Greetings: The Press Release at the end of this message was sent out this morning to media representatives in the Sacramento area. As president of the El Dorado County Pioneer Cemeteries Commission, I have attempted to keep a residential subdivision from impacting a small cemetery in Cameron Park. Efforts to this point have not been as fruitful as we would have hoped. Much as I have asked you to do in relation to other historic cemeteries with immediate problems, it would be helpful for others to let the County of El Dorado know they are watching this situation. Please contact the District 1 Supervisor Rusty Dupray at bosone@co.el-dorado.ca.us or call him at (530) 621-5650. Please cut and paste the following message and send it to Supervisor upray - Honorable Rusty Dupray, District 1 Supervisor County of El Dorado 630 Fair Lane Placerville, CA 95667 Re: Skinner Burying Ground, Cameron Park Dear Supervisor Dupray: I learned that a residential subdivision is threatening to engulf the historic Skinner family cemetery near the intersection of Green Valley Road and Cameron Park Drive. Too many of California's historic cemeteries are being impacted by development projects these days with no regard at all to the pioneers buried within them. I hope you will help to ensure that this cemetery is not adversely impacted by the effects of the Cameron Glen Estates project. Please help to protect and preserve it in a way that it will remain visible from Green Valley Road as it has for over 136 years. Sincerely, [Your name, address, email address and phone number.] [End of message text.] Thanks so much for lending a hand! Sue Silver State Coordinator, CALIFORNIA SAVING GRAVES President, El Dorado County Pioneer Cemeteries Commission PRESS RELEASE FOLLOWS: No Rest for the Dead in El Dorado County James Skinner could never have imagined that 136 years after burying his son John, a struggle would become necessary to protect the resting place of his family. He could never have known that in the county he once helped settle there is no rest for the dead. Now a group of El Dorado County residents is endeavoring to protect and preserve this small historic cemetery in Cameron Park. In the past this area was known as Green Valley. Just north of the cemetery is Green Valley Road that was first known as the Sacramento and Coloma Road in the 1850s. It was the earliest route to and from the newly discovered California gold fields. Pioneer James Skinner owned his ranch and winery in Green Valley from 1856 until his death in 1885, when he was buried beside his son John in the little cemetery on the hill overlooking his home. The boy had tragically died in a hunting accident in 1868. Skinner's wife Jessie was laid to rest in the ranch burial ground in 1898, and Skinner's lifelong friend David Reid, who had emigrated with the family from Scotland in 1840, was interred there on his death in 1899. The bachelor sons of the family, Alexander and William were also buried here. James Skinner's children sold the ranch in 1898. Together with the cemetery, they excepted and reserved to themselves and their heirs, an easement running 200 feet to the Green Valley Road. They also reserved the right to use the easement "at all times" for the purposes of caring for the cemetery and "interring other bodies therein." The James Skinner family has not rested in peace for many years now. Since the 1970s,, development in the vicinity of the old ranch and cemetery has been extensive. Every residential or commercial project approved for construction near or adjacent to the cemetery has caused vandalism and desecration to occur. In the late 1980s, a shopping center was constructed on one of its boundaries, cutting the hill to a depth of 12 to 15 feet on the east side of the cemetery. The gravestones have been continuously vandalized or stolen ever since. Now only the stones for James and Jessie Skinner and David Reid survive. A white picket fence that was required of the shopping center developer by the County has been torn apart and put together at least twice since the mid-1990s. Now Cameron Glen Estates, a residential subdivision on the southern, western and northern boundaries of the cemetery, threatens to completely engulf it. When the project first began in 1990, the County of El Dorado told the developer that the board of supervisors was the legal authority for the cemetery. This contention was made even though Elva Joerger Ryan, James Skinner's great-granddaughter, was paying property taxes on it, as she had since 1967. Project plans for Cameron Glen Estates will substitute an arbitrary access route to the cemetery created by a 1967-subdivision map. Although the 1967 map did not identify the Skinner deed which established the family' s rights, neither did the 1990 Cameron Glen subdivision map. Some believe the developer ignored the controlling deed in order to deliberately and unlawfully extinguish the true easement. If plans for Phase 5 of this project are approved, two houses will be constructed on the north side of the cemetery and will interfere with the family's easement described in 1898. Elva Ryan's family was never notified of this project or the shopping center development because the County had maintained it was authority over it. The family did not learn of the problems that the cemetery was suffering until late-2000 when members of the El Dorado County Pioneer Cemeteries Commission (EDCPCC) contacted them. The group has since worked with James Skinner's great great granddaughter, Jeanne Ryan Jackson of San Francisco, who continues paying the property taxes on the family burial ground. Mrs. Jackson has asked the EDCPCC to work on behalf of the Skinner family cemetery. She hopes the group will help ensure it will be protected and preserved as the children of James Skinner intended it would be. The Commission has advised county project planner Rogers Evans of the easement dispute. Evans has been asked to withhold all further approvals affecting the cemetery pending a land survey to locate the original easement. Until this issue is resolved, the James Skinner family will not rest in peace. [END TEXT]