OPINION: Support the Cemetery Bond before the public cemetery runs out of space for affordable burials

By Tommy O’Malley

Do you consider yourself a forever Alaskan?  If so, you will want to support Prop. 7, the public cemetery bond, in the Municipal election on April 2.

 Anchorage Memorial Park, the Municipality’s only public cemetery, was established by President Woodrow Wilson and has served Anchorage since it opened in 1915, providing affordable burial space for all residents. Walking through the cemetery is a lesson in the city’s history. It also provides a sense of permanence to our community. But, now, there is a pressing need for more public burial space. 

Proposition 7 will pay for required renovations to the Anchorage Memorial Park and, importantly, establish two new cemeteries one in Eagle River and one in Girdwood.

 There are some tracts in the cemetery that still have room for burials but only for members of certain religions or fraternal organizations. Some people have long-standing reservations for themselves or their families. For people looking to be buried in the public sections, Anchorage’s cemetery is projected to be out of gravesite space for burials by 2025 

Since 1915 there has been no charge for burial plots in the Anchorage Memorial Park. The cost for burial at the cemetery is between $1000 and  $1500, depending on the season. Added to this is a $45 charge for perpetual maintenance. Private cemeteries in Anchorage costs for burial plots and a burial can start at $6000.

There is no more adjacent land for expansion of the city’s historic downtown cemetery. There is no Municipal land large enough in the Anchorage bowl to locate a new public cemetery. The improvements, renovations and accommodation that are part of the bond will extend the usefulness of the cemetery by a few years, make it more accessible to visitors with disabilities and help in the graceful transition of the to a more parklike setting, preserving and displaying the city’s heritage.

 I live in Girdwood. Planning for our cemetery has been ongoing for more than two decades and after extensive public process and with the investment by local taxpayers, there exists a schematic  plan for the design and construction in four phases. The first phase will make a new cemetery in the Municipality ready for service, putting in place the cemetery’s infrastructure: clearing land, making a parking lot, establishing a trail system, building a community shelter and a columbarium wall for cremains and overlaying GPS for locating burial plots.

 A committee with members from Eagle River to Birchwood has been working for more than a dozen years toward the establishment of a cemetery in their part of town. Through a lengthy public process and with the help from their Assembly members, they have chosen a site and have developed a four-phase plan for establishing a new cemetery in Eagle River. Money from the bond will complete the first phase of that project as well. 

 The Anchorage Memorial Park has received on the average the remains of 75 people each year for interment. The combined acreage of the new cemeteries will nearly triple the area that the Municipality can provide for cemetery service and will extend burial capacity for more than 400 years into the future.

Cemeteries are a fundamental and necessary civic responsibility. Anchorage has provided this service for more than 100 years.  It is reasonable that we continue.  Passage of Proposition 7 will prepare a place for ourselves and our loved ones when that time comes. Please join me supporting Proposition 7.

Longtime Girdwood resident Tommy O'Malley has been involved in the effort to expand the city's cemetery capacity for 20 years.