City officials plan cemetery clean-up

A complaint over the status of the two public Wrangell cemeteries will lead to a drive to remove decorations this spring.

Memorial Cemetery – known about town as the "old cemetery" – and Sunset Gardens Cemetery – known as the "new cemetery" – faced criticism at the March 25 borough assembly meeting from Wayne Kaer.

At the same meeting, assembly members voted on the final step in a series of ordinance changes abolishing the borough's cemetery committee, because of a lack of interest, and because the committee was originally appointed to evaluate and recommend potential future sites for a cemetery and to locate the public columbarium. The committee has recommended several different options for future sites, and the columbarium – a small structure used to house funerary urns for cremated remains – is located at Sunset Gardens.

Borough officials have said they would deal with future issues relating to cemeteries on an issue-by-issue basis by employing special committees – similar to the special energy committee, which lapsed earlier this year – to address specific issues.

Kaer's criticism focused around grave size, the lack of well-marked rows in between graves, and a large number of decoration materials used around graves, particularly fences and other decorations, as well as tire tracks which go over graves in some instances.

The issue surfaced again at the April 8 assembly meeting, when borough Manager Jeff Jabusch told board members he would consider hiring additional seasonal personnel to clean up the cemeteries, and at Thursday's Parks and Recreation advisory committee meeting, where commissioners discussed the role of the parks and recreation department in the upkeep. Though the Department of Public Works is primarily tasked with the upkeep of public cemeteries.

Public works usually plans a cemetery clean-up drive for the spring, Director Carl Johnson said. In the past, the drive has been limited in scope because of budget concerns, which has allowed some decorations to remain in place.

"If one family sees the other decorations in place, it makes it harder to tell them 'you can't do that,'" he said.

Past discussions about what's acceptable have been "emotionally charged," Johnson said.

Borough ordinances dictate almost every facet of cemetery maintenance and upkeep. Ordinance 15.16.080 lays out the maximum height for memorials at 18 inches, with a maximum area of 20 inches by 18 inches. Crosses are limited to three feet.

Temporary decorations of graves, including flowers and flags, are limited to "the day of burial, on Memorial Day, Fourth of July, and Veterans Day," the ordinance reads. "These shall be removed within seven days thereafter."

As to Kaer's other concerns, relating to rows and grave size, the plots themselves, set by ordinance at three and one-half feet by nine feet, are determined by a cemetery plan laid out when Sunset Gardens went into operation in 1966, according to Johnson. The cemetery was designed in part to maximize capacity, Johnson said.

Most of the existing plots in the cemeteries have been sold, though a few remain, Johnson said. His department plans to get out and evaluate the most likely site of what would become the borough's third public cemetery this summer. That site is located near the Wrangell Institute Property, Johnson said.

"We have to check the soil and see if there are any rocks in there," he said.