Councilman Carlos Pomares will leave the Bloomfield council to be a freeholder in January.
BLOOMFIELD, NJ — A strong voice on the township council for preserving Bloomfield history will be departing next month. Carlos Pomares will be resigning as an at-large councilman to become an Essex County freeholder. Pomares won the uncontested District 5 seat in November when incumbent and Bloomfield resident Cynthia Toro chose not to run. District 5 encompasses Bloomfield, Glen Ridge, Montclair, Belleville and Nutley.
During a recent interview at a Broad Street diner, Pomares, a 25-year veteran in nonprofits, said his goal as councilman was to have government listen to, and participate in, the cultural persona of the community — to make culture a dynamic part of the represented.
“Culture and history are things that are often overlooked,” he said. “But they help to define the personality of a community.”
When first elected in 2013, Pomares proposed a Bloomfield/Morris Canal Greenway Commission. It was created by ordinance in 2014. The canal once traversed Bloomfield and the commission hopes to preserve its remnants as a greenway.
But Pomares said he was not the only one responsible for this accomplishment.
“I have a leg up because I do this work professionally,” he said.
Pomares has a master’s degree in museum professions and is the executive director of the Cuban Artists Fund, located in New York. He also serves as an adjunct professor of political science and history at Hudson County Community College.
“I’m very proud of the Morris Canal work, one way or another, working on it with Rich Rockwell,” he said, referencing a member of the commission and a Morris Canal historian.
Another first was the initial Morris Canal wayfinder sign put in place on the day of the interview. It is located near West Street on Newark Avenue. The sign will also have a barcode. Scanned by a cell phone, it will provide information about the Morris Canal. Pedestrians traveling from wayfinder sign to wayfinder sign will also be told how many calories they burned.
“It’s healthy living, too,” Pomares said. “The wayfinder signs are an appreciation of the past but we’re using them in today’s world.”
But historical preservation is not always extensive. nor does it always incorporate high tech. The century-old fireboxes that were removed from Bloomfield streets a few years ago is an example. Pomares helped to preserve a number of them for historical display while others were auctioned off.
“The fireboxes don’t tell the entire story,” he said, “but they do tell one of a bygone era. That wouldn’t happen if we didn’t preserve it. The history of anything asks an endless possibility of questions.”
Another source of pride for Pomares is the Collins House.
This is an early 18th-century dwelling located off Broad Street near Kinder Towers. The area of the homestead was the site of an inclined plane. This was a mechanism that transported canal boats overland, on rails, between higher and lower elevations. The operators of the inclined plane lived in the Collins House as once did carpenters who had worked on the canal. The house, when Pomares was first elected, was near-collapse and home to many abandoned cats. Its structure is currently being reinforced and repaired. Its proposed use is as a museum and community center.
“The preservation of the Collins House transcended politics,” Pomares said. “It’s important to realize we took it from the brink of extinction and brought it back to life.”
He said there was always interest in the township for the canal; what he provided was leadership and coordination at the council level. He has worked closely with the Bloomfield Department of Recreation on finding resources for the greenway. One effort has yielded the creation of a Morris Canal pocket park off Oak Tree Lane. This was done with the help of Boy Scouts.
“The greenway as a whole is under the recreation department,” Pomares said. “The department has taken on an expanded responsibility in the arts and culture. The goal has never been for me to carry this.”
His departure for the freeholder position, he said, will be bittersweet.
“But on the council, there are colleagues committed to working on the Morris Canal Greenway,” he said. “I was the arts and culture guy and no one felt threatened by that. I leave behind a very cooperative council.”
That cooperation, he said, gives him a sense of security that Bloomfield history will not be overlooked.
Pomares said there were two things he always asked himself as an elected official: would his actions make his parents ashamed or proud of him; and would his children look back, 20 years from now, and say their father did the right thing.
“If you make the tough calls, even if they are unpopular, history has a way of validating your actions,” he said.
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