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Resting In Peace? from page 1
cemetery, which was taken over by the
adjacent Hebrew Memorial Park eight
years ago. She is troubled by uneven
ground, crumbling masonry, leaning
headstones and sinking graves. "The
feeling I was given" about upkeep, said
Holtzman-Wax, "is that it's a money issue'
Rabbi Boruch Levin is executive director
of the Hebrew Memorial Chapel. The cem-
etery and the chapel are separate arms of
the Hebrew Benevolent Society, formed in
1916 as the Jewish Free Burial Society.
"We've taken over a number of cem-
eteries. Some had their financial house in
order and some did not. The board decided
that this was the right thing to do:' Levin
said of the decision to take over Workmen's
Circle, which had very little money in trust.
Money and maintenance are perpetual
concerns of cemetery boards, directors
and groundskeepers. And they are the two
reasons why some of Metro Detroit's oldest
and smallest cemeteries find themselves in
both fiscal and physical difficulty.
In 1968, Michigan's legislature passed
the Michigan Cemetery Regulation Act,
which aimed to ensure cemetery mainte-
nance in perpetuity. The act requires any
new cemetery to put $25,000 (amended to
$50,000 in 2008) and 15 percent of each
plot sale into a property maintenance trust.
However, cemeteries owned by religious
institutions are exempt from regulation.
And cemeteries that predate the act may
never have established adequate trusts.
Some synagogue-owned cemeteries did
not segregate congregation and cemetery
funds, and as synagogue membership
dwindled, some made up budget short-
falls by "borrowing" from cemetery funds,
resulting in under-funded cemetery trusts.
Hard Times
B'nai David Cemetery on Van Dyke and
East Six Mile in Detroit is, by all accounts,
in the worst straits. The cemetery can
hardly afford to care for its 1,200 graves.
Each of the community's funeral homes
reports doing the greatest number of
re-interments from the 100-year-old cem-
etery. Saul Chudnow of Oak Park, 15-year
volunteer manager of cemetery mainte-
nance, said, "In the last 10 years, I doubt
we've had six burials there
Chudnow did say that cemetery main-
tenance expenses are coming from funds
designated for perpetual care of the
graves. "Some thought has been given to
having one of the neighborhood cemeter-
ies take care of it, but that's in the future,"
he said. "Our funds are not that great
because our contributions are not that
great."
Several local cemeteries, including
Novi's Oakland Hills Memorial Gardens,
which maintains the B'nai Israel section,
and Woodmere Cemetery on Fort and
Woodmere in Detroit, which maintains a
Shaarey Zedek-owned section, had their
funds looted by Oklahoma speculator
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June 9 - 2011
JN
Marci Holtzman-Wax of Farmington Hills notes the new cement liner around her father's grave at Workman's Circle Cemetery.
Clayton Smart. Between 2004 and 2006,
Smart embezzled $70 million from 28
cemetery maintenance funds in Michigan.
Smart was recently convicted and faces
the rest of his life in prison because of
similar cases in Michigan and Tennessee.
According to David Techner, owner
and funeral director of the Ira Kaufman
Chapel in Southfield, B'nai Israel "never
got the promised infrastructure, such as
sprinklers:' because of the losses from its
perpetual-care funds.
Craig Nelke, director of operations for
Midwest Memorial Group, which took over
all of the Michigan cemeteries looted by
Smart, including Woodmere and Oakland
Hills, said, "I would guess that there's no
money left to take care of the property, but
it will be maintained as if it had not been
looted. We have an obligation to do so.
"B'nai Israel is secure in its mainte-
nance going forward."
The Nitty-Gritty
Dave Tomlinson has been with Hebrew
Memorial Park for 23 years. "There are
things that need to be done big time. We
try to tackle as much as we can," he said."
Since assuming responsibility for
Workmen's Circle, Tomlinson has seen to
eradicating grubs that attract burrowing
moles, done masonry repairs and replaced
a decrepit water filter that allowed the
property's iron-rich water to stain head-
stones.
Workmen's Circle has concrete frames
around each grave, which, in addition to
costing $75 each to replace when they
deteriorate, prohibit use of a lawn mower.
In the summer, the weekly cost of using
weed whackers to maintain the cemetery's
grass is $2,500.
Care for individual graves is paid for
by relatives. They pay for repairs to the
grave, plus either an annual maintenance
fee or prepay into a perpetual-care fund.
"Perpetual care is for flowers only," said
Levin. "We plant about 9,000 a year."