The Register-Herald, Beckley, West Virginia

Local News

March 10, 2010

Senate approves House cemetery access measure

By Mannix Porterfield

CHARLESTON — CHARLESTON — Families with loved ones interred in rural settings would be assured access to cemeteries in a House bill approved Wednesday by the Senate.

The lone dissenting vote came from Sen. John Pat Fanning, D-McDowell, a veteran of the funeral home industry.

Before the Senate voted 32-1 in favor of the measure, Sen. Mike Green, D-Raleigh, amended it twice.

One change struck a requirement that the landowner maintain an access road for Class A vehicles to use.

The second amendment abandoned a provision calling for use of GPS in pinpointing location of graves.

Instead, Green explained, “any and all professional surveying methods” would be allowed.

The Senate suspended its rules and moved HB4457 up for a vote.

Judiciary Chairman Jeffrey Kessler, D-Marshall, said the measure is tailored especially in the rural and coal-producing counties where access has been a problem.

“It’s a mechanism for folks to have access to pay respects to their loved ones,” Kessler said.

The bill was pushed by both the Catholic Diocese of West Virginia and the West Virginia Council of Churches.

Fanning said afterward that his business means he must work with cemeteries, “and I don’t want to upset those people.”

“As I said in the committee, there are two things you don’t do in the South — don’t fool with a man’s dog and don’t fool with his cemetery,” he said.

“I’ve been to too many cemeteries where families had disagreed or people had come in and done certain things. I don’t want to be a part of that.”

Fanning said the bill contains too many problems the average person won’t understand.

“Cemeteries have been handed down for years and years,” he said.

“How do you find all the people? They’re not perpetual care. These are rural cemeteries. How do you go get permission? It’s confusing for the country.”

Text Only
Local News