OBSERVER Photo by M.J. Stafford Part of the new wall at Pioneer Cemetery after it collapsed May 4.

Pomfret Town Supervisor Dan Pacos blamed “other than natural causes” this week for the Pioneer Cemetery wall collapse.

The recently completed wall partially collapsed May 4. Many people eyed heavy rains as the cause. Others alleged the construction.

According to Pacos, that’s all wrong.

He told the Pomfret Town Board that Eric Weis of the town’s engineering consultant CPL looked at the wall with officials from N Mathews Enterprises, the contractors who built the wall. “They still feel it was caused by vandalism or other than natural causes,” Pacos said.

“Without video, we’ll never be able to prove it,” he acknowledged.

Pacos said a weather watcher he consulted didn’t think there was enough rain to destroy a section of wall. Pacos inspected the wall the morning of the collapse and there was no water in the drainage pipes, he said.

The town supervisor assured that “they (N Mathews) are going to take care of it for us. We won’t have to spend any more money.”

He used the way the wall collapsed as evidence that it wasn’t naturally caused. A washout would have left the lintels that go on top of the wall, atop the pile of rubble, Pacos said. But “the way the rubble fell out leads them to think vandalism.”

If it was vandalism, that would mean Fredonia didn’t get off scot-free during “Not Fred Fest 2025” after all.

Pacos slammed another notion that’s floating around: that poor work by N Mathews led to the collapse.

“It upset me to see people disparaging the contractor on social media,” he said. “If they built the wall to spec, they did nothing wrong.”

Pacos concluded of the wall, “It looked great, and it will look great again.”