Editor's note: This story was originally published by the Belleville News-Democrat.
Mount Hope Cemetery has been a thorn in Belleville’s side since the mid-2000s, when the owners abandoned it while being accused of scamming people on prepaid funeral arrangements.
A county judge appointed a receiver, who was later replaced by an attorney with the Illinois comptroller’s office. Problems with tall grass, weeds and trash prompted the city’s Public Works Department to take over maintenance. That costs about $100,000 a year.
“Cemeteries are not easy to maintain because of all the headstones,” department Director Jason Poole said.
Now officials are exploring an idea to help cover costs. It would involve the city buying Mount Hope’s 132 acres in a foreclosure sale; clearing trees from 25 acres of a wooded section in back; leasing them to a company for a community solar farm; and collecting $75,000 to $80,000 a year in rent.
The plan is contingent on the project receiving up to $2 million in state incentives for solar-farm installation, according to Cliff Cross, the city’s director of economic development, planning and zoning.
“We were trying to figure out a creative way (to) maintain that cemetery without further burdening the taxpayers,” he said.
Cross was speaking at a meeting of the city’s Zoning Board of Appeals last week, explaining why Mayor Patty Gregory’s administration was requesting a special-use permit to build and operate a solar farm in an area that’s zoned for two-family residential use.
Board members voted 5-0 to recommend that the full Belleville City Council approve the permit. Aldermen are expected to take up the issue at their next meeting at 7 p.m. Tuesday at City Hall.
If the idea becomes a reality, the city would allow burials to continue and make improvements such as walking trails, Cross said.
Opponents cite natural beauty
Several residents spoke in opposition to the special-use permit at the Zoning Board meeting. Some argued that 25 acres of solar panels would destroy a beautiful natural area with plentiful wildlife and cause potential problems with soil erosion and water runoff.
Jennifer Mosley, whose property borders Mount Hope, said barred owls, red-tailed hawks, peregrine falcons, deer, coyotes, raccoons, opposums and other animals live in the woods.
“This is an awful lot of land to clear,” she said. “My concern is with the amount of animals in the area. Where are they going to go? They are going to be displaced. This is a huge plot of land. It goes all the way down to the MetroLink tracks.”
Clay Bertelsman, who also owns property in the vicinity, said the solar-farm proposal makes no sense due to the topography of steep ravines, thick woods and a natural creek, particularly given that Belleville has plenty of flat, vacant property that would be more suitable.
Bertelsman owns a trucking company that leases land at nearby Mount Carmel Cemetery from the Catholic Diocese of Belleville. He said a solar farm would require a back access road for transportation of equipment, and he would oppose any such road going through his leased land.
Zoning Board Chairman Dan Nollman read a letter submitted by a couple that called Mount Hope a “sacred” place, where people should be able to visit their loved ones in peace.
“We are so blessed with green space in this area (that’s filled with) trees, birds and animals,” the letter stated. “Please do not create destruction of these beautiful spaces.”
Cross told board members that the solar farm would be surrounded by a “buffer” of trees, allowing people to visit the cemetery without knowing it was there; and that the energy production could possibly help lower electricity rates for St. Clair County residents.
One resident, Rick Brown, spoke in favor of the special-use permit.
“This is a perfect example of how the government should work for the people,” he said.
Another buyer is interested
Real-estate agent Gerry Davidson also spoke at the Zoning Board meeting in opposition to the special-use permit.
Davidson asked how the city could apply for a state grant and request a special-use permit for a project on land that it doesn’t own yet. She called the actions “premature.”
“I have a buyer for the property, and the receiver knows about it,” she said in an interview.
Davidson didn’t reveal the potential buyer’s name or intent, except to say that the person is local and isn’t planning to build apartments or other multi-family housing on the back half of the cemetery acreage.
Mount Hope’s receiver, Sara Wooley, said it’s common for people to make sure property can be zoned to meet their needs before buying it.
“It’s done all the time,” she said.
Wooley is an attorney with Illinois Comptroller Susana Mendoza’s office. In 2013, she took over Mount Hope and Valley View Cemetery in Edwardsville, which were owned by the same companies in the early 2000s, from the original receiver, Jim Carlson.
