Sunshine Coast Regional District (SCRD) directors have asked staff for more information before deciding on a request to designate a section of Seaview Cemetery for Jewish burial.
The request was made last month in a letter from six Jewish seniors who live on the Coast. With no local graveyard available for Jewish burial and expansion plans being developed for Seaview Cemetery, this might be an opportune time to discuss our needs, the March 23 letter said.
Speaking for the group at the April 11 community services committee meeting, Michael Weiner said there are an estimated 50 to 60 Jewish people on the Coast, including Powell River.
It is an aging population mainly, Weiner said. Most of us live here and basically want to be buried here.
The group is asking for up to 25 burial plots in an area of the cemetery that would be separated from non-Jewish plots by at least one burial site and possibly a small fence or hedge to demarcate the area.
A pathway and/or lane for the hearse would probably additionally serve this purpose, the letter said.
Their request includes the offer of a donation in order to facilitate such arrangements and defray some of the possible extra costs involved.
Staff confirmed that additional plots at the cemetery would have to be developed to meet the request.
Currently there are 143 full grave sites available at Seaview Cemetery; however, these sites are scattered throughout the cemetery and are not suitable for what this group of people is looking for, Carleen McDowell, manager of parks services, said in her report. Looking at the Seaview Cemetery master plan, there is a proposed section that could work for this purpose, if the board so wishes.
Asked by Gibsons director Gerry Tretick whether acting on the request would accelerate plans for cemetery expansion, McDowell said it would definitely accelerate the plan. Expansion isn't in our five-year plan right now. Clearing more land wasn't in the work plan. So it would be new work added to get these plots cleared and ready for interment.
My concern, Tretick said, would be that we may end up budgeting dollars well ahead of time from when they're normally required, not given this particular request. And that would be my concern. I'm not saying we shouldn't consider it.
Halfmoon Bay director Garry Nohr suggested the item be deferred until staff reports back on the financial implications of the request, so that directors can really look at what it would cost to do the expansion and see if it all works out.
Nohr said he had no problem with the request, but did wonder if more would follow.
I understand where the people are coming from and I understand what they want to do and why they want to do it. But that would open the door for other people and other religions to come forward with the same sort of thing, Nohr said.
Supporting the deferral motion, Roberts Creek director Donna Shugar noted people of the Jewish faith are paying taxes for the cemetery, and if they do not have access to the type of burial required under their religion, they are in effect being excluded.
We need to make sure that we are inclusive of everybody in our community, Shugar said.
She also told the group, I think your estimate of 60 people is a conservative estimate. I think there are more Jewish people on the Coast than that, but they won't all necessarily require a sanctified burial situation.
In her report to the committee, McDowell said the group's list of Jewish burial requirements could be accommodated, except for one.
Burials, the request said, need to take place as soon as possible after death, optimally the following day (except on a Saturday) and so a gravedigger needs to be on call on short notice.
In fact, McDowell said, staff request at least three days minimum notice, and prefer four days.
Because of staff resources, work priorities and that a backhoe would need to be contracted in, it is not realistic that staff can perform an internment with less than 24 hours notice, she said.
Before leaving the meeting, however, Weiner told the committee that the group's request for short-notice burials could be withdrawn.
We feel that we can accede to your request of four days, he said.
Committee chair Lee Turnbull asked staff to include comments on a separate request about Pioneer Cemetery in the report.
In a letter received at the same meeting, Sunshine Coast Museum and Archives Society president Lorraine Goddard said public concerns had been raised at two successive board meetings about the state of Pioneer Cemetery, located on Cemetery Road in Elphinstone.
Since the care and preservation of cemeteries is outside her society's mandate, Goddard asked the SCRD to consider ways to provide some maintenance to a historically significant cemetery in our area.
The community services committee meets again May 9.
