ADAMS, Mass. — The Cemetery Commission will go out to bid for the Bellevue Cemetery garage restoration project early next year.

 

Commissioner Bruce Shepley read a letter from interim Town Administrator Donna Cesan at Thursday's meeting stating that architecture firm EDM is working on construction documents and public bidding materials and hope to go out to bid no later than the end of January 2019.

 

"So this is dragging out in my mind but maybe that is how the process goes and I thought we would be further along than it is," Shepley said.

 

The town intended to knock down a decrepit shed at the Bellevue used for cold storage and possibly erect a new larger facility. This was deemed to be too expensive, so the commission voted to expend near $100,000 to update and renovate the current garage that sits on the Bellevue grounds.

 

The garage project will not address the space the commission will lose once the shed is demolished so the commission also voted to purchase a prefabricated shed for $7,500.

 

Shepley said the town has the shed.

 

"The shed is ours but it is not installed yet," he said. "They are waiting to put in gravel and stone and some timbers to support it on but other than that it is ready to go."

 

The town allocated $120,000 for the entire garage project and the shed was purchased with money not used for construction or engineering.

 

In other business, the commission agreed to draft a letter to the Department of Public Works and town administrator notifying them that they have received multiple complaints about the condition of the cemeteries.

 

"We will see where it goes if for no other reason than for the record," Shepley said. "We can't mandate that the grass be cut more often, we can't mandate that grass be swept up. Our job is to receive these concerns and address them the best we can to those in power."

 

The commission did agree that the cemeteries are not kept up like they used to be but acknowledged that there are fewer DPW workers and the town has to do more with less.

 

"Subjectively I get the feeling the cemeteries aren't being kept up the way they were in the past and the grass isn't being cut like it used to," Shepley said. "But I think there are a lot of reasons we have had a very wet year very hot year and it has a lot to do with resources and staffing ... it is not like the days when you had a cemetery department dedicated to the cemetery."