Henry County to sell excess cemetery land

By STEPH TAHTINEN

Mt. Pleasant News

Tuesday morning, the Henry County Board of Supervisors reviewed a resolution to sell some excess property that is a part of the Elmwood Cemetery, also known as the Abraham Cemetery, in Center Township.

Currently only 0.414 acres of the three-acre plot is being used as an actual cemetery, and nobody has been buried in the cemetery for some time. Ross Tweedy is now interested in purchasing the remaining 2.586 acres from the county, including an old building that is on the property. The county will still continue to own the cemetery itself.

According to Shelly Barber, county auditor, Center Township was not aware that it owned this property until it started looking up some aerial maps. This property has been maintained by Tweedy, who owns all of the property surrounding the cemetery. The Tweedy family has farmed part of the land and has planted some trees as a windbreak on the property.

Barber said that because the Tweedy property completely surrounds the cemetery and because you must drive through the Tweedy property to get to the cemetery, it is unlikely that others would want to purchase this property.

The county will be holding public hearings concerning the sale of this property in early May, the dates of which are still to be determined.

The supervisors also met with representatives from Security Equipment, Inc., to discuss upgrading to new security cameras in the courthouse. The current security cameras are 8-10 years old.

?You can?t get identification off of them. You have to pause and stare, and bring people in and ask, ?Do you recognize this person??? said Derek Wellington of the auditor?s office.

Security Equipment, Inc., will be putting together two options for the supervisors to review and determine which plan to pursue.

This is the same company that has recently installed security cameras in the Henry County sheriff?s office.

Finally, the supervisors appointed Andrea Cook from the auditor?s office as deputy auditor. This gives Cook the ability to sign documents and complete other tasks in Barber?s absence.

?If Shelly [Barber] has to be gone, the office can function as normally as possible,? summarized Marc Lindeen, chairman.

Cook will be deputy auditor for the duration of Barber?s term. Barber plans to run for the auditor position during the next general election, and if she is elected Cook would need to be reappointed to the deputy auditor position.