BRUNSWICK

Riverside Cemetery has been in ownership limbo now for about a year and a half as the town attempts to both determine the future of the graveyard as well as tackle maintenance in the meantime.

In October 2014, Riverside Cemetery Association President Scott Walker walked into Town Manager John Eldridge’s office with a box of maps and papers, congratulated Eldridge on being the new owner and walked out.

Apparently, after attempting to get local churches to oversee the nearly 200-year-old graveyard, Walker left the cemetery to the town, which has no experience running a graveyard, nor any legal claim to the property.

The same groundskeeper is there, now under contract with the town. However, the town is not in the cemetery business. Complaints, questions and concerns have followed since Walker’s departure.

Assistant Town Manager Derek Scrapchansky said he took notice of the situation and decided for the betterment of the town they needed to act quickly, as the current state of the cemetery association appears in limbo.

Scrapchansky said the town received a complaint about two months ago from grandparents of an infant who died shortly after birth.

“The marker was missing,” Scrapchansky said.

It turns out that the original marker appeared to be a temporary one, and over time it was probably mowed over or lost to the elements. The grave was eventually located using a map.

Last week, Massachusetts resident Paula Leone wrote to The Times Record with concerns about the state of the cemetery.

“I have grandparents and an uncle buried there,” Leone wrote in a letter to the editor. “My grandfather Thomas Martin was a caretaker there for many years. He took meticulous care of that cemetery. We brought flowers to my grandparents and uncle’s grave. The cemetery was not mowed and in deplorable shape. We left two beautiful potted plants on May 13. They were mowed down when my aunt revisited the grave sites on May 30. She went and got more flowers since her husband was a war veteran.

“I know money is tight these days, but to treat people’s loved ones this way is disgraceful,” Leone continued, stating that she wants “people to be held accountable for their actions” and that the deceased ought to be treated “with the respect they deserve.”

Scrapchansky said currently the town has neither ownership of Riverside, nor any of its assets nor fund balances the association held for maintenance.

“We need to talk to the attorney about a solution because the current association president is not willing to work with the town and sign anything over,” Scrapchansky said.

Scrapchansky said the town has asked for Walker’s cooperation in arranging a meeting to create a new association and help the town understand where they are with the cemetery but have yet to hear from Walker.

In a 2015 interview with The Times Record, Walker said there were no active board members on the cemetery association, and that the “ safest thing” would be for the town to somehow take ownership of the cemetery.

“It’s not my responsibility, technically, at this point,” said Walker at the time. “ Hopefully this all gets straightened out. I’ve done everything I could.”

Recently, the only person the town has been able to reach is the groundskeeper, Chris Stilkey, who previously worked for and was a member of the association. Scrapchansky said they have met with Stilkey to let him know of the legal process going forward and to address complaints regarding upkeep of the grounds.

Stilkey said Thursday he didn’t know who was on the board, if anyone, when Walker left the paperwork with Eldridge and left.

“So you can see where we are — there’s no expertise here with everything that’s been happening,” Scrapchansky said, “we had to wait for the legal team to have some time and to look at this, but it really is at the forefront of our priority list.”

Another problem the town has moving forward is what to do with the “business” aspect of running the cemetery. Scrapchansky said there were still lots available, however, the cemetery doesn’t legally belong to the town and even if they did, they are finding the maps given to them problematic.

“There are available lots there but we don’t know, in fact, how it’s laid out. We can look at old maps but we don’t know what’s available. In other words, there could be somebody buried right there but there’s not a stone on it,” he said.

There’s not much incentive in becoming a volunteer for any new incarnation of the Riverside Cemetery Association, knowing you may just inherit a mess.

That, Scrapchansky said, combined with the fact that the cemetery business is far from a lucrative venture, makes owning Riverside even more unattractive.

The thought of maintaining a cemetery in perpetuity, and for the town to think of doing so on the taxpayers’ backs heightens the urgency to resolve the issue.

“You can see we’re left with a real bad situation that we’re trying to take care of because we understand how important this is to everybody,” Scrapchansky said. “In short, we’re working on it and we’ve received many phone calls, people interested in buying lots, people concerned about the cemetery.”

Scrapchansky said they are just as concerned as everyone else as many town staff members have family in Riverside as well.