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Davis Journal

Centerville to get new cemetery – if land can be found

Dec 02, 2021 12:50PM ● By Linda Petersen

Voters approved a general obligation bond of up to $7 million to fund a new city cemetery. The current 7-acre cemetery is full. Photo by Roger V. Tuttle

CENTERVILLE—City residents have given their approval for the city to issue a general obligation bond of up to $7 million to fund a new city cemetery. On Nov. 2, voters gave their support 2,316 to 2,085 to bond for the project.

“I think it’s important to know that if we do find that cemetery space, that money can only be used for cemetery space; it cannot be used for anything else,” Mayor Clark Wilkinson said. “I know that the council and myself are very mindful that if we’re successful in finding space that anything that we find we’ll want to do a financial analysis on.”

The current 7-acre cemetery which has been in use since 1851 is full. Although there are still thousands of open lots, they have all been purchased and any residents hoping to be buried in the town they love are out of luck – for now, according to Parks & Cemetery Director Bruce Cox.

On Oct. 5 at a public hearing on the proposed bond, Wilkinson assured resident Mary Jo Tanner who expressed concern that there were no places within the city to build a cemetery, that there are several suitable lots. The city plans to develop the cemetery in Centerville and nowhere else, he said.

At that meeting, Wilkinson said the city has explored several options for a cemetery including a possible joint venture with a mortuary or with Fruit Heights, has approached the owners of a 5+acre parcel about donating or selling it to the city, formed an exploratory cemetery committee with about 12 residents, considered purchasing LDS Church ball fields (which it turns out are not available) and investigated getting federal land donations. None of them was viable.

“We’ve exhausted all of the options,” he said. “This bond allows us to potentially acquire land that we’ll start looking at in 2022 – within Centerville City.”

City officials are hoping to purchase at least a five-acre parcel.

At the Oct. 5 meeting, Zions Public Finance representative Marcus Keller shared what the impact of the bond would be for Centerville property owners. A $7 million bond would have a property tax impact on a $400,000 primary residential home of $56.46 per year, he said. The bond is anticipated to have an expiration date of 26 years. The tax levy would be removed when the bond was paid off. Wilkinson said he and the council hope to be able to pay the bond off in about 10 years based on plot sales.


The new cemetery is expected to yield about 800 burial plots per acre. Cox said if a new cemetery was approved, the city would need to form a new department with two to three full-time employees, additional seasonal employees and new equipment to operate and maintain it.

Prior to the election, a voter information pamphlet about the bond was sent to all Centerville households. No argument against a general obligation cemetery bond was submitted, Wilkinson said. An open house was also held on the issue on Oct. 19 after city council members insisted that it be held so residents could get detailed information and have their specific questions answered. 

Now that the bond has been approved, city officials will begin looking for property early next year.

“You hope that somebody would accept an offer,” Wilkinson said. “If they don’t, it will be interesting to see if the council wants to exercise eminent domain on the property. So we’ll see what they determine there.”