Cemetery Fields Forum Explores Future Options

Amherst residents converged on the Souhegan High School Auditorium on a cold Wednesday night to learn how the town could one day use Cemetery Fields.

Instead of just setting aside the 47.5 acre parcel for future cemetery space, Amherst residents learned from members of the Friends of Cemetery Fields the land could be subdivided for recreation fields, open space as well as future burial plots.

Currently, the land that the town purchased from the Merrill family in 1993 is scheduled to fall under control of the Board of Cemetery Trustees in September 2014. There is also a petition warrant article on the March 11 Town Meeting ballot that, if passed, would cede control of Cemetery Fields to the Board of Selectmen.

Andy Rowe, chairman of the Friends of Cemetery Fields Committee, said a lot of new information has come to light since the town purchased the land that would make most of it unsuitable for cemetery use, but good for open space and recreational fields.

He also said some areas of the property would now be legally considered wetlands under state law.

"I think the fields as they are configured now could deliver a lot of value to the town," Rowe said.

Given the fact that 60- to 70 percent of the land is now considered wetlands, Rowe said recreational fields makes a great deal of sense.

Brad Galinson, the selectmen's liaison to the cemetery trustees, said a lot of the land also sits in a flood plain and would not be good as a cemetery.

But Galinson also said the cemetery trustees don't believe that cemeteries and recreational fields can co-exist, "which has always been the crux of the argument."

Selectmen Chairman Dwight Brew explained that the town will end up paying to either build a new cemetery and to maintain a new cemetery when the Cemetery Trustees assume control of the land in September 2014.

He suggested the town could sell up to 10 acres of the parcel in exchange for some recreational fields, which would be a good compromise.

Bob Heaton, a former selectman who worked on the purchase of Cemetery Fields, said the land there is suitable for recreational fields more so than as cemeteries.

Wendy Ranneberg, a member of the Cemetery Fields Replacement Committee, said there is not much available land in town that would be as beneficial to the town as this property.

Nancy McMillan, director of the town Recreation Commission, said she would like to see a compromise where a cemetery and recreation fields could co-exist. She said the town will face a shortage of recreation fields by 2015 given the demand that exists.

Rowe returned to earlier point that there is enough space there for a shared use.

"Not finding some common ground on this is very shortsighted," Rowe said.

The division that exists over this issue was pronounced at the forum when Cemetery Trustees Peter Bergin and Marie Grella, who were invited to serve as forum panelists, decided to attend the event and sit in the audience as silent observers.

In a statement that the Cemetery Trustees issued on Wednesday that was published on Amherst Today, the trustees maintain they want to abide by the 1999 superior court settlement that states recreational use of Cemetery Fields "shall terminate no later than September 2014 and the premises shall thereafter be utilized for cemetery purposes."