Editor, Times-Union: I am writing you about a problem I am attempting to resolve with the city-owned Oakwood Cemetery and the Warsaw city attorney, Mike Valentine. I have made repeated phone calls to Mr. Valentine to discuss this with him. They have not been returned. I have always been told that he is in a meeting and to leave my number for him to return my call. He never has. I am an 82-year-old Korean War veteran with severe physical disabilities and handicaps. I am legally blind and have had emergency open heart surgery with a five by pass. I have congestive heart failure and prostate cancer. I am unable to work and have been forced to sell some personal possessions, as the need requires, in order to survive. I explain my situation so you may understand my pursuit of a solution to my cemetery problem. My mother, a Warsaw native, purchased eight burial lots at Oakwood in 1930 upon the death of my father. She paid $10 each. Four of these have since been used for her and two other family members. My wife and I live in Greenfield, Ind., and will never use them. I stopped recently to verify their availability despite nearby tree growth. I told the secretary and sexton at the cemetery that I would try to sell them. I was informed that I could only sell them back to the cemetery for what my mother paid for them in 1930 because of a city ordinance passed when the cemetery was founded years before that. But, they said, if they didn’t know about my selling them, I could do it. I then ran an ad in your paper and had a good number of calls. A buyer went to the cemetery to check the location and was told I could not sell them to anyone but the cemetery for $10 each. The cemetery currently sells lots to out-of-towners for $400 and $300 to city residents. I had hopes to sell my lots for $200 each – vastly different from the 1930s price of $10 each. Times have changed – we now have jet planes and computers – and to be offered this price is an insult to anyone’s intelligence. I was told to contact the city attorney to discuss the situation. A fellow church member suggested I ask about the consideration of a waiver or variance. Again, I have attempted to talk to Mr. Valentine but no response. The only conclusions I have reached are that there is an extreme lack of common courtesy and a large dose of arrogance in performing his duties toward fellow citizens of Indiana. We veterans don’t ask for much for our service, but going through life we sometimes expect and deserve some consideration from our elected officials.
