter in the mail that would change her life forever. It was that of a proposal for a warehouse application; a warehouse that would be placed on her road, by her home and farm. The letter’s contents wrote ‘warehouse’, but what Velez-Gimbel imagined was a reality of much more. She saw a future of trucks and noise and pollution, uprooting the current peaceful and intimate life she has on her farm. She immediately went into action, printing out copies and handing them out to her neighbors, in a small effort that would inevitably lead to something much, much, bigger: a denial of the application from Howell Township’s Planning Board, the founding of the organization Howell Farmers United, and the decision of Velez-Gimbel to run for Howell council as an Independent.
The looming threat of warehouse applications is not new to Howell. In early 2023, Howell’s Planning Board approved warehouse applications that would be split among Fairfield and Howell Road in North Howell, despite major pushback from Howell citizens. Its result? A dispirited town, whose grasp on trust in our local government has become slicker and slicker by the day.
When Velez-Gimbel began her battle against the application, she was met with that same pessimism. “When I first started and I was going door-to-door to talk to people, they were already defeated and they said, ‘I don’t know why you’re going to bother fighting because the town does whatever it wants anyway.’” This crushed her. She was crushed that they even felt that way. “That you felt that before fighting that you were just going to give up…to me, that’s not the American way.”
The American way, to Velez-Gimbel, is fighting back – but not without a lot of help. She began by mobilizing her neighbors, citizens of Victory road, along with friends and family for the battle. Their conference rooms were each other’s houses, Velez-Gimbel describing meetings that were serious and involved easels for research displays and meetings that were unserious and involved potlucks. Both, in this case, were crucial. According to Velez-Gimbel, the effort was not only strenuous financially and temporally, but emotionally as well. “We just sat and we just talked about how we were feeling,” she remembered, “you know, the stress, and the sleepless nights, and the waking up in the middle of the night.” In this grassroots effort, everybody was there for eachother, constantly communicating in person and through both email and text threads. “We all became family and we worked together.”
Velez-Gimbel also highlighted the different talents her neighbors carried that really spun the movement further. One of her neighbors works in estate sales; she was able to expertly price items for a yard sale they did in an attempt to raise money. One of her neighbors is a chef; she was able to manage and cater the food of various fundraising events. When I spoke to Betty, on her quiet and cherished Squankum Brook Farm, her description of this community effort brought her close to tears. “Sorry, I get a little emotional,” she said. “But honestly, even though this was so hard on us all…what came out of it was so beautiful.”
When the verdict finally came in on September 19th that the application was unanimously denied by the Howell Township Planning Board, Betty Velez-Gimbel and those who were a part of the fight felt an astonishing sense of relief. “It was a moment to breathe. It was surreal.” She described the feeling as one that is similar to collapsing from both excitement and exhaustion, and one of immense reassurance that all of their hard work really did pay off. Velez-Gimbel did note, though, that it simultaneously felt even too good to be true. “Is it real? Did it really happen? It’s been such a long, hard, fight, and a lot of emotions. I think we’re kind of exhausted.”
What came from the fight against the warehouse application is so much more than just the result of the Planning Board decision. Now, Betty Velez-Gimbel is the organizer of Howell Farmers United, an open forum that gives Howell farmers the opportunity to support each other. She is also the Independent candidate for council. They all lead back to that one letter that she opened two years ago. Before then, she would never have believed herself to be a candidate for a leadership position of this stature or to have achieved such a victory for our town. “I never thought about getting into politics ever…I stepped up because there was a need. I was needed. A work ethic was needed. Someone who believes in this town and believes in community.” If her efforts have taught us anything, it is that if her potential role as councilwoman is to be materialized, then Howell is sure to be in good hands.
You can read more about Betty Lou Velez-Gimbel’s campaign on her Facebook page, https://www.facebook.com/BVG4Council2024.
