Trees top Vassalboro cemetery committee’s meeting

by Mary Grow

Vassalboro Cemetery Committee members spent three-fourths of their hour-long Sept. 15 meeting discussing trees in cemeteries, again, with half a dozen interested residents (see the Aug. 28 issue of The Town Line, p. 2).

Committee chairman Savannah Clark said after the Aug. 18 meeting, she asked Town Manager Aaron Miller to prepare a request for proposals seeking an arborist who would evaluate trees in six town cemeteries and recommend which, if any, should be trimmed or removed.

The committee’s goal is to protect gravestones and monuments from damage caused by falling trees or tree limbs.

As in previous discussions, audience members stressed the value of trees in cemeteries – a value that committee members also recognize. Trees make cemetery grounds attractive; they might even reduce mowing costs, by shading out grass, Janet Waldron suggested.

Residents also said – and committee members again agreed – that stones are damaged in other ways, by weather or vandalism, for example. Waldron’s husband, Bill Baghdoyan, said he cannot remember ever seeing damage caused by a fallen branch or tree in Union Cemetery, next to his house.

Committee member David Jenney said he has pictures of tree-caused damage in Cross Hill Cemetery, beside his house. He gave a personal example: some years ago one of two large trees in his yard, which he had had trimmed and planned to keep for years, came down in a post-hurricane wind, missing the house by six feet.

Clark said repeatedly committee members are nowhere near deciding to cut trees. Miller has not yet had time to prepare the request for proposals that will lead to bids that select board members will review before choosing someone to assess trees in the selected graveyards. After the assessment, recommendations will be reviewed and evaluated against available funds before bids for actual work can be solicited.

Waldron and others urged making the arborist who does the assessment ineligible to bid to do the work. Not imposing the restriction creates a conflict of interest, Waldron said.

In other business Sept. 15, committee members reviewed two drafts of a proposed cemetery committee policy, Town Manager Miller’s and a second with changes and additions Jenney proposes. They accepted the revised version, to be forwarded to Miller and the select board.

Copies of both versions of the policy are on the town website, vassalboro.net, under the agenda for the Sept. 15 meeting.

Committee members briefly discussed Cara Kent’s Aug. 18 proposal to publicize the history of Vassalboro town cemeteries and people buried in them. Kent was absent; Clark said since the August meeting, Kent and Jane Aiudi had taken preliminary steps on the project.

The next regular Vassalboro Cemetery Committee meeting is scheduled for 6 p.m. Monday, Oct. 20. The public is welcome at all meetings.