It’s not really common for cities to own and manage cemeteries, and you probably don’t hear about it too often either. Eden Prairie owns a cemetery. This is the second city in which I’ve worked that has had municipally-owned cemeteries. The first was Mt. Pleasant, Iowa.
The City of Eden Prairie owns and manages Pleasant Hill Cemetery. The cemetery is on the north side of Pioneer Trail, just west of Pax Christi church. We’ve managed the cemetery since 1986 when it was conveyed to the City by the private non-profit cemetery association that previously owned it.
In the old days, it was common for cemeteries to be owned by churches, townships, and private non-profit cemetery associations. But as those groups are eliminated (townships through annexation); move (churches); or die off (volunteers for the cemetery association); it has been more common to see those cemeteries absorbed by nearby cities and counties. That’s how we go to be the owners of Pleasant Hill Cemetery.
This is Wes Dunsmore. He is an operations supervisor with our Parks and Recreation Department. He is in charge of the operations and maintenance of our cemetery. He is showing me a map of the cemetery and explaining to me how he meets with families to pick out grave sites during their time of need.
There are 1,390 lots in Pleasant Hill Cemetery. 670 of those lots are full. There are only 408 lots left unsold. The rest are purchased, but not full yet. A lot in Pleasant Hill Cemetery costs $400 for an Eden Prairie resident and $600 for a non-resident.
Earlier this year the City Council appointed a Cemetery Task Force to examine the operations of the City’s cemetery. They are charged with examining the operations, finances, and aesthetics of the cemetery. You might wonder what there is to examine. Here’s an example. If you look in the photo above with Wes Dunsmore, you’ll see immediately behind him a number of grave markers that are flush with the ground. Currently, we allow only this type of marker to be placed in the cemetery. Now, look at this photo below.
This is a nice sized grave stone. It was placed in the cemetery prior to 1986. Grave stones like this one are certainly attractive, but they present more maintenance difficulties than the grave markers that are flush with the ground. They are particularly more difficult to mow around. The flush grave markers allow a mower to pass right over the marker. For a grave stone, a mower gets close to it, but then someone else must comeback later and weed-whip around it. This may seem like an insignificant burden, but when you multiple it by 1,000 lots and then by the number of times we must mow each year, it begins to compute into real money.
Currently, we do not spend property tax revenues at the cemetery. We spend money gained through cemetery operations fees, such as the sales of lots, etc. We must be careful to manage our current operational costs so that we do not have to burden current taxpayers with cemetery maintenance costs. We might have to someday, but it’s our goal to avoid that.
Another example: Should the cemetery be a place where we intern our deceased friends and family members, or should it be a place where members of the public can go to visit or sit and contemplate the matters of the day? Or, can it be both?
And if it is going to be both, how do we manage the cemetery to serve both of those needs. Should we have more benches, more trails, more trees, etc? Or, should we minimize public interaction with the cemetery? The latter option would probably have lower operational costs compared to developing the cemetery for more public access, but maybe developing more public access should be the higher priority. That is really a matter for the Council to decide at some point in the future.
These are just a couple of the questions that our Cemetery Task Force is going to be discussing and developing recommendations on for the City Council. I’m looking for a final report from the task force later this fall.
