Oakwood Cemetery Has High-Speed Internet, Working On Gas Lines & Columbariums
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David Slone-dslone@timesuniononline.com
As of Thursday, the Oakwood Cemetery office is live with high-speed Internet and phone lines, sexton Hal Heagy told the Board of Regents yesterday. Board President Dave Baumgartner asked if the whole city was on Warsaw Fiber now. “No. Is it going to be? Yes,” Heagy replied. “All the city (government) buildings will be on Warsaw Fiber. Active right now is myself today, street, airport and parks.” He said all the city departments eventually will be linked together. The Wastewater Utility Department was waiting to get the cable in, the police and fire departments have issues, and City Hall has it but it’s not hooked up. By issues, Heagy said they weren’t “bad” issues, but there are things the departments have to connect and do which will take a little longer to get completed. “Everybody’s working on it. We’re all set up with them to go. We all have the contracts,” Heagy said. “I’m all for that,” Baumgartner said. “It’s high-speed.” Heagy said people eventually will be able to tag onto the Internet system, and he wants to put hot spots in the cemetery so people can use their smartphones to find where their loved ones are buried in Oakwood. Heagy later reported he and Parks & Recreation Department Superintendent Larry Plummer have been working with NIPSCO to get gas lines to their workshops at the cemetery. NIPSCO ran a new line under the bridge and to the cemetery’s back gate. He said the gas lines will replace the LP tanks they currently have back there. “We’ve been negotiating with NIPSCO and they finally came up with a price, and I have it in my budget, and we’re going to do that. It goes to the Board of Works (today) for the fee to put it in,” Heagy said. The lines will allow for the elimination of the LP tanks, and City Engineer James Emans is involved with the project. According to a copy of the agreement, the cost is $16,537.43. Once it’s installed, the Parks Department and Oakwood Cemetery will have their own gas meters and monthly gas bills. Heagy also is working with Emans on columbariums for the cemetery. A columbarium is a respectful above-ground storage for urns holding people’s ashes. Heagy is drawing the plans up, Emans will put the specifications together and then they will go out for quotes for construction of the columbariums. He said hopefully they will go out for bid by next year. There will be four columbariums, with an open building in the center for services. With Memorial Day coming up, Heagy said it’s gotten easier every year, but his crew works hard to get the cemetery prepared for it. “I’m going to brag on my crew. I’ve got a great crew. These guys work very well and very hard. If you look at the cemetery already, we’ve had how many days of rain this week? And we’re just about done mowing. The front field’s an issue because of water,” he said. His crew – of five full-time employees – had to push mow for about a half day Thursday and they got it to “look really, really nice,” he said. Heagy also has about 22 foundations to pour, which he has to get finished soon because the last week before Memorial Day he’s just going to be working on keeping Oakwood clean. Memorial Day this year is May 30, and Heagy said his department will do what it needs to do to get the cemetery looking how it should by then. In other business, Heagy reported: • The new back gate to the cemetery is done and installed. • The front gate has stone flower beds this year and is completed. Spring flowers are ordered and will be in before Memorial Day. • The cemetery’s summer help will start around June 6. There will be two school teachers and two Whitko High School students working for Heagy this year. • There were more than 20 high school students at the cemetery recently helping to clean up the cemetery as part of their community service. Baumgartner told Heagy he does a great job at the cemetery and the board appreciates all he does. The next Oakwood Cemetery Board of Regents meeting is at 5 p.m. June 2 at the cemetery office. Board members are Baumgartner, Lewis Dobbins, Arthur Brown and Ellen Hoffer.
