State Senate Committee Takes Up House Bill Addressing Abandoned Cemeteries

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The Washington State Senate Committee on Local Government is scheduled to hear testimony Tuesday morning on House Bill 1801: legislation which would allow the city of Centralia to take the lead on efforts to rehabilitate Greenwood Memorial Park.

Centralia City Manager Rob Hill is set to testify in favor of the legislation during the public hearing in Olympia. The bill passed through the House earlier this month.

State Reps. Richard DeBolt, R-Chehalis, and Ed Orcutt, R-Kalama, sponsored the bill allowing government bodies to petition the state Department of Archaeology and Historic Preservation for the right to maintain private cemeteries deemed abandoned by the state.

Hill said there is also a parallel effort to include funding in the capital budget for Centralia to put toward what would likely be a group project involving the city, local volunteers and area nonprofits. Any action taken regarding the cemetery would require the approval of the city council.

“There are a lot of people thinking we’re for sure going to do this or that, but nothing happens until the council formally acts,” Hill said. “We’ll have to do a budget amendment, which would be the catalyst for action out there. Right now, all we want is to be able to go on the property legally, take the resources we have and make it something everyone can be proud of, something that does justice to the people buried there.”

Greenwood Memorial Park has been home to crumbling headstones and overgrown grave sites for the better part of a decade. Whereabouts of records pertaining to ownership of burial plots and other legally required documentation are unknown, as to some extent is who owns the land encompassing the cemetery.

Longtime owner John C. Baker appears to have sold at least some of the parcels to SBC Investments Partners LLC in recent years. He was arrested in October 2017 for allegedly threatening to kill a roommate with a knife. In May 2018 he was sentenced to one year in jail with credit for time served and the remaining sentence suspended, pursuant to a plea agreement.



An attempt was made during the last capital budget cycle to secure funding for Centralia to purchase the cemetery and establish a cemetery district to oversee it and other local graveyards. Hill said that while it seemed logical at the time, continued fact finding led to all parties opposing such a purchase.

“With all the outlying issues still out there, we’re not just going to blindly leap into this and take over ownership of liabilities we can’t even wrap our heads around yet,” Hill said. “That would be irresponsible. It’s the mother of all messes. If we wait until we have everything figured out in regards to everything that’s gone on out there, we might not get in there for another 10 years.”

Centralia Mayor Pro-tem Max Vogt, whose council district borders Greenwood on multiple sides, said he’s optimistic about the bill’s chances to pass the state senate. Orcutt included an amendment designating the bill an emergency, meaning it would take effect immediately once signed by Gov. Jay Inslee.

Vogt agrees the city should not seek ownership of the cemetery at this time and believes there are plenty of citizens and volunteer groups who would take pride in maintaining the grounds. He added that while it’s not a perfect solution to the many problems there, it’s the best proposal made in years.

“I’ve had a lot of constituents call me to say they’re willing to do work like cleaning up and planting flowers,” Vogt said. “They haven’t felt like it’s been possible to do that. I could see a partnership there that the city could maintain the cemetery in a decent manner, make sure it’s safe and at a level it needs to be so the public can visit, while also having volunteers involved in the long-term future of what should be more of an active asset of the city.”