On Scott's INPCRP "Stumbling Blocks" website, he lists (1) the nasty little
word "MAY" with respect to the funding and creation of County Cemetery
Commissions and (2) "Uncooperative landowners".
There's no question that these are major obstacles but, after my most recent
cemetery experience, I suspect that an equally devastating problem is the
recent addition of subparagraph (b) to IC 23-14-68-1; to-wit:
Sec. 1. (a) This chapter applies to each cemetery that:
(1) is without funds for maintenance;
(2) was in existence on February 28, 1939; and
(3) is operated by a nonprofit organization or is
not managed by any viable organization.
(b) THIS CHAPTER DOES NOT APPLY TO A CEMETERY
LOCATED ON LAND ON WHICH PROPERTY TAXES
ARE ASSESSED AND PAID UNDER IC 6-1.1-4.
As added by P.L.52-1997, SEC.42.
With the addition of this new language, we have lost a very powerful tool in
those situations where the Township Trustee is ready/willing/able to
cooperate by doing his/her job with respect to IC 23-14-68-2 and 3.
[See
http://www.ai.org/legislative/ic/code/title23/ar14/ch68.html for full
text of statute.]
Here in Clark County, we had the Jeffersonville Township Trustee all fired
up and ready to rock and roll on poor little Hale-McBride Cemetery [see
http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/Plains/5881/halemcbridecem.html]. Then,
Friday, the Township Attorney informed us that the Township has no authority
in this situation because -- despite the fact that the cemetery was
"reserved" in a Commissioner's Partition Order in 1882 -- it was never
EXCEPTED from the deed and thus remained under the ownership of the past and
now the present owner. As such, the owner is free to do whatever he damn
well pleased with the cemetery.
My friend Donny Loweth's great-grandfather is now buried under X-inches of
blacktop. People park on his grave everyday. Over the last several
decades, the property owner built a strip shopping center and has slowly but
surely expanded his parking lot to now cover up to three-fourths of the
cemetery as it existed in 1882 and as late as 1935. (We have confirmed this
through deed records and two first-hand recollections.)
To make things even more "interesting", Ameritech (phone company) saw fit to
run utility lines across the graves to a telephone pole in the middle of the
cemetery and to stick not one but TWO pay telephones less than three feet
from surviving graves -- over obliterated graves!!! Ameritech is
"investigating" my complaint.
The payphones attract drug dealers and customers. The customers park at the
drive-up payphones, dial a pager number, sit there smoking and drinking and
wait for the dealer to return the page. Then the customers wait until the
dealer arrives to complete the transaction. Neither even has to get out of
their cars! This goes on in broad daylight! No telling what's going on
there at night.
I'm so upset about all of this I could spit!!! Thanks for letting me vent a
little.
Lois