“In addition to the 1900+ cemeteries regulated by the Cemetery Board, the remaining 4000+ cemeteries are municipal, religious, family and private cemeteries, and are generally not subject to regulation by the Cemetery Board or the Department of State.” http://www.dos.ny.gov/cnsl/cemreg.html "I asked the state's Division of Cemeteries about the situation. A spokesman said the agency has no jurisdiction over municipally owned cemeteries, but its interpretation of state law was nevertheless clear: ‘If the city of Cohoes owns the cemetery in the town of Halfmoon, it must maintain the cemetery.' “The city, then, has ignored a legal obligation to maintain the land, along with its moral obligation.” Churchill, Chris. "Abandoned graves are Cohoes' shame." Albany Times Union. July 14, 2014. http://www.timesunion.com/default/article/Churchill-Abandoned-graves-are-Cohoes-shame-5621448.php Does Cohoes own a section in Union Cemetery, in which case they *would* seem to be subject to regulation, or a separate cemetery adjacent to Union Cemetery? If the latter, what exceptions exist to the general rule that municipal cemeteries are not subject to regulation by the Cemetery Board or the Department of State? What agencies do regulate municipal cemeteries and protect people from abuses like municipal mismanagement, abandonment, desecration, or destruction of municipal cemeteries? In order to move the cemetery from Columbia Street in Cohoes to Crescent, the City of Cohoes had to have bills passed by the NYS Legislature and Governor, e.g. “An act to authorize the city of Cohoes to provide for the removal of bodies, monuments and gravestones from the old burial ground, situated on the north side of Columbia street in said city, to provide a suitable place for the reinterment of said bodies; reinter the same, and to reset the monuments and gravestones; to issue bonds therefor, and sell and to convey the lands now used for said burial ground.” If Cohoes instead permitted headstones to be carted away for use as walkways and dumped other headstones in the Mohawk River, the terms of the bills passed by the NYS Legislature and Governor were violated. "The cemetery committee reported that it had caused to be removed 981 bodies from the old city cemetery; that 949 had been reinterred at Crescent, thirteen at Oakwood, twelve at Waterford and seven at Albany Rural. The cost of removal was $2,044.45. There are still three bodies in the old plat. The report was accepted.” “The Old Cemetery.” Troy Daily Times. February 17, 1897: 4 col 4. "Mayor McDonald explained the city purchased the section to relocate the bodies of Civil War veterans of Cohoes previously buried in what is now West End Park on Columbia Street. When the city decided to replace the cemetery with a park, Mayor McDonald said relocation of the graves in the Crescent Cemetery was decided upon. “‘But I can’t see why we should pay this money annually,' the mayor said, 'when we really aren’t getting any use out of it.' “The mayor said that when the bodies and monuments were moved out of Cohoes, the deceased all were buried in one common grave, and the monuments dumped in the Mohawk River en route to the Crescent Cemetery." Tompkins, Bill. “Cohoes Ponder Future of Unused Cemetery.” Times Record. March 19, 1968: 13 cols 3-4. "We did some research on this park and I thought it might be nice to share some of our findings with you. The reason that we were interested in this park is that we live in one of the houses very near the park. One day a few years back I was doing some landscaping in the back yard. I was removing an old slate walk way and replacing it with grass when I unearthed a very old headstone and then a second headstone shortly after. The stones had