As the Indiana Pioneer Cemeteries Restoration Project's drive to collect
Petition signatures progresses, I think now is the time to start a
letter-writing campaign to our State Representatives and State Legislators
to begin to sway popular opinion among them that there is "no problem" with
respect to our pioneer cemeteries.
BTW, don't forget to forward your signed Petitions so
we'll have them by the first of the year. If you need a
copy, visit the website at
http://www.rootsweb.com/~inpcrp
E-mail addresses for all of the State Representatives and State Legislators
are being forwarded to the group in a separate e-mail message.
Snail-mail letters probably carry a little more weight than e-mail, but I
think both are important. One advantage of e-mail is the recipients
probably won't be able to tell whether or not the senders are Indiana
residents and therefore potential voters.
I don't want to be accused of "preaching to the choir", so I won't bend
your
ears about how important it is for us to make some noise on this subject.
The State Legislators have caved in to the developers, miners, farmers and
others for far too long and, unless they are COMPELLED to do something about
this situation, they will do NOTHING and every single one of our pioneer
cemeteries will be in jeopardy.
As an aside, I've had a lot of response to my "Hall of Shame" idea and
those
contributions are being added daily. If you know of a particular shameful
situation of cemetery abuse, neglect or destruction, find a minute to write
to me about it so I can list at least one shameful cemetery in every county
of the State. I KNOW they're out there; I just don't have the details.
I don't want you to clone the message that I'm sending to the Legislators,
but I will cite here a few points as suggestions to be included:
LEGISLATION IN INDIANA:
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IC 23-14-68 sets forth surprisingly straightforward requirements for the
Township Trustees but (a) the Trustees often times cannot/do not/will not
take this responsibility seriously and/or (b) the Townships lack funding for
this obligation. Further, the Trustees have NO DUTY with respect to pioneer
cemeteries on private property subject to taxation.
MOST of our State's little pioneer family cemeteries are, in fact, on
private property -- property that has never been deeded out and on which
taxes are assessed and paid, therefore exempted by IC 23-14-68.
IC 23-14-67 ("Care of Cemeteries by Counties") carries no weight as it makes
the establishment of County Cemetery Commissions OPTIONAL and the County
Councils can and DO refuse to fund the Commissions, making their existence
pretty much pointless.
IC 14-21 ("Historic Preservation and Archaeology") contains provisions which
permit the disturbance of the burial sites of human remains from before 1939
for surface coal mining and "agricultural purposes", which includes farming,
dairying, pasturage, agriculture, horticulture, floriculture, viticulture,
ornamental horticulture, olericulture, pomiculture, animal husbandry, and
poultry husbandry. This statute permits strip miners and farmers to remove
stones and plow up the ground. In our mostly rural counties, these
activities are destroying more cemeteries than urban spread or construction.
This statute is in widespread use to "justify" plowing up many old,
neglected pioneer cemeteries.
SAMPLES OF LEGISLATION IN OTHER STATES:
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The State of Georgia has enacted some excellent legislation (OCG 36-72).
You can view this statute yourself by visiting:
http://www.ganet.org/services/ocode/ocgsearch.htm
and doing a "Search by Code Number" for 36-72-1.
Iowa Code 1997, Chapter 331, Section 325 ("Control and maintenance of
pioneer cemeteries---cemetery commission") is accessible from:
http://www2.legis.state.ia.us/IACODE/1997SUPPLEMENT/
The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania's "Historic Burial Places Preservation
Act", P.L. 141, No. 22, is accessible from:
http://suvcw.org/pa/pl94-22.htm
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Help us to distribute the Indiana Pioneer Cemetery Restoration Project's
PETITION TO THE INDIANA LEGISLATURE calling for revision of current
state laws regarding protection and maintenance of pioneer cemeteries:
http://www.rootsweb.com/~inpcrp/Petition.PDF
You'll need free Adobe Acrobat software to view and print the Petition
(see
http://www.adobe.com/prodindex/acrobat/readstep.html)
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