The Sonoma City Council has decided to take several steps to address a civil grand jury report this year that lambasted cemeteries managed by the city.  

The dismal civil grand jury report released May 30 depicts oversight buried in dysfunction, dead-end links to cemetery webpages, uncollected sales tax and undertakers undercharging for certain services — all of which could lead to the endowment for cemetery upkeep ceasing to exist.   

The jury report, entitled “City of Sonoma Cemeteries: Don’t Bury Your Problems,” outlines several “serious problems” facing the city’s Cemetery Program, which oversees three: Mountain, Valley and Veterans’ cemeteries. All three are maintained through a Cemetery Enterprise Fund, which operates like a business and “is expected to be self-supporting and not subsidized by government funds,” reads the report. 

City-of-Sonoma-Cemeteries-Jury-Report

On Nov. 15, the council voted unanimously to spend $120,000 on 100 columbaria units, also known as urns, in an effort to expand Veterans and Mountain cemeteries, neither of which have any remaining in-ground burial plots, according to the grand jury. They also voted to outsource burial services in an attempt to save the Cemetery Endowment Fund, the monies of which pay for upkeep. They will also reexamine pricing of cemetery units. 

Back in August, the city council voted to hire a consultant firm to tackle the problem.

At the last meeting, consultant Stephanie Sloane presented a proposal to the council outlining the recommendations that they have now taken. She also agreed with the civil grand jury that a person should be hired to manage the cemeteries full time.  

‘A disgrace’ to one’s final resting place

These problems are not a surprise to the city and its council, however. Sonoma has contracted twice in the past 18 years with consultants who studied the problems and made recommendations, the jury said. The city’s current budget also has a goal of resolving the cemetery fund’s deficit.   

Part of the problem, the jury said, is a revolving door of city administrators who have lost touch over time with cemetery oversight, thus creating a “lack of organizational memory regarding cemetery operations.”  

The jury in Sonoma County self-initiated their investigation into the city’s cemeteries, though reviews of some of the burial sites on social media range from “appears neglected and poorly maintained” to “it’s just a disgrace that a place for one’s final resting place is so neglected.”  

Katy St. Clair got her start in journalism by working in the classifieds department at the East Bay Express during the height of alt weeklies, then sweet talked her way into becoming staff writer, submissions editor, and music editor. She has been a columnist in the East Bay Express, SF Weekly, and the San Francisco Examiner. Starting in 2015, she begrudgingly scaled the inverted pyramid at dailies such as the Vallejo Times-Herald, The Vacaville Reporter, and the Daily Republic. She has her own independent news site and blog that covers the delightfully dysfunctional town of Vallejo, California, where she also collaborates with the investigative team at Open Vallejo. A passionate advocate for people with developmental disabilities, she serves on both the Board of the Arc of Solano and the Arc of California. She lives in Vallejo.