After more than two years in limbo, the Attorney General’s office has give the town a deadline – 18 months to come up with and implement a plan to resolve contested gravesites in Smithville Cemetery.
In the meantime, the Attorney General’s office has required that the town cease and desist from any further acts of trespass on state land or interference with the state’s easement.
There are two issues at hand in Smithville. The first is that the town has been selling plots on a state-owned parcel of land since the 1970s. The land is adjacent to the dam that abuts the cemetery and is to be used as a staging area for equipment if the dam needs repair.
Two years ago, the state discovered that there are 29 occupied graves on that land, an additional 39 sites which have been sold but not yet consecrated and another 26 that are available but have not been sold, according to a letter sent to New Ipswich by Senior Assistant Attorney General Peter Roth at the beginning of March.
There is a secondary issue where a state-owned pipe runs through the town-owned portion of the cemetery. The state contests that it has a 25-foot easement surrounding the pipe to maintain it, which affects a further 57 graves – 25 containing remains, 25 sold but without remains, and seven available but not yet purchased.
The town is contesting the graves within the pipe easement, claiming that the easement does not specify any specific size of the easement, nor does it prevent the operation of the cemetery or burials within it.
Roth’s letter makes clear that the Attorney General’s Office requires that the town cease and desist from any further interments and any further sales of sites within the state’s land or the pipe easement. If the town continues, there may be legal action taken.
Prior to any legal action, however, Roth laid out a deadline for the town to “rectify the various trespasses on the State’s land and impingements on its easement.”
Roth gave the town a deadline of 60 days to submit a plan with specific steps to have the town repurchase sold sites, relocate interred remains to the extent required and to restore the land and easement to its preexisting condition. The town would then have 18 months to complete the plan.
The town has been attempting to avoid the need to remove any remains, potentially by swapping a suitable piece of unused land, such as the entrance to the ballfield on cemetery land or a piece of the annex, as a replacement staging area.
The town has drafted a letter with alternative land suggestions, which will be sent to the Attorney General’s office after review and approval by the cemetery trustees.
Ashley Saari can be reached at 924-7172 ext. 244, or asaari@ledgertranscript.com. She’s on Twitter @AshleySaariMLT.