After a near-unanimous Annual Town Meeting (ATM) vote to spend $5,655 of Community Preservation Commission’s (CPC) funds to hire a preservationist to advise the Historical Commission (HHC) and the Cemetery Commission (HCC) on a Shaker burial ground restoration project, HCC Chairman Bruce Dolimount has suddenly changed his mind and no longer supports the project.

In a caustic May 4 e-mail (a copy of which was obtained by the Press), Dolimount informed HHC Chairman Jonathan Feist that the Cemetery Commission “has voted to table spending the money appropriated at Town Meeting.” The HCC vote took place May 3 during a regularly scheduled meeting for which no minutes have yet been posted

In an e-mail to the Press, Feist stated, “After ATM voted overwhelmingly to proceed with the CPC proposal for the cemetery’s restoration, the Cemetery Commission decided to kill the project.”

The project, first pitched to the CPC by the Cemetery Commission three years ago, is to restore deteriorating grave markers in what is known as the Shaker Cemetery (more properly called the Shaker burial ground). Dolimount wanted to sandblast them and have them powder-coated. Concerned about the fragility of the old and deteriorating metal, Feist consulted with several antique metals conservators, all of whom advised against the approach recommended by Dolimount. Among the many concerns were the effect sandblasting would have on the fragile and decayed metal and the effect of extreme high heat on the metal from powder coating. In addition, samples produced by Dolimount “looked like plastic,” according to Feist.

From its inception, the project has been marked by disagreement about how to preserve the old grave markers, and those disagreements appear to have bred considerable resentment between the cemetery and historical commissions. The latest development seems rooted in the wording of the warrant article itself, which did not initially include the HCC as an official cosponsor of the funding request, although an amendment was approved at ATM to correct that.

HHC member Roseanne Saalfield explained that in the application for funds that she wrote, she put HHC on the “top line” because of a legal requirement that a portion of CPC grants, by law, have to go toward historical preservation. Later in the application she included the HCC as cosponsors; however, six months later, when CPC Chairman Steve Rowse wrote the warrant article for ATM, he went with the title of the application (one amongst a stack of applications), which he considers an “administrative miss.”

Two days later, the HCC met and “tabled” the project. Dolimount then sent a rambling and angry e-mail to Feist, complaining about being left out of the warrant article and charging that the HCC felt “sold out” by the HHC. Dolimount also said that the cemetery commissioners object to “the spending of money to tell us something we already know.”

A Shaker gravemarker in the Shaker burial ground off South Shaker Road. (Photo by Lisa Aciukewicz)

On May 4, the HHC had a general meeting, which Dolimount attended. At that meeting, Rowse acknowledged that in writing the warrant article he had omitted the Cemetery Commission because it was not formally listed as cosponsor of the funding request. This was corrected by the amendment. Rowse then urged Dolimount to “remind other HCC members that just three days earlier a near-unanimous vote of ATM had endorsed the HHC-HCC joint-sponsored expenditure of funds on the Shaker burial ground proposal.”

Dolimount agreed to return to his colleagues and “reopen the discussion of whether the use of the monies was to be tabled.”

On May 6, Dolimount wrote to Feist asking for “a copy of what Jennifer Riley is proposing or the services we are contracting for; at this point we don’t even know what we are expected to be paying for.” Incredulous, Feist responded, “You overruled a town meeting vote without actually having read what it was about?”

By phone, Feist expressed frustration with Dolimount’s approach. “We’re all volunteers, trying to do good stuff for the town. ... This should be a great story about how the whole town came together to restore the Shaker cemetery—it’s a national landmark.”

Dolimount did not return phone calls or e-mails from the Press asking about the commission’s objections to the CPC proposal and whether the HCC will work collaboratively with the HHC on this project.

Asked if the HCC has the authority to overrule a Town Meeting vote, newly elected Selectwoman Marie Sobalvarro, liaison to the HCC and HHC, said no, adding, “at this point it’s outside of the HCC.” From Sobalvarro’s viewpoint, “The preservationist will present a recommendation to the CPC, which will likely be relayed to the HCC (in my understanding) for the optimal route to take, along with a cost estimate to preserve the markers. At that point it becomes the jurisdiction of the HCC to implement said recommendation.”

But Rowse later explained that the preservationist would actually present his or her recommendations to HHC and HCC, not CPC.

When asked if the HCC has the right to refuse spending money that was appropriated for a project the town has voted to go ahead with, Sobalvarro again said no. She said that even if the cost of preserving the markers exceeds the available funds of the HCC, “the HCC could, perhaps, balk at implementing the recommendation. But it’d be somewhat of an uphill slog, in my opinion, and likely to be questioned.” That is because there are four cemetery perpetual care accounts, one of which she cited as having an annual return of $55,000 in fiscal 2010. This is in addition to any funding obtained through the Community Preservation tax levy, a percentage of which is mandated for historic preservation. A portion of that money comes from a surcharge on local property taxes.

Weighing in on the question of authority, Rowse said he believes that because of the amendment naming HCC as cosponsor of the project, the question of moving forward is not outside HCC’s jurisdiction. In a letter to the Press, he said, “I’ve been present for some debate over jurisdiction between HHC and HCC over this project and am not clear legally how the commissions’ authorities overlap. Frankly, in my humble opinion, if the two commissions work together, the issue of jurisdiction should go away.” Rowse went on to say, “I don’t have a sense of the legal issues around this, other than to say it’s clear to me that the will, and vote, of the Town Meeting, (and my personal hope) is to have both commissions work together to get this project moving, by hiring a preservation specialist, determining an appropriate preservation method to use, and to develop a ‘request for proposal’ to get the work bid on so that additional funding requirements will be identified and sought to get the work done.”

The next meeting of the HCC is scheduled for June 7.