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Cemetery commissioners tell plans

George Nutter, Mike Scharbach and Randy Holloway
Aug. 13, 2009

Let’s talk about the cemetery for a few minutes. It is agreed the lawn for Memorial Day was terrible, the availability of water was lacking, so what’s the problem?

The taxpayers of this district pass a levy for improvements to the cemetery. Like all government organizations, there’s a lag time between when the money is collected and when it’s available to be spent. We lost most all of last year waiting for funds to become available. We now have those funds, so improvements are on the way.

Let’s start with Memorial Day. The only paid employee of the cemetery went around the week before this holiday and marked each sprinkler head with a wire and a flag. These seemed to turn into targets for a few, as the cemetery had eight sprinkler heads run over at the beginning of the holiday. If you own such a system, you know that the water must be shut off to repair these.

The staff of one rushed to make these repairs only to find that someone had driven a truck with a boat through the cemetery and ran over and broken the main water line. With this down and no parts available, we were forced to shut all water off until repairs and parts could be found on the following Tuesday. It is difficult to understand why anyone would pull a boat and trailer through the cemetery, but we were told that’s what happened.

The lawn was left long to try to reduce the chemicals and fertilizer that we use. The commissioners felt this would better reduce our chemical signature. We have since gone back to shorter grass and the use of chemicals to feed the lawn and reduce the number of bugs that lawns get. So much for our green experiment.

Let’s not forget the Memorial Day of 2008, when someone ran into and knocked over the basalt column, again that year we lost about a dozen sprinkler heads, but escaped without losing the main line.

So how are we going to improve the cemetery? We went out for bids a couple of weeks ago and have awarded a contract to a Wenatchee irrigation company to replace and update the complete irrigation system. You’ll have new sprinkler heads that reach all the grass areas, new timers and new main lines, and we are adding several stations where water can be obtained throughout the lawn area.

We hope installation of this new system will begin next week.

We are opening up the last of the cemetery behind the green building with the installation of this new system.

We have a contractor who is donating labor to set the foundation for the new cremation wall. We have added enough concrete to allow families to donate benches in the names of their loved ones if they so desire. The niche wall is being made now, with installation within a month.

We have purchased a new lawn mower and trailer to haul the grass clippings to the city’s composting site. We have been picking up the clippings since last year and the trailer will allow us to remove the grass we pick up on a weekly basis. We are working hard now to haul all the old clippings away and get that mess cleaned up.

We have two new signs made that will be installed in the next few weeks welcoming guests to the cemetery and explaining what is allowed and not allowed around grave sites. Letters are being sent out explaining the rules and action will be taken if statues, lights and other disallowed items are not removed.

We will remodel the end of the restroom building to allow for a small office so that families can meet with a representative and choose a burial site in a proper setting and not over the hood of a car.

We are installing a sidewalk on F Street to complete that side of the main street coming into Quincy.

We have had some major shortcomings over this year. We have tried hard and are working hard to improve your cemetery and will continue to strive for improvements.

If you see someone running over sprinklers, knocking down columns or driving on the lawn or any other vandalism, please get a license number and report it to the police department. We will seek to have the people who show no regard for this installation or the people’s property brought before the courts.

If you have any questions or comments, please contact one of the commissioners at the numbers listed below at any time. We work for you and want to respond to your comments or concerns.