Saugus cemetery plan nixed

SAUGUS – Town Meeting members voted Monday to deep-six plans for expansion of the public cemetery.The 27-14 vote put an end to Article 6 in the warrant. The article submitted by the Cemetery Commission sought to transfer to its control 26.6 acres of what’s known locally as the Curley Property, for use as a public graveyard.Donald Gould, chairman of the Cemetery Commission, told Town Meeting members Saugus is rapidly running out of burial space. According to Gould, at the current rate of death, Riverside Cemetery will be filled within three years. Only 270 burial lots remain and the number of cremations is already increasing, he said.Gould explained the Curley Property encompasses 63.3 acres, much of the land suitable for a cemetery.Transferring the town-owned land would cost taxpayers nothing, he said. If allowed, the new cemetery would be ready to accept the dead by 2015 or 2016, he said.Besides, the property has been surveyed and is the only suitable open space able to accommodate a cemetery, he said.Gould further noted there is currently a waiting list for burial plots at Riverside Cemetery. “The town does not sell them,” he said. But burial plots can be purchased from those who own them privately.”It doesn’t cost the town any money to do this,” he said. “We are just asking you to turn over that land to us to see if in the next year we can put a cemetery there.”Not everyone agreed.Precinct 1 Town Meeting member Joyce Rodenhiser questioned whether the land was actually suitable for graves since it contains both ledge and wetlands.Precinct 5 Town Meeting member Debra Panetta said, “Once the land is gone, it’s gone forever.”Timothy Hawkes, Town Meeting member from Precinct 7, warned that the deed or other land titles may not be crystal clear since it was once owned by the state. He also expressed concern that the land may hold archeological significance that would be trampled by construction of roads and land excavation done in conjunction with creating a cemetery.Peter Rossetti Jr., Town Meeting member from Precinct 2, supported Hawkes. He described the land as heavily forested with a few fire roads and suggested it would prove too costly to turn it into a cemetery.Rossetti also noted that a water line project once slated by Wakefield was stopped due to historic issues related to the Curley Property.As an option, Rossetti recommended the Cemetery Commission examine the Bacon property along the Saugus River as a potential graveyard.Precinct 2 Town Meeting member Stephen Sweezey sided with the Cemetery Commission, arguing that the Curley Property represents “the last piece of land for the town to bury its own. They deserve it.”Special Town Meeting also approved an official Student Government Day, funding transfers to pay for a heating system at the Essex Street fire station, vents at Saugus High School, and to officially accept several streets into their respective sub-divisions.A public information meeting on the proposed budget for fiscal 2012 was held following the Special Town Meeting.