once marked the graves of 2 small children, one 5yrs and one 21 months. "Curious as to whether we resided on an old cemetery, we contacted our local historian. What we found out was quite an amazing story. This park, known as West End Park, in 1846 was the Cohoes Company Cemetery!” The Neumanns. "Have a Blast!" Geocaching. November 23, 2009. http://www.geocaching.com/geocache/GC21B9E_have-a-blast?guid=f804723c-d3f2-4709-9924-6f7b47df3813 Incidentally most of the e-mail addresses for Cohoes Common Council members given at http://www.cohoes.com/Cit-e-Access/ContactInfo/?TID=34 (a page with the copyright date of 2009) don’t appear to work. It might be difficult for the Mayor to enlist volunteers if it’s not possible to communicate with him. I did not receive a similar error message with respect to the Ethics Board’s address, however I have not received a reply from them regarding my question “Are there e-mail addresses for the members of the Common Council that work?” Thanks for any help you can provide, Chris Philippo Begin forwarded message: > From: Christopher Philippo <toff@mac.com> > Subject: Fwd: Delivery Notification: Delivery has failed > Date: July 15, 2014 at 11:51:11 AM EDT > To: ethics-board@ci.cohoes.ny.us > > Are there e-mail addresses for the members of the Common Council that work? > > Thanks, > > Chris Philippo > > Begin forwarded message: > >> From: postmaster@mac.com >> Subject: Delivery Notification: Delivery has failed >> Date: July 15, 2014 at 11:47:19 AM EDT >> To: toff@mac.com >> >> This report relates to a message you sent with the following header fields: >> >> Message-id: <D67B143C-8495-4C21-B379-EEE7233B40F6@mac.com> >> Date: Tue, 15 Jul 2014 11:47:04 -0400 >> From: Christopher Philippo <toff@mac.com> >> To: gprimeau@ci.cohoes.ny.us, akennedy@ci.cohoes.ny.us, >> fturcotte@ci.cohoes.ny.us, dnolin@ci.cohoes.ny.us, rceccuci@ci.cohoes.ny.us, >> rsignoracci@ci.cohoes.ny.us >> Subject: "Abandoned graves are Cohoes' shame" >> >> Your message cannot be delivered to the following recipients: >> >> Recipient address: akennedy@ci.cohoes.ny.us >> Reason: SMTP data accept failure has occurred >> Diagnostic code: smtp;550 5.7.1 Command not allowed >> Remote system: dns;mail.ci.cohoes.ny.us (TCP|17.158.236.236|56415|72.0.135.136|25) (******************************************************************************************) >> Recipient address: dnolin@ci.cohoes.ny.us >> Reason: SMTP data accept failure has occurred >> Diagnostic code: smtp;550 5.7.1 Command not allowed >> Remote system: dns;mail.ci.cohoes.ny.us (TCP|17.158.236.236|56415|72.0.135.136|25) (******************************************************************************************) >> Recipient address: fturcotte@ci.cohoes.ny.us >> Reason: SMTP data accept failure has occurred >> Diagnostic code: smtp;550 5.7.1 Command not allowed >> Remote system: dns;mail.ci.cohoes.ny.us (TCP|17.158.236.236|56415|72.0.135.136|25) (******************************************************************************************) >> Recipient address: gprimeau@ci.cohoes.ny.us >> Reason: SMTP data accept failure has occurred >> Diagnostic code: smtp;550 5.7.1 Command not allowed >> Remote system: dns;mail.ci.cohoes.ny.us (TCP|17.158.236.236|56415|72.0.135.136|25) (******************************************************************************************) >> Recipient address: rceccuci@ci.cohoes.ny.us >> Reason: SMTP data accept failure has occurred >> Diagnostic code: smtp;550 5.7.1 Command not allowed >> Remote system: dns;mail.ci.cohoes.ny.us (TCP|17.158.236.236|56415|72.0.135.136|25) (******************************************************************************************) >> Recipient address: rsignoracci@ci.cohoes.ny.us >> Reason: