Mountain View Cemetery, Operating With Expired License, Draws Criticism

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Denise Witchey, like many Southwest Washingtonians, still visits Centralia’s Mountain View Cemetery. Her great grandfather, who grew up in Centralia, is buried there, as are her great great grandparents. She says the cemetery is her only connection to those relatives. 

But when she came to find their headstones recently, she was surprised by the state of the grounds.

“As I was walking through I was just getting more and more disgusted with sunken-in graves, toppled over headstones, headstones you couldn’t even find because of bushes and trees,” she said. 

She wasn’t alone. Later, Witchey found the private Facebook group, “Restore Mountain View Cemetery,” which has over 150 members with relatives buried at the historic cemetery.

One member, Brad Rook, walks the grounds to visit a gravestone for his son, who passed away five years ago in the war in Afghanistan. After visiting a week ago, he described the place as “gross.” Rook said he called the cemetery posing as a plot buyer, and was given a price.

“I think it’s criminal in a way, because this guy is still taking money, he was willing to sell me a plot,” Rook said. “I’m just frustrated because it’s so historic out there, and all of these families have relatives there, and it’s gross.”

The owner, Bill Rickard, declined to comment. Witchey has discussed the concerns with Rickard, and said he asked her to take down her facebook posts describing the cemetery in disarray. 

“He let me know immediately he wasn’t happy with my post on Facebook, and I said ‘I’m sure of it.’”

Although Rickard still works on the property, he’s been operating with an expired cemetery license since January, according to the state Department of Licensing (DOL). The cemetery’s license through the Washington State Department of Labor & Industries is also inactive. The Mountain View Cemetery Corp, listed as the owner of the parcel, also owes over $32,000 in taxes.

According to a DOL spokesperson, the department is aware of Rickard’s expired license and are trying to reach out to get the cemetery back in compliance. However, the pandemic has limited their outreach capabilities.

“I understand his finances are not not great … I feel for the guy, because I can imagine how hard it is to maintain this,” Witchey said. “However, if you’re still collecting money from people, I feel like you have an obligation to maintain.”

On the Facebook group, users have thrown out several ideas on how to clean up the cemetery. Get high school kids involved for community service, one user suggested. Others want to volunteer to do some maintenance. Rook wants the state to step in.

“I’ve always thought this was too big of a job for us anyway,” he said, noting the continued maintenance the grounds would require. “It would sure be nice if an agency or somebody could step in and at least get this place looking good again.”



But it’s not that easy, according to Dr. Allyson Brooks, a historic preservation officer at the state Department of Archeology and Historic Preservation. Although some residents have described the cemetery as “abandoned,” it’s still privately owned, Brooks said, and the state has limited authority to step in. Plus, Rickard can’t necessarily just hand the property off to an agency, Brooks said.

“It can get to be a real awkward situation when someone owns the property,” Brooks said. 

The city of Centralia has limited authority as well. Although the city has received complaints, Centralia City Clerk Deena Bilodeau said expired licenses are a state-level issue. 

The city dealt with a similar issue several years ago when Greenwood Cemetery was deemed abandoned by the Washington State Funeral and Cemetery Board, which is part of the DOL. Back then, state legislators stepped in. Ultimately, the state granted Centralia access to the property and handed over almost half a million dollars to restore it. 

But in the case of Greenwood Cemetery, no one was employed or doing maintenance on the land. Since Rickard still operates Mountain View Cemetery, the path forward is less clear.

“I don’t know what’s going to happen with that one,” Bilodeau said. 

Legally, upset parties could look back at their contracts with the cemetery to see if perpetual maintenance was promised. That’s exactly what Rook is trying to do. He’s reaching out to his son’s mother to see if the original contract is being breached. But he’s having difficulty getting his hands on it. 

Witchey, on the other hand, intends to start a nonprofit to maintain the grounds. As of Thursday, members of the “Restore Mountain View Cemetery” Facebook group had voted on the name “Friends of Centralia’s Historic Cemeteries,” with “Cemetery Angels of Lewis County” coming in second. 

“This whole place used to be beautiful. My parents told me in the ‘50s people would bring their babies in strollers and it was just a beautiful place to walk through,” Witchey said. “And we will restore it to that one way or another.”