A few trees in Oakwood Cemetery had to be taken down for safety purposes, roads need repaired and the cemetery recently had a water leak. Sexton Hal Heagy told the Board of Regents Thursday that he had Beaver Dam Tree Service cut down 11 trees and two stumps in January. The two real big trees on Legion 1 in the cemetery were “becoming dangerous and were dead at the top,” he said. He was finding big chunks of the tree in the grass and was concerned that if he didn’t have the trees cut down, someone may get killed as people park there. The limbs of the two maples were big. “All the pine trees back behind Cremation Garden 1 are gone except for the stumps I’ve got to take out,” Heagy said. The cut wood will be given away as firewood. Eleven loads of wood were given away by Oakwood Cemetery in January. Combined Community Services has a wood giveaway. A person in need can go to CCS and get a voucher for one free truckload of wood a month. The wood comes from the city, the cemetery or wood cutters. The cemetery staff splits it. “We’re not seeing as many loads this year in the fire. We’re going to move the pen next year so we’re splitting (wood) to keep up for this. We have plenty on hand, but I don’t want to do a bunch because we’re going to have to move it. We have plenty of wood right now,” Heagy stated. Beaver Dam Tree Service is a family-owned business and Heagy said it was insured and bonded. “He’s also a climber, which is a benefit,” Heagy said. “We did have to rent a lift on this one because the wind wasn’t safe enough so he just cut (the two maples) down with a lift.” For all the work done by Beaver Dam Tree Service, Heagy said the cemetery paid $3,500, “which was very, very reasonable.” Heagy also told the board that “the biggest project this year is road repair.” The cemetery has around $90,000 in its permanent fund to spend, though Heagy said that doesn’t mean he will spend all of it or that $90,000 will cover all the road work needed. “Our roads, back in the day, sad to say, were not put in correctly. They basically cut the sod off and laid asphalt,” Heagy reported. “It’s held up pretty good, don’t get me wrong. The roads I’ve put in have compaction, base and everything in it. Before I repaved Legion (the main road), Legion was an inch thick.” Some roads in the old section of the cemetery are “falling apart,” he noted. Heagy is working with City of Warsaw Street Superintendent Jeff Beeler on the roads. Heagy said buying the cemetery’s asphalt when Beeler buys it for the street department could reduce the cost. “It’s going to be a win-win with us working together,” he said. The last item under new business was about a water leak that was found and repaired. “The main water valve, just so you know, that’s down here by the chapel, it’s the one we shut off that kills 90 percent of the cemetery. We have another valve that does the other one. It started leaking. We had the plug out luckily so it didn’t rejuvenate the cemetery. If not, we would have some busted, frozen lines,” Heagy explained. He said he had a repairman come in and fix it. The water bill had gone up and the next one will be up, too, but Heagy said that’s how the water leak was found. “We were up 20,000 gallons,” Heagy said, even though only the water in the chapel and office building were turned on. In other business: • Seven men and 11 women were buried in the cemetery in January, including one person in the Legion Circle. Of those 18, two were cremains. Half of the burials were city residents. Total dollars taken in from all burial services in January was $12,035. • Heagy reported the Christmas lights were back up downtown for tonight’s First Friday. His employees fixed the broken ones over a period of two days. The lights will be taken down next week. • The cemetery is up for a new dump truck and mower, but Heagy said it will be awhile before they can be purchased because of the amount of money that comes into the cemetery.
