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Blog Entry 64 of 80 Grave Concerns: Inside Grand View Memorial Park

News you can use regarding Grand View Memorial Park, Glendale, CA's oldest cemetery, which has been closed for regular business since June 13, 2006, due to legal and financial problems. Lisa Burks also runs the website GrandViewMemorialPark.info.

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Grand View schedule still in limbo due to trees

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Contributed by: Lisa Burks on 7/26/2007

"The cultivation of trees is the cultivation of the good, the beautiful and the ennobling in man." ~J. Sterling Morton, former U.S. Secretary of Agriculture and founder of Arbor Day

The City of Glendale was unable to set a new limited visitation schedule for Grand View Memorial Park July 26 after an internal staff meeting that morning yielded no immediately actionable answers to the cemetery's hazardous tree situation.

"We need to further evaluate how to make the grounds safe in the long-run, not after just this one-time trimming but also into the future," reports Assistant City Attorney Mike Grant, who attended the meeting which included reps from the city manager's office, the parks department, the city arborist and urban forester.

City arborists estimate that anywhere between 10 and 30 different trees per month will eventually need attention as time progresses.

Additionally, the city's arborist reported that it reassessed West Coast Arborists' evaluation of 224 dead or dying cemetery trees and estimate of $154,500 to fix the problem, and they found the figures to be accurate, said Grant.

Those numbers, the lowest outside bid that the city received, were forwarded to plaintiff attorneys for reimbursement consideration from the anticipated class action lawsuit settlement, if the city chooses to fund the initial cash outlay.

The Glendale City Council last month approved funding to open Grand View Memorial Park on two Sundays a month for the new fiscal year which began July 1. At the time, council members expressed a desire to utilize city crews to do the tree work.

"Unfortunately, that's not going to be possible," said Grant. "This work requires climbing of trees that involve training and certification that our crews don't have. It's an OSHA (Occupational Safety and Health Administration) compliance issue," he further explained.

Stay tuned for further developments.

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