VERO BEACH — The Vero Beach City Council voted unanimously Tuesday to move forward with a referendum on protecting various parks and city-owned lands, but making sure the city can’t sell Crestlawn Cemetery will mean that residents can no longer own pieces of it.
A final draft of the referendum language to amend the city charter still needs to come back to the council for a vote before it could be advertised and printed on the Nov. 4 ballots. In the meantime the city’s legal staff will need to draw up changes to the ordinance governing how the city operates Crestlawn Cemetery.
The proposed charter amendment would prohibit the city from selling or leasing the protected properties without passage of a future referendum by the voters on that sale or lease. This would protect many neighborhood parks and city assets like the cemetery from being developed or privatized without voter consent.
Councilwoman Pilar Turner raised the concern that the city issues deeds to burial plots, thereby selling, in a piecemeal fashion, the city-owned cemetery property. That practice, if continued, would be in violation of the proposed charter amendment, should it pass in November.
When this contradiction was discovered, the first reaction was to delay any action until the cemetery deed procedure could be fully researched.
“I think this obviously needs more investigation that this has been in the works for months and a basic thing like these deeds being issued hasn’t come up,” Turner said.
Councilman Craig Fletcher said he wasn’t comfortable issuing final approval of something that would create a disconnect between the city charter and city code should the ballot initiative pass.
After further discussion, an option was offered up that that the measure could move forward without the cemetery and the old city nursery on Old Dixie Highway included in the list of properties to be protected. The old nursery is considered to be the land upon which the city would expand the cemetery should the need arise someday.
Putting the proposed charter amendment on the ballot without including the cemetery would have surely stirred up a heap of controversy among long-time residents who have loved ones buried at Crestlawn. Dozens of family members and burial plot owners packed the council chambers more than once, protesting a pitch last year to allow a private company to take over and manage the cemetery and columbarium because the city operates those facilities at a financial loss.
“I would rather table the whole thing and get the cemetery in there,” Mayor Dick Winger said, acknowledging the sensitive politics surrounding the resting place of many of Vero Beach’s pioneer families.
A committee led by Councilwoman Amelia Graves and former council member Ken Daige took up the issue last fall and has been working with city staff to identify the properties, research the histories and clean up the boundaries and legal descriptions of all the various parks, lands and even a retention pond referred to as Lake Rose.
City Attorney Wayne Coment said the change in the ordinance from deeds to certificates of burial rights could move through the ordinance process concurrently with the ballot initiative so everything could be completed to meet deadlines set forth by the Supervisor of Elections and the council would not seem to be acting at cross-purposes.
That compromise seemed to suit the council, so both measures will come back for votes at future meetings. The next regularly scheduled meeting of the Vero Beach City Council is scheduled for Aug. 19, as the council will not meet on Aug. 5 as it typically takes the first meeting in July and the first meeting in August off so staff can schedule their summer vacations.