The April 21 meeting of the Tulare Public Cemetery District Board of Trustees was apparently the last meeting with Tulare County Supervisors acting as trustees.
At the supervisors’ meeting that followed, a resolution was unanimously adopted “to divest the Tulare County Board of Supervisors of its authority to serve as the board of trustees of the Tulare Public Cemetery District, effective upon the appointment of at least three trustees.”
Ten months ago, supervisors reluctantly voted to become the cemetery district trustees following years of complaints about the management of the district, accusations of financial irregularities, and the condition of the two district cemeteries. At the time, the district was about to lose its insurance, which would have forced it out of business.
However, with supervisors acting as cemetery district trustees, bookkeeping and payroll services were transitioned to the county auditor’s office, and safety policies were implemented to preserve the district’s insurance through the Golden State Risk Management Authority.
The hiring of Trilby Barton as district manager on March 24 was seen as bringing experience and stability to the district.
When supervisors unanimously voted at their March 31 meeting to start the process of divesting themselves from the cemetery district, they established an ad hoc committee, which included two supervisors, to review trustee applications for qualified candidates.
“We did receive a sufficient number of applications that met the criteria,” Supervisor Pete Vander Poel said. “We will be able to fill the five seats on the Tulare Public Cemetery District. We received five applications that were qualified and we went with those applicants.”
The ad hoc committee still needs to recommend its trustee selections to the board of supervisors, which needs to make the actual appointments through a public process, but Vander Poel expects the board of supervisors to support the committee’s recommendations.
The cemetery district trustees’ April 21 meeting took less than two minutes. The only business was to cancel its April 28 meeting and to set its meeting location to 900 E. Kern Ave., Tulare, effective May 12, presumably to accommodate new trustees who live in the Tulare Cemetery District.
This article originally appeared on Visalia Times-Delta: Tulare County Supervisors cemetery trustee days apparently over
Reporting by Steve Pastis, Visalia Times-Delta / Visalia Times-Delta
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