06.11.10
Posted in Uncategorized, cemetery consulting, cemetery management, cemetery news, news alerts at 10:26 am by Administrator
As many times as we have said it, managing and operating a cemetery can be a complex task especially if you don’t hold the expertise necessary or at least have a professional mentor to show you the way. We at CemOps have been fortunate over the years to have the latter, putting us in a position to enjoy the expertise after years of mentoring. Considering the number of problems now apparent at Arlington, and you must consider a lack of professional training or expertise on the part of past management. The Secretary of the Army has stated he finds no grounds for criminal considerations, which is most likely correct. Nobody sets out to bury 230 war heroes in the wrong place, or on top of one another, there just wouldnt’ be anything to gain personally by doing so. There is no money changing hands at a national cemetery, which precludes greed or other criminal actions from occuring. No, this is a simple case of the wrong person being put in charge of the most heralded cemetery in our country. There are perhaps a handful of folks with the appropriate credentials in this country to properly manage such a cemetery, which begs the question of the selection process when the former manager was hired.
Now, they say there may be more trouble and have ordered a thorough investigation. Now the real tough questions: 1) Who will perform this investigation, and what expertise do they possess to insure this investigation is in fact thorough? 2) Will this investigation take place as an independent one, with absolutely no interference from federal sources? 3)Who has the appropriate expertise to effect change beyond the investigation and put in place policy and procedures to insure this cannot occur in the future? 4) What is in place now, to allow for corrections later without disturbing an inordinate number of burials, in essence perpetuating a problem already in existence?
CemOps has many more questions than answers at this point in time. We hope to have meaningful conversations in the near term to answer some of these and hopefully be invited on the ground to assist. Our nations war dead deserve better. Their families deserve better. We have the right to expect more of the folks we entrust our national burial grounds to.
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01.29.10
Posted in Uncategorized at 7:59 pm by Administrator
According to ABC, the gubenatorial race in Illinois between Dan Hynes and Pat Quinn have uncovered new documentation and information on the Burr Oak Cemetery Scandal.
According to the news article, Dan Hynes office of the comptroller was notified in 2003 of the issues at Burr Oak Cemetery regarding the digging up of remains and discarding them into vacant property to make room for other burials, and that his top cemetery official met with him regarding this very incident. This apparently occured on November 19, 2003.
According to a follow up letter from Hynes’ office to cemetery owners the next February, his now director of cemetery care stated, “I am writing in response to our meeting with you in November regarding the discovery of human remains at Burr Oak Cemetery.” The letter written on official comptroller stationary and signed by Percy Lucina, Hynes’ top cemetery aide.
This has become a focal point in the race for governor in the state of Illinois. Governor Quinn blames Hynes for the lack of control over the issue, and Hynes counterclaims that Quinn’s office has spent millions of dollars distorting the facts and blaming him for exploiting the tragedy where he contests his office had no control.
CemOps assertion is; this is so atypical. Fingerpointing with no direction to correct the situation or bring the actual perpetrators to justice. But for this to alledgedly occur for 6 years prior to making the breaking nationwide news is unforgiveable!
Apparently, Governor Quinn blames the comptrollers’ agency for not making the appropriate agencies aware after the letter was published. Making this story even more disgusting, it states there is documentation the cemetery owners were made aware of the problems during the 2003 communications.
CemOps has communicated now for 4 years, this is not out of the ordinary. This isn’t only happening in Illinois, even though Senator Burris was implicated earlier on over the IFDA (Illinois Funeral Directors Association) pre paid funeral trust scam. States just dont’ get it. They have the regulatory control and responsibilities and where withall to levy fines and other punishments for failing to follow state law. Do they? Not until it is too late. CemOps has offered help in almost all states, with little or no return of the offers. States don’t realize instead of complaining about budgets and inability to finance audit and regulatory agencies, these agencies don’t need to feed off the general fund of the individual states. They can easily be self supporting and we can show them how.