SMTP data accept failure has occurred >> Diagnostic code: smtp;550 5.7.1 Command not allowed >> Remote system: dns;mail.ci.cohoes.ny.us (TCP|17.158.236.236|56415|72.0.135.136|25) (******************************************************************************************) >> >> Original-envelope-id: 0N8R004TIFUH1F00@nk11p04mm-asmtp001.mac.com >> Reporting-MTA: dns;nk11p04mm-asmtp001.mac.com (tcp-daemon) >> Arrival-date: Tue, 15 Jul 2014 15:47:07 +0000 (GMT) >> >> Original-recipient: rfc822;akennedy@ci.cohoes.ny.us >> Final-recipient: rfc822;akennedy@ci.cohoes.ny.us >> Action: failed >> Status: 5.7.1 (SMTP data accept failure has occurred) >> Remote-MTA: dns;mail.ci.cohoes.ny.us (TCP|17.158.236.236|56415|72.0.135.136|25) >> (******************************************************************************************) >> Diagnostic-code: smtp;550 5.7.1 Command not allowed >> >> Original-recipient: rfc822;dnolin@ci.cohoes.ny.us >> Final-recipient: rfc822;dnolin@ci.cohoes.ny.us >> Action: failed >> Status: 5.7.1 (SMTP data accept failure has occurred) >> Remote-MTA: dns;mail.ci.cohoes.ny.us (TCP|17.158.236.236|56415|72.0.135.136|25) >> (******************************************************************************************) >> Diagnostic-code: smtp;550 5.7.1 Command not allowed >> >> Original-recipient: rfc822;fturcotte@ci.cohoes.ny.us >> Final-recipient: rfc822;fturcotte@ci.cohoes.ny.us >> Action: failed >> Status: 5.7.1 (SMTP data accept failure has occurred) >> Remote-MTA: dns;mail.ci.cohoes.ny.us (TCP|17.158.236.236|56415|72.0.135.136|25) >> (******************************************************************************************) >> Diagnostic-code: smtp;550 5.7.1 Command not allowed >> >> Original-recipient: rfc822;gprimeau@ci.cohoes.ny.us >> Final-recipient: rfc822;gprimeau@ci.cohoes.ny.us >> Action: failed >> Status: 5.7.1 (SMTP data accept failure has occurred) >> Remote-MTA: dns;mail.ci.cohoes.ny.us (TCP|17.158.236.236|56415|72.0.135.136|25) >> (******************************************************************************************) >> Diagnostic-code: smtp;550 5.7.1 Command not allowed >> >> Original-recipient: rfc822;rceccuci@ci.cohoes.ny.us >> Final-recipient: rfc822;rceccuci@ci.cohoes.ny.us >> Action: failed >> Status: 5.7.1 (SMTP data accept failure has occurred) >> Remote-MTA: dns;mail.ci.cohoes.ny.us (TCP|17.158.236.236|56415|72.0.135.136|25) >> (******************************************************************************************) >> Diagnostic-code: smtp;550 5.7.1 Command not allowed >> >> Original-recipient: rfc822;rsignoracci@ci.cohoes.ny.us >> Final-recipient: rfc822;rsignoracci@ci.cohoes.ny.us >> Action: failed >> Status: 5.7.1 (SMTP data accept failure has occurred) >> Remote-MTA: dns;mail.ci.cohoes.ny.us (TCP|17.158.236.236|56415|72.0.135.136|25) >> (******************************************************************************************) >> Diagnostic-code: smtp;550 5.7.1 Command not allowed >> >> From: Christopher Philippo <toff@mac.com> >> Subject: "Abandoned graves are Cohoes' shame" >> Date: July 15, 2014 at 11:47:04 AM EDT >> To: gprimeau@ci.cohoes.ny.us, akennedy@ci.cohoes.ny.us, fturcotte@ci.cohoes.ny.us, dnolin@ci.cohoes.ny.us, rceccuci@ci.cohoes.ny.us, rsignoracci@ci.cohoes.ny.us >> >> >> “Primeau isn't ready to send city workers, but he said there might be alternatives. He wondered if he could enlist a volunteer organization to help clear the land." >> Churchill, Chris. "Abandoned graves are Cohoes' shame." Albany Times Union. July 14, 2014. http://www.timesunion.com/default/article/Churchill-Abandoned-graves-are-Cohoes-shame-5621448.php >> >> I’m willing to help. >> >> Are the northern and eastern boundaries of it marked? >> >> Chris Philippo