Cemetery woes continue

Wonthaggi Cemetery maintenance contract, Sentinel Times, December 28, 2022

What grabbed me about this article was the following Bass Coast Shire Council Statement; “Whilst prolonged periods of wet weather have impacted the ability to undertake works”. It is as if the issues of maintenance at the Wonthaggi Cemetery are relatively new. Don’t mislead the Community you have had five years to do at least some work. You have sat on a consultant’s report during much of that time. Funds for drainage did not just become available. Is there a works program or a project management plan? Likely not. You had the “Friends of the Wonthaggi Cemetery” doing maintenance work, but you sacked them for telling you how it “was” in terms of the poor condition of Wonthaggi Cemetery.

You stopped crosses going on the unmarked veteran graves, but when asked in writing what you required as a standard grave marker you offered up no response. Some of your councillors were just plain ill-mannered during at least one Wonthaggi Cemetery Trust meeting when people reported on the cross project. Causing resignations, I was totally ignored by at least three councillors at another Wonthaggi Cemetery Trust meeting when making a presentation on behalf of the Wonthaggi RSL for a proposed Veterans Memorial for the Wonthaggi Cemetery – and two of those people are still councillors. They had no interest then and I doubt no interest now unless they see a benefit. Plus, the treatment handed out to the San Remo Cemetery friends by the Trust at another meeting was a disgrace.

Keep in mind 640 veterans are buried in the Wonthaggi Cemetery, they, plus the other 6000 odd burials deserve much better than the respect they have received to date from BCSC. And yes there are volunteers who spent seven years surveying the Wonthaggi  Cemetery and have updated burial records, but your managers walked away from that survey, thus the data.

Besides Cr Larke, as Les knows, a number of people have raised the issue of the poor state of the Wonthaggi Cemetery since 2015. Did the BCSC managers listen? No. Did they understand these people were acting in good faith? No. Did they try to positively engage with these people? Well again no. It was BCSC way or the highway. As for any respect shown to us for the work being done, again no, we were troublemakers. The Wonthaggi RSL was forced to move the Dawn Service from the Wonthaggi Cemetery because it was too dangerous in the dark, particularly on wet mornings.

So a statement now. It’s a bit late. A statement is not a plan, nor a commitment. And if the work moves ahead, will the community be consulted, doubt it. If the BCSC had been prepared to really listen to people in the past then the cemeteries would not be a mess and an orderly plan, supported by the community would be by now in place to look after them.

Rod Gallagher, Inverloch