Instead of becoming political fodder in a nasty race, the eyes need to be on the ball of the affected families and the continued grief they all suffer every time they read these type headlines. It is evident that all parties have dropped the ball on this case, including ownership of the cemetery, but this is not the first time this has happened. There was the Troy, Georgia crematory case and the Mennorah Gardens case before this, which by the way was quite similar in nature. And hundreds of other cases that only made regional news.
In the past year, CemOps has monitored over 300 cases where the states could have/should have stepped in to protect their constituents. They failed at every turn. We suggest instead of tunnel vision on hiring accountants for this function, look at qualified operations persons with real time experience in the death care industry to look into these matters. Same goes for the federal government. The GAO is no better equipped to investigate these type occurences, but the governmental bodies refuse to move in a different direction.
Simply put, CemOps is sick and tired of these news items making it to a national audience with little or no viable solutions coming forth. Along the way the profession also sits quietly by waiting for the outcome instead of being proactive to insure these type occurences stop. If the government threatens further regulations, the associations fight it, instead of finding ways to police within their own industry and correct before these items hit national news.
The forgotten facts here, are so easy to see if there is a willingness to….. Families are negatively impacted every time they read a story like this. It causes them pause, wondering if where they chose to associate themselves are any better. The state, federal and local government agencies basically do nothing until it blows up in the news, and the death care industry follows suit when of all people they could internally police themselves.
It’s time for everyone to wake up. This is the type thing that drives our revenues down. Our reputation takes more hits every day without a word from the industry that continues to be negatively impacted. The g0vernment continues to lose the trust of the people they are payed to protect.
We don’t have all the answers, but we do have many. Let’s get our heads together and slow this down to a manageable flow until we can get full control over the poor operators that are destroying our profession. If you challenge me on this, I will be glad to send you the hundreds of emails I receive annually regarding this very type occurence. Heads out of the sand! Send me your email address and I will send them to you. Then, maybe you will see how deeply this goes.
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01.25.10
Posted in Uncategorized at 8:05 pm by Administrator
Having been assigned to troubled locations for a number of years now, and the impact the solutions to those locations had on my personal life experience – I thought it only prudent to share some of these with the readers of this blog.
During the remediation of a cemetery for one of the large corporations, the lack of appropriate Personal Protective Equipment became a serious cause of illness for me. During a disinterment in a cemetery with a considerable amount of limestone and under ground water, in order to communicate with a grounds member I lifted my paper mask. At that very moment, a splash of water was caused by a large rock falling into the grave and splashback of material into my mouth. One year later, I was diagnosed with cancer and the biopsy returned with trace amounts of arsenic and fremaldehyde in the tissue taken. Thus the reason we offer Personal Protective Equipment on our website and we no longer perform such operations without it.
At this point I certainly could have come back on the company, but chose not to. I personally despise those who think the answers to their lives are in the courts with huge settlements, and stayed true to myself and allowed the health insurance to take care of the disease.
At the next large corporation, my reputation was intact for fixing troubled cemetery and crematory locations. During the hiring process, I was interested in clear understandings regarding the identification and solution phases of repairing what was known to be a troubled location. The Chief Operating Officer made it abundantly clear that I was expected to clean up the situation and eliminate all liability from the company for the future. Once it was apparent this could cost the company money in order to correct, the budget was killed and the issues remained.
At the end of this cycle, I had two single spaced pages of unrectified issues the company had no desire to correct. I kept a personal copy of these issues in case it came back to me, and the state ever required an investigation. End result, neither occured.
It was at this time, I realized there was a need for a CemOps. It was at this time, I discovered if the companies didn’t care and the state regulators didn’t care, there was a clear disconnect in what the law stated it required. It was then I realized expectations and enforcement were far apart.
So these issues continue and parties are not brought to accountability until enough families complain or a news agency gets involved.
Those same companies do not respond to efforts to assist with what we know to be problems we can solve. Those same companies have chosen to continue business as usual and not allow outside involvement and help. We continue to offer, with no return to those we know are in desparate need of our assistance.
I can also say to you I have worked for smaller organizations/corporations who have taken these same issues seriously and dedicated the necessary resources to correct issues and insure future occurences do not occur.
Help is here and available to those who wish to take advantage of it.
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