Pomfret offering millings to St. Anthony’s Cemetery
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The association that runs the St. Anthony's Church Cemetery needs help, and the town of Pomfret is providing it.
The Fredonia church has closed, but its cemetery on Route 60 remains. The cemetery association recently requested road millings from the town, evidently to help pave driveways. The Pomfret Town Board agreed to the request at its October meeting.
However, Pomfret Town Attorney Jeffrey Passafaro expressed some wariness.
The longtime municipal lawyer noted that towns he has represented in the past have seen similar situations, where churches that support cemeteries closed. He said the towns supported the cemetery associations as a way to stave off their dissolution.
Passafaro noted the alternative: By law, the town is "the repository of last resort." In other words, if no one else will take care of a burial ground, Pomfret has to.
Passafaro counseled the board to strictly delineate Pomfret's help for the cemetery association. He said the resolution should specify that St. Anthony's Cemetery can take "road millings as available from time to time, on recommendation of the highway superintendent."