Beleaguered cemetery closes its gates
Tania Chatila June 19 , 2006

NORTHWEST GLENDALE -- Grand View Memorial Park locked its gates indefinitely Tuesday 
evening despite efforts to keep it open amid months of financial problems.

The cemetery was chained up and locked Tuesday evening, hopefully for only a short time, 
operator Moshe Goldsman said.

"We did just, unfortunately, shut the gates to Grand View, put up the no trespassing signs," 
he said. "God almighty, I hope we reopen real soon .... We hope it's only going to be very 
short and very temporary."

Grand View's future has been in doubt since November, when the state suspended any new 
cemetery business pending an investigation into its past practices.

In October, a state inspector uncovered a closet filled with the cremated remains of about 
4,000 people who were never buried or properly disposed of, many of which dated back to the 
1930s, '40s, '50s and '60s, said Kevin Flanagan, a spokesman for the California Department of 
Consumer Affairs.

According to the suspension order issued in November, former cemetery operator Marsha Lee 
Howard, 58, of Glendale, is also accused of loaning herself $40,000 from Grand View's 
Endowment Care Fund, a trust created to maintain the cemetery.

Goldsman took over Howard's duties after the investigation, and said that the task of keeping 
Grand View open has been a day-to-day struggle because the cemetery isn't making any money.

Goldsman said he has had to let 70% of the park's staff go, has had to seek alternate ways to 
find funding and has had to conserve on water and electricity to keep the cemetery running.

"We're hoping that it will reopen soon so families will be able to visit loved ones," said Miles 
Bristow, a spokesman with the Cemetery and Funeral Bureau of the Department of Consumer 
Affairs.

The bureau has been aware of the impending closure and has been working with cemetery 
officials all along, Bristow said, adding that there was no way to tell when, if at all, the cemetery 
will reopen.

"Ultimately, the business owners have the right to sell a business or close it and there are limits 
on what the state can do as far as private business is concerned," he said. "We want the cemetery 
to be open and operating as within the requirements of the law. We will keep working to try to help 
that happen."

Donna Ouellette, who lives across the street from the cemetery, saw the locked gates Tuesday 
night, and the signs forwarding people to the law offices of Myles Mattenson or the Department of 
Consumer Affairs.

"I knew this was coming," she said.

"I think it's going to be absolutely devastating for the families. It's terrible."

Forest Lawn officials said they are working on details of a program to provide free burial property to 
Grand View plot owners who may be shut out of their burial plans as a result of the closure.

But that won't help the friends and families with loved ones already buried there, said Maurice 
Sherman, a Hollywood woman who has several family members buried at Grand View.

"It's just unbelievable to me," she said.

"I didn't know this type of thing could happen. I just can't understand them being allowed to shut 
down like that. Those are sacred parcels in there that belong to us. That's our family."

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Source: Glendale New Press (online)