Iowa County to make Cemetery Commission official

MARENGO — Though a Cemetery Commission has been operating in Iowa County, the County Board of Supervisors has not passed an ordinance allowing it, according to County Attorney Tim McMeen.

Iowa County needs to approve an ordinance establishing a Pioneer Cemetery Commission, McMeen said last week during a meeting of the board.

Ordinance #15 establishes control and maintenance of Pioneer cemeteries, but McMeen said he couldn’t find an ordinance creating a Pioneer Cemetery Commission.

Ordinance #15 gives the county jurisdiction over pioneer cemeteries, defined as cemeteries that have had six or fewer burials in the preceding 50 years. Supervisors have all authority that township trustees have over township cemeteries — including maintenance and repair — under the provisions of the ordinance.

Members of a pioneer cemetery commission have been operating without the ordinance. They attended the Nov. 8 meeting of the Board of Supervisors.

“I think we just need an ordinance at this point,” said McMeen. The county has a draft from 1998, but McMeen could find to evidence that it had been passed into law.

“It pretty much just follows the code,” said McMeen.

An old draft of an ordinance, provided by the Iowa County Auditor, establishes a cemetery commission to assume jurisdiction and management of pioneer cemeteries in Iowa County.

The commission will consist of nine residents of Iowa County. The ordinance draft appoints terms beginning in December of 1998, 1999 and 2000.

The ordinance gives the commission authority to establish rules and regulations governing its organization and procedure.

The commission will have all the powers and duties relating to pioneer cemeteries that are otherwise exercised by Township Trustees except that it shall not have the authority to certify a tax levy.

The commission will submit a budget to the Iowa County Auditor each year for approval by the Board of Supervisors.

Supervisors discussed looking into commissions of other counties but eventually decided to use the ordinance draft that the unofficial commission has been following.

If it’s not broken, there no need to change it, said Supervisor Chairman Kevin Heitshusen.

“You just need something,” said McMeen, “because you have nothing.”

A hearing for the ordinance will be set for the end of December. Supervisors would like to start the commission the first of the year, said Heitshusen.

Alan Schumacher, who was not reelected to the Board of Supervisors and will no longer be on the board as of Dec. 31, resigned from the pioneer cemetery board as of the first of the year, he said.

Scott Hamlin is being considered to replace him, Schumacher said during the Nov. 15 meeting of the Board of Supervisors.