Twenty-eight years ago, Mayor Tish Colombi was a 40-year-old homemaker with an interest in the goings on of Haddonfield.
Now, as she nears her 68th birthday, she is preparing for her retirement from local government, 12 years after being elected mayor to the non-partisan commission and seven campaigns under her belt.
While she is healthy and active in the borough, Colombi has decided it is time to move on from her post and spend more time with her close-knit family.
Her legacy, she hopes, will be that she was the first woman ever elected to the commission.
“I just think having had a woman involved in decisions in our town is a better form of government,” Colombi said, sitting in the meeting room of Borough Hall. “I’m hopeful that that will be the legacy I leave.”
Through the years, Colombi has been able to make being a commissioner her full-time career.
“I had the time,” she said. “I could be here on Wednesdays.”
Hundreds upon hundreds of residents have visited with her, having questions answered, finding ways to get involved in the community and to talk privately.
When people contact her, she said, she knows they need her help with something.
That personal governance in a small town like Haddonfield, she said, is essential.
The beginnings
Born and raised in Texas, Colombi met her husband, Dan, while he was stationed in her home state during the Vietnam War.
After a few moves, the couple moved back to the Philadelphia area, where Dan, a now retired OB-GYN, had grown up.
Her husband’s partner urged them to move and raise their family in Haddonfield.
“We were so lucky to get that advice,” the mother of five and grandmother of eight, said.
“Life is perfect.”
Her beginnings in the government originated from plans of a composting facility.
Residents were stirred up, she said, from plans for Haddonfield sewage to be sent into Camden.
She began attending public meetings and realized her interest in being involved.
At one point, a resident asked if she wanted to run for commissioner.
“I had no idea what that even was,” she said, but thought it would be an interesting experience. “It was a huge learning curve.”
Colombi realized the biggest issue standing in her way was no one having a clue who she was in the community, and she sought to change that.
Namely, by knocking on every single door in the borough to introduce herself.
“And prayed nobody was home!” she laughed.
“I did that because I knew that if I was going to put the time into running, you have to have a plan,” she said.
In all, it took her roughly six weeks to reach every home.
“It was wonderful because I learned about my community,” she said.
And people reacted well.
“Whatever I did connected with people,” she said. “They felt I was filling a void that may have been there, and I have won every election since.”
Town and personal changes
As Quakers founded Haddonfield, a solemn service was recently held at the Friends Meeting House, and Colombi was in attendance.
“I’ve always been fascinated,” she said. “It was such a perfect start to this 300th celebration.”
Haddonfield, she said, is a community of goodness, with an underlying sense of respect and caring.
“I just think we owe so much to that really strong foundation,” she said. “I hope Elizabeth Haddon, who started this community and brought the Quaker beliefs to this place, would be able to come here and say, ‘Good job.’”
The town doesn’t change much, she said, which makes it so appealing.
“Change? I wouldn’t change a thing,” Colombi said.
“They buy into this good place,” she said of residents. “It is knowing that it will be the same.”
“I am so proud to have been part of it,” she said. “Twenty-eight years is, I think, a long time of being a part of the decision making.”
Colombi plans to stay active in the borough.
“I don’t think my life is going to change much at all,” she said.
She made her announcement at the annual Mayor’s Breakfast in January.
“I’m also looking forward to sitting with you in the audience next year, wishing that the speeches were shorter and waiting expectantly for the announcement of the name of the Citizen of the Year,” she said in her speech.
Referendum thoughts
On Jan. 22, Haddonfield voters narrowly defeated a $12.5 million bond referendum to purchase the Bancroft property on Kings Highway adjacent to the high school.
Colombi had been strongly in favor of the purchase.
“I’m very disappointed that the vote came out the way it did. I accept it,” she said. “I feel like there are some things in town that have been going on for years. The library is one of them.”
Colombi hears complaints that the borough spends too much money on lawyers and planners.
“I don’t know how else you get to the part where you can make a decision,” she said. “We should have a goal of having the best thing we can.”
The library plans started grandly, with a proposal for a 40,000 square foot expansion on the point.
That plan, she said, was not the right decision.
“Some decisions take a long time and that’s OK,” she said.
However, she feels that the Bancroft property was the last piece of land that would ever be offered for sale in Haddonfield.
“I guess I hate for Bancroft to say, ‘Then we’re going to have to stay,’” she said. “To me, that tells me that wasn’t their first choice.”
Through the months of meetings leading up to the referendum, Colombi heard, repetitively, a focus on fields and sports.
The referendum, she said, “Also included parking. It also included some open space at the front that could have provided a technology center. Who knows what? Some kind of development there.”
“To me, it offered lots of possibilities,” she added. “It just seemed we had the right players. I’m disappointed. I’m really disappointed.”
To the naysayers, she asked, “What is your vision for this? What do you think we should have done?”
Borough schools keep the values of homes up, she said, and sports are important.
“I think 85 percent of the students in the high school play sports,” she said.
In all, the property acquisition was a “missed opportunity.”
“Is it dead? I have no idea. Probably no. There’s always another plan I guess. Have I been contacted about it? No,” she said.
“I hate the immediate jump to ‘Oh they’ve got something else going on.’ I’m just not that skeptical,” she said. “I’m not a negative kind of person. I hope there is something else out there. I really do.”
Colombi is fearful that the $3.5 million promised for open space may be lost, saying it would be “a travesty.”
In addition, parking near the high school is desperately needed, she said.
“I feel so badly for the people in that neighborhood,” she said, with cars parked on the streets nine months out of the year.
Plus, anonymous commenting online peeves her.
“I do not like the technology that allows people to openly criticize to the point of almost defaming people under an assumed, stupid kind of name on a website. I think that is despicable,” she said. “It doesn’t make me sad as much as it makes me mad.”
Much of what is said, she explained, is untrue.
Residents are welcome to attend meetings to receive correct information, she said.
“I hate the negativity that just flows and I don’t think it accomplishes anything,” she said.
Appealing to settle here
Haddonfield, Colombi said, is a place where families want to live to raise their children.
“Our downtown is remarkable,” she said. “Where else would you live? Where would you go? Where would be better?”
Through her years in town, Colombi has visited every church.
“And I love doing that,” she said.
Her favorite is Mt. Olivet Baptist Church, an African-American church on Lincoln Avenue.
Sister Camille plays piano each Sunday with “not a sheet of music” in front of her.
“Every week, she calls someone from the audience to lead the first song. She gets me every time I visit that church,” she said. “Singing is not my finest moment, but I know she’s going to do it. I always say, ‘Just pick one I know.’”
Colombi loves visiting the church due to the pride of the congregants.
“I’m glad they’re part of our community,” she said.
Recent accomplishments
Colombi has surely made her mark on the town.
“Tanner Street, a very complex project, was completed at last. Have you noticed the cobblestone-and-tram-track feature at the Clement Street intersection? And how about those beautiful tulips on Tanner last spring?” she said in her January speech.
A reconstruction of Washington Avenue along the Speedline was completed, as was Mechanic Street’s $1 million project, and sidewalks were installed along Upland Way and Washington Avenue.
“The commissioners decided to renovate the existing public library building, adding an elevator and restrooms to comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act, and making a number of interior modifications to improve the building’s utility. This renovation will begin this year,” she said in the speech.
A big ‘thank you’
Ribbons will soon be popping up around town, as the municipal election is slated for Tuesday, May 14.
As Colombi prepares for her next life chapter, she is grateful the community.
“I would really like to publicly thank everybody for being a part of what we do all of the time. Things are impossible if you don’t have a willing bunch of people who participate,” Colombi said. “The pleasure has been all mine. It’s been great.”
