By Ben Rodgers
Staff Writer
SUAMICO – The Suamico Village Board took the first step to taking over the Suamico Cemetery Association at its Monday, Dec. 4 meeting.
“If you deem this appropriate and you want us to go forward and take care of those operations and bring it into the village fold, this resolution would function as the first step,” said Steve Kubacki, village administrator.
The Suamico Cemetery Association was formed to operate, run and manage Suamico Cemetery, located off of Riverside Drive and Birch Road, in a non-denominational setting.
It takes care of the records, the people who purchased lots, burials and accumulated more than $100,000 in perpetual funding for the upkeep and management of the cemetery.
The funds would be transferred over to the village in order to keep the cemetery operational.
The group recently has had a hard time finding members so it approached the village to take over assets and assist in the operation of the cemetery.
“It got to a point that we couldn’t find people to sit on that board,” said Bob Vickery, SCA member.
Ron Schiltz, cemetery sexton and SCA member was also at the meeting.
“I think it’s an honor to take something like this over, and I thank the two gentlemen here tonight for your time and effort. We’ll do the same,” said Dan Roddan, trustee.
The next step will be to form a board to oversee operations and approve a resolution giving the village the authority to do so at the next meeting.
In other news the village unanimously approved the fee schedule for 2018 for village services permits and property use, with an increase for waste hauling.
The increase will be from $200 to $500 for 2018 with a direction for village staff to look at fees in other municipalities to find the market value.
This is the fee that waste management companies pay the village in order to service the area.
“I know the industry and you can set that (fee) at whatever you want because they’re going to want to do business here in this town, and because they have heavy equipment they’re going to affect our roads,” Roddan said.