Many residents and city council members want to ban selling burial sites in the town's 101-year-old cemetery because it's not clear which plots are still vacant.
Currently, the only map of the 2-acre cemetery is drawn on an old window shade that is stored in city hall. Incomplete and incorrect records from the cemetery's long history show some of the sites that have been sold, but not necessarily which ones have been used. To add to the difficulty, many of the older gravesites do not have headstones.
Some people have suggested that the town of 2,400 simply buy the 1- acre adjoining property and continue the town's cemetery there. But others want it to get out of the burial business altogether.
Last year, two council members agreed to update the records and redraw a map. But they retracted their offer once they realized how difficult the task would be.
In April, local leaders decided to hire a surveyor for the land. If the town does decide to put a moratorium on burial-site sales, it still plans to honor deeds that have already been sold.
But the potential exists for problems when the time comes for relatives to bury their deceased."There could be someone in California who owns a site," said town clerk Susan Crady. "And they know it, but the city doesn't know it."
