Celebrating a quiet victory

Sometimes the little victories get overlooked.
A few months back, there was a news story out of Allen County about a rural cemetery that was a mess.
The newspaper involved talked to the township trustee who was supposed to be responsible for the place.
Don’t blame me, he said. There’s no money in the budget to take care of it.
Nonsense.
Fact is, the township advisory committee could approve a budget that would provide the necessary funds to maintain the cemetery.
And, fact is, the county itself could put a smidgen on the property tax rate to fund cemetery maintenance in general.
That’s what’s happened in Jay County, in one of those quiet, revolutionary moments that aren’t truly appreciated until years later.
About a dozen or so years ago, folks concerned about the state of the county’s rural cemeteries did some research and learned that there’s a fiscal mechanism for funding cemetery maintenance and restoration.
They took their argument to the county commissioners, and a tiny bit was added to the tax rate.
It wasn’t as much as the law would have allowed, but it was enough to allow the cemetery commission to initiate a program of restoring damaged headstones and monuments. And that activity led to greater pressure on township trustees to take on their statutory responsibility.
The result: Unlike Allen County and many others, Jay’s rural cemeteries are in pretty darned good shape.
It wasn’t too many years ago that some rural cemeteries had simply disappeared amid an overgrowth of weeds. Now, they’re marked, they’re maintained, and they’re being restored.
In its own way, that qualifies as revolutionary. — J.R.

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