UNION CEMETERY FEMA aid helps to rebuild office

It took a disaster for Hubbard Union Cemetery to get a new building.
By TIM YOVICH
VINDICATOR TRUMBULL STAFF
HUBBARD -- The Federal Emergency Management Agency has been criticized for not providing funds when needed, but there's been no blasting of the agency at Hubbard Union Cemetery.
As the result of a severe thunderstorm on a Sunday in July 2003, the cemetery has a new office, most of the $58,000 cost being paid by FEMA.
Cemetery sexton Daniel L. Livingston, who also serves as clerk-treasurer, recalled going to work the day after the July 27 downpour and finding 52 inches of water in the basement and two basement walls caved in.
The damage surprised Livingston because the cemetery is on East Hill, the highest spot in the city.
One basement wall collapsed when a concrete block struck the hot water heater, pulling free the water inlet valve. It was not only the rainwater, but also city water that caused the flooding.
Livingston said that while attending FEMA meetings, he found out that the agency would pay 881/2 percent to repair or remodel the building.
New building
If the building was repaired, it would have cost $47,900 opposed to $58,000 for a new structure. The three-member board responsible for the cemetery, which opened in 1860, decided on a new building with FEMA paying $51,300 of the project.
It was nine months after the flood that Livingston moved from the chapel, where he had set up temporary headquarters, to the new digs.
"We could have never repaired or rebuilt this building without FEMA," Livingston asserted.
As part of the project cost, the basement was backfilled and the building is slightly smaller than the 47-year-old building.
"It's smaller but more efficient," said Bonnie Viele, a city councilwoman and cemetery board chairwoman. "Hopefully, we're flood-proofed now."
Besides Viele, the other board members are Councilman William Williams and township Trustee Joseph Gleydura.
"It took a natural disaster to get a new building," commented Livingston, who started working at the cemetery in 1979 and was named sexton in 1984.
Cemetery budget
The cemetery operates on an annual budget of $137,000. It receives $38,000 from city and township property owners who pay 0.2 of a mill, and the balance through the sales of graves and burial fees.
The cemetery operates on a short margin with Livingston's salary and the wages of two full-time and three part-time employees.
There has been some consideration by the board to ask for added millage, but levies for the library and community swimming pool and the city income tax increase that will be on the Nov. 2 ballot have taken priority.
The cemetery will run out of land in about four years, Livingston estimates, on the developed 19.7 acres. He sells between 90 and 110 plots annually and 400 to 500 are available. There are about 6,000 buried in Union.
The cemetery owns an adjacent 5.5 acres that will make room for 4,000 additional plots. However, roads and draining must be built and the land surveyed. Livingston said he doesn't know how much it will cost.
yovich@vindy.com