A desecrated graveyard in Pearl City, Sunset Memorial Park Cemetery, may soon get a new lease on life under state legislation moving rapidly toward passage.
The legislation could also provide a new road map for restoring other abandoned graveyards throughout the state.
The new plan may be just in the nick of time, because some people believe that Sunset Memorial is being haunted by the ghosts of deceased people whose gravesites and tombstones have suffered a decade of abuse.
The cemetery’s owner died 13 years ago, leaving the 6-acre property without legal management or supervision. Criminals and trespassers moved into the vacuum, turning the graveyard into an open-air drug market. They smashed and trashed gravestones, making it impossible to determine who was buried in many of the plots.
They stole burial urns, emptied out the contents and sold the brass vases for scrap. Bodies were looted for jewelry. Some people jimmied open the doors of crypts to sleep inside. They physically threatened visitors to the cemetery who came to tend the graves of their family members buried there.
“Our Pearl City communities and their families have not been able to safely honor and visit their loved ones at Sunset Memorial Park,” Oahu resident Belinda Miranda wrote in testimony to the Legislature, urging prompt action. “The cemetery has been vandalized, pillaged and turned into a haven for the homeless and those affected by drugs.”
The legislation, House Bill 2192 and Senate Bill 2850, would permit the state Department of Commerce and Community Affairs to authorize nonprofit groups to step in and serve as limited owners of defunct cemeteries, to clean them up, fix broken irrigation pipes, oversee landscaping improvements and install security systems to minimize future damage. It would also give the groups legal power to file complaints with law enforcement agencies and permit prosecutions of people engaged in criminal wrongdoing.
Larry Veray, chairman of the Pearl City Neighborhood Board, who has worked for years to call attention to the problems at the cemetery and has organized numerous volunteer clean-up crews there, has already established a nonprofit board, Friends for Sunset Memorial Cemetery, to take over the responsibility.
He has created a 501(c)3 entity with a seven-member board of directors and has requested a $20,000 loan from Alexander & Baldwin to get the work started. He hopes that, if the legislation passes, DCCA will select his nonprofit group to take operating control of the site and prevent thefts and vandalism.
“I need to secure it,” he said.
Veray said the legislative model could also be used to rehabilitate other abandoned cemeteries around the state, including at churches, a growing problem as congregations dwindle and resources dry up.
“We are going to turn this cemetery around, like never before, and we will set the model for how to recover the other abandoned cemeteries on Oahu,” Veray said.
In testimony to the Legislature, Veray said that the cemetery had been ransacked over the years. Some people living in a nearby homeless encampment took gravestones from around the cemetery and used them as flooring material, he said.
“Now we have active spirits in that part of the cemetery,” Veray told lawmakers in testimony on Feb. 16.
In an interview, Veray said that several people who had entered that section of the graveyard to clean up debris had odd and unsettling experiences that suggested to them that the ghosts of the people buried there had become angry and even violent over what had happened.
Veray said he intends to arrange a blessing ceremony as soon as possible to set things right. He will be consulting with kupuna to make sure it is done correctly.
He said he is optimistic about the state’s plan to help remedy the situation.
“It’s moving forward,” he said. “The good news is that it is at no cost to the state.”
Honolulu City Councilwoman Val Okimoto, who represents the area, has endorsed the plan.
“I strongly believe the bill is necessary to ensure our loved ones interred at Sunset Memorial Park are given the dignity and respect they deserve,” she told the Legislature.
About 5,000 people are buried at the cemetery. Many were members of large families who lived and worked together on sugar and pineapple plantations and chose to be buried together as well.
The once-bucolic and scenic area, now hemmed in by urban clutter, changed over the years with the construction of the H1 highway to the south and the new rail line to the north.
The Senate version of the bill, sponsored by Sen. Glenn Wakai, introduces yet another twist. It would allow the integration of solar photovoltaic structures at the cemetery, which could allow the property to sell the power generated and become financially self-sufficient.
Rep. Gregg Takayama, who introduced the House version of the bill, thinks that is a promising idea, if it could be designed in a way that meets community approval. He said that the installation of solar panels on, for example, a pavilion-style roof could provide shade at the site and generate enough money to pay all the necessary maintenance costs.
“It’s a very intriguing proposal that I think makes a great deal of sense,” he said. “It’s something worth exploring.”
At a community meeting to discuss the idea, residents were cautiously supportive of the idea, he said, because they are so eager to see progress toward remediating problems at the cemetery.
He said the legislation was drafted by the state attorney general’s office, and is supported by the DCCA, which regulates cemetery and funeral trusts. Sunset Memorial has a surviving trust, estimated at about $100,000 to $175,000, held in escrow by a bank. The legislation does not specify how trust fund money could be used. Officials at DCCA would have the right to revoke a nonprofit board’s appointment as the limited owner if problems arose.
Takayama has been pushing for state action to fix the problems at the cemetery for the last several years. Last year he wrote a resolution that was adopted by the Legislature calling for DCCA to develop a long-term plan for the cemetery, in collaboration with the AG’s office, and this legislation is a result of that collaboration, he said.
He said he believes that the legislation will be approved. It has proceeded steadily through the House and Senate with unanimous support.
“I think, for the very first time, I see real prospects for resolving the ongoing problem at the cemetery,” Takayama said. “We are breaking new ground and clearing a path forward.”
Some family members were heartened to hear about the progress.
“Oh, wow, that’s awesome,” said Sosiua Havea, whose grandparents are buried there. He flew over to Oahu from Lanai one day last spring to tidy the area around his grandmother’s grave because he didn’t want his other family members to see it looking as bad as it often does.
“I’m getting it ready for Mother’s Day,” he said at the time.
Lemasani Falealili regularly visits the cemetery to tend the graves of eight family members who are buried there, often bringing a friend to help because there is so much to do to cut back the high grass and clean debris around the plots.
“It’s my ohana. It’s all my family,” the Oahu resident said. “It’s my grandma, my mom, sisters and brothers.”
He has been disturbed by the bad condition at the graveyard. He said that when he has visited with his grandchildren, they have frequently seen homeless people walking through the cemetery naked.
He was glad to hear that government officials are developing a plan that could improve conditions there.
“I’m so happy,” he said. “I’m glad they have come up with something to do. It has been so terrible.”
