Wyoming Cemetery Expansion $350K Bond Approved

Construction on an expansion of should start next week after the Melrose Board of Aldermen took a final vote on Monday night to approve a $350,000 bond that will pay for the project.

The expansion will create 246 new grave plots along Lebanon Street near the Ripley School. The bond would be paid off over five years through a pre-sale right of burial lottery, open only to Melrosians who have resided in the city for at least 30 years and are 70-years-old or older.

Approximately 20-25 graves would be pre-sold each year through the lottery held each year for the next five years, with the rest held for current burials, with those pre-sale payments covering the cost of the expansion project, according to city officials. The lottery would be overseen by the city's Election Administrator, Linda-Lee Angiolillo, and held each fall

In addition to the 246 new double-depth grave plots, the expansion would create a roadway around the perimeter of those plots and landscape an area currently used for storage of cemetery equipment.

Funding for the project would also be used to rehabilitate existing maintenance garages, including one that currently doesn't have running water, heat or electricity, partly due to an accident where a power line was cut during construction of new graves a few years back. The equipment currently stored at the expansion site would be moved to the rehabilitated garages.

The project would also install irrigation, which is not available in most of the cemetery, and create a sloped, landscaped hill that can be turned into a wall for cremations and future plots. Mayor Rob Dolan that believes the expansion "will take the cemetery out another 25 years."

Information from previously published Melrose Patch articles was used in this report.