Hello, everyone. My name is Pat Kneisler. I'm a civil engineer from Benicia, CA, who just signed up for this list. Benicia is a quaint little town about 35-40 miles northeast of San Francisco up where the Sacramento River becomes the Carquinez Straits just before it dumps into the northern regions of The Bay. Never in my wildest dreams did I ever think I'd wind up on a committee to renovate an old cemetery. But here I am ... just beginning my research for the task ahead. The cemetery in question is a real diamond in the rough ... the city-owned Benicia City Cemetery ... established in 1847, with marked graves dating back to 1849. That's pretty "old" for this neck of the woods. It's a 24 acre property crowning a peaceful, tree-covered hill that overlooks downtown Benicia and the Straits. It is estimated that some 4,000 people are buried here, with burials continuing to this day in the newer, more recently developed sections (with plenty of room for even more expansion). There are even some "semi-famous" folks buried here ... like the mountain man, Miles Goodyear, who founded the city of Ogden, Utah. And Elsie Robinson, an inspirational columnist for the Hearst papers who was read by millions in the 1930's. But it would break your heart to see what years of city budgetary constraints, neglect and vandalism have done to the place. Literally scores of tombstones in the historic sections have been overturned (and frequently broken) by people looking for "thrills" in years past. In the last and most notorious incident in 1988, someone actually drove a 4-wheel-drive vehicle up to the cemetery and, using a chain, managed to pull down some of the largest monuments on the property. What "thrills" a person could possibly gain from such senseless acts are totally beyond me. Since then, security has been improved a hundredfold with electronic gates, fencing repairs, security cameras and increased police patrols ... and I'm happy to say there has been no further vandalism. But, oh ... what a mess they have left behind. And Mother Nature hasn't been much kinder, leaving dozens and dozens of old plots crumbling into ruin. This winter, a team of us volunteers will do an accurate documentation of every gravesite in the historic sections so that a comprehensive plan for repairs can be drawn up. And this winter I hope to do as much research as possible to discover the "do's and don'ts" of restoring an old cemetery, assembling a technical manual that is geared to the vagaries of this particular property. To that end, I'm hoping I can discuss specific problems I'm facing with those of you on this list who have already been down this road. Believe me, I'm grateful for this type of resource ... and for all the interesting articles I've been finding while browsing the Internet. Hopefully, in the very near future, I can get a website up and running so you can actually see this very unique place for yourselves. Thanks so much for providing this forum! Pat Kneisler Benicia, CA pknize@pacbell.net