Town of Chichester
Cemetery Trustees meeting
June 9, 2023
On June 9, 2023 @ 9:00 a.m. Ruth Hammen, Fred Shaw and Brenda Boswak met at the Historical Society building.
Old business
Ruthie and Brenda attended the Selectmen’s meeting on May 16, 2023, for the purpose of following up with the unexpected outcome of our submitted warrant articles. The warrant article ‘to see if the town will accept ownership and care of Hook Cemetery as requested by Diane Loso, descendant’, resulted in a ‘vote not to accept’. The Selectmen shared with us they felt inadequate to answer the questions that arose during that meeting. Those attending the meeting questioned the statement ‘no cost to the town’. None of the Cemetery Trustees were able to attend the town meeting to give a fuller explanation as to the fact that there are already trusts established for the care of the cemetery that would have been used. The Cemetery Trustees did not receive any communication from any town resident asking for clarification on this warrant article, either before the town meeting or afterwards. Therefore, Hook Cemetery will remain, for now, a privately owned and maintained cemetery, to the best of the descendant’s ability. Brenda and Ruthie also addressed the decision by the Board of Selectmen to not grant our ‘request for $5,000 for the purpose of tree removal in the cemeteries’. Selectmen Millette, clarified that the Board of Selectmen, in a non-public meeting, made the decision to add $2,000 to the Road Agent’s tree budget line, for the purpose of tree removal in the cemeteries. At the close of our time with the Selectmen, the Cemetery Trustees left a letter with the Selectmen strongly encouraging them to prioritize the removal of dangerous trees in the Burying Yard Cemetery as soon as possible. The Board of Selectmen stated they are leaving the prioritization of dangerous tree removal with the Road Agent, Craig Sykes. We requested the board ask the Road Agent to contact the Cemetery Trustees, they assured us they would do that.
New business
We revised the ‘Rules & Regulations’ to remove the stipulation of vaults being required for full burials. Ruthie had scheduled a meeting for today with two vendors to visit with us to discuss our ideas for cemetery gate designs and cost estimates. Neither one was able to attend. We narrowed down our preferences for gate designs that Brenda had collected over the last couple of years. We plan to use the $7,500 donation from Martha Dodge Wilkerson to have gates created for Brown Cemetery, Knowlton-Edgerly Cemetery, Morrill Cemetery, and repairs on Pineground Cemetery gate. Martha stipulated that the donation was for historical projects related to the town cemeteries. Several of our town cemeteries have been missing gates for many years and it has been a goal of the Cemetery Trustees to replace them. This generous donation will allow us to start and hopefully complete our gate project this year, much sooner than we had hoped possible. We are very excited to get started. Ruth dropped off the donation check to the town on May 31, 2023.
Meeting adjourned at 10:30 a.m.
Respectfully submitted,
Brenda Boswak, Cemetery Trustee, Secretary