Marion Select Board mulls new cemetery rules

MARION – Changes that include higher burial fees and a set of prohibited gravesite items may be coming to Marion cemeteries in the near future.

A draft of new cemetery rules and regulations presented to the Marion Select Board Jan. 17 proposed a rise in certain costs for burials and a set of expanded, clarified cemetery policies.

Presented by Cemetery Commission members Margie Baldwin and Helen Hills, the draft contained an outlined list of items that would not be allowed at gravesites. The new regulations would also raise the fee for a full burial to $600 during regular weekday hours ($250 for cremated remains) and to $750 for weekends and holidays ($325 for cremated remains). 

After a 20-minute discussion, the Select Board expressed support for the change in burial fees but did not approve the proposed document. The board instead postponed the item to its next meeting on Feb. 6. 

The proposed rules would prohibit shrubs, trees and bushes, as well as invasive plants at burial lots. Between April 1 and Oct. 31, artificial flowers would not be permitted. Plants over three feet tall, bird feeders, rocks, pebbles and shells would not be allowed, nor would flags that are not police, fire, military or national flags.

Baldwin said the Cemetery Commission did not want the new rules and regulations to be “onerous”  but did want to be “practical” about what they saw at gravesites.

“It’s not an amusement park, but it's not an arboretum either,” she said. “But I think we're trying to find a balance between the two.”

“Barriers and edging of any nature” would also be prohibited, in addition to windchimes and windmills, glass items, balloons, liquor bottles, shepherd’s hooks, plant hangers and toys.

Marion Select Board member Toby Burr suggested a public hearing in order to discuss the rules and regulations regarding gravesites and burial lots.

“I think giving people a chance to talk before we tell them you can't do what you’ve been doing the last 10 years is fair and right,” Burr said.

Burr said the hearing could be where the public “can voice what they think and why these things are important to them.”

“If we do this, and in a month from now or two months from now, we just go through and pull out all the plant hangers and all the toys and all those things, isn't there going to be hell to pay?” Burr said.

Baldwin and Helen Hills and Select Board member Norm Hills pushed back against Burr’s suggestion.

“I appreciate your bending over backwards to let people know what’s going on, but our point is these are not big changes,” Baldwin said. 

Helen Hills said that a mountain was being made out of a molehill.

“It is a sensitive issue and that's why I'm trying to make a mountain out of a molehill, and I apologize for that, but I think it's important we have a public hearing,” Select Board member Randy Parker said. “That would be the way I want to go.”

The public hearing regarding the new cemetery rules and regulations will be held at the Feb. 6 Marion Select Board meeting.