SAUGUS – Cemetery Commission Chairman Dennis Gould said Town Manager Scott Crabtree jeopardized the operation of the commission when Crabtree put Emergency Management Agency vehicles in the cemetery garage.Gould told the selectmen at their meeting this week that he was away when he found out Crabtree had the vehicles moved into the garage in mid-November without his permission. Gould said he had since met with Crabtree and asked him to have the garage vacated by April for grass-cutting season, but Crabtree said he could not make that promise. Gould said he was told by the attorney general to write a letter to the board to solve the issue.?The garage was not being fully utilized,” said Crabtree. He went on to describe the contents of the garage before the move, including a vehicle only good for parts and “stuff that shouldn?t have been in there.”Crabtree added that while he respected Gould?s position, he disagreed on his description of how the move took place, as well as what happened afterward. He said moving forward he would like to include Gould in his plans, but “not in a public forum.”Gould said he was concerned about the safety of his workers taking their equipment in and out of the cargo boxes they are stored in.?We need that back in April, or at least some kind of sense to reverse that, for something that should have happened within cemetery commission walls,” he said. Gould added that had he been involved in the decision, “we could have stored the equipment until April for them to use the garage on a temporary basis.”Chairman Ellen Faiella said the board would check in on the issue?s progress at their meeting in March.?I hope you two can come together,” she said. “It seems to me in discussions of late that things are being done and then addressed.”Selectman Maureen Dever added, “I think often it isn?t what we do, but how we do it.”Dever also called the storage containers for the cemetery equipment “unsightly,” and added, “This is where people go to respect their loved ones.”Gould said he would work with Crabtree moving forward and would report back in March.