In the past 10 years, only a handful of people have expressed interest in buying Mount Hope, and their interest waned after they realized the level of responsibility, according to Wooley. She praised Gregory, Cross and other Belleville officials for considering the idea.
“(City ownership) is the best solution for all of these grieving families,” Wooley said this week. “They need someone that’s going to be stable to run this place. It’s 132 acres. It’s huge. To maintain property like that ... It takes five to seven days a week to mow it.”
The city of Belleville already owns and operates Walnut Hill Cemetery, off Mascoutah Avenue.
Cross said if someone else were to buy the Mount Hope property, that person could build apartment complexes on the back acreage under current zoning, resulting in less green space.
Cemetery dates back to 1897
More than 26,800 people have been buried at Mount Hope, which was founded in 1897 through Immanuel Evangelical Church, according to the St. Clair County Genealogical Society website. Judges, legislators and other prominent residents are buried there.
The property had grown to 110 acres by 1920 and 200 acres by 1928. Vandals hit hard in 1965, desecrating the mausoleum and toppling 104 grave markers. The cemetery became privately owned in 1991 after years of financial hardship.
A 1989 entry in the Genealogical Society history states:
“Cash flow problem blamed for tall grass per Bob Buck, president of the board of directors of Mount Hope Cemetery and affiliate of Immanuel United Church of Christ in East St. Louis; says money problems plagued cemetery for past 20 years; plot sales very slow. There are 25,000 burials and markers. Cemetery is doing best it can.”
St. Clair County records show that a company named Forever Illinois sold the cemetery and surrounding land for $376,000 to Mid-America Growth and Development Corp. in 2006. But the contract-for-deed sale didn’t go through, so ownership reverted back the following year.
Forever Illinois later was dissolved, and its owner went to prison on federal fraud charges in an unrelated insurance case, Wooley said. Mid-America’s owner died amid accusations that he had misappropriated funds that people had prepaid for funerals and burials.
A Madison County judge appointed Carlson as receiver for Mount Hope and Valley View in 2009. Carlson died in 2013.
The city of Belleville decided to take over Mount Hope maintenance under former Mayor Mark Eckert, now deceased. Today, it employs a full-time supervisor and up to 10 part-time workers, depending on time of year.
“It’s a burden on the city, but it’s the right thing to do,” Eckert said in 2017.
Over the years, AmeriCorps members from area schools and other volunteers, some affiliated with the Friends of Mount Hope Cemetery Facebook group, have helped with periodic clean-ups.
E. Gayle Schneider, who founded the Friends group in 2014, said she was “thrilled” to hear that the city might take ownership of Mount Hope, where she has a plot next to her mother.
“This is the second time this cemetery has been in receivership,” she said. “It’s just been a mess.”
Property now in foreclosure
In 2018, Wooley began foreclosure proceedings in St. Clair County Court against Forever Illinois and Mid-America, which both have been dissolved, so that Mount Hope could be sold.
That process is coming to an end. Wooley expects a foreclosure sale to take place this spring after proper legal notices have been published. But she’s having to iron out a wrinkle.
Local investor Scott Sieron, of Raven Securities, holds a lien on the 132-acre parcel because he bought three years worth of its delinquent-tax bills.
Under Illinois law, cemeteries are exempt from real-estate taxes. St. Clair County historically didn’t charge Mount Hope but started sending tax bills in 2020, according to county records. Bills weren’t paid in 2020, 2021 or 2022, prompting Sieron to buy them.
“(The cemetery) shouldn’t have gotten a tax bill,” Assessor Jennifer Gomric-Minton said when contacted this week by the BND, adding that the delinquent tax-bill sales will have to be canceled.
In the foreclosure case, a court order requires the judge to sell Mount Hope to the highest “qualified” bidder, who could get a license to operate a cemetery and afford the required maintenance and operational costs.
“It can’t go back into receivership again,” Wooley said.
The city is working with a Texas-based solar vendor known as Shine Development Partners to apply for up to $2 million in incentives for solar-farm installation through Illinois Shines, a state program implemented by the Illinois Power Agency.
Cross said he expects to find out this spring if the money will be available for the Mount Hope project.
“We’re trying to protect and respect what’s already there (at the cemetery) while finding the best way to move forward with a sustainable property without building all around it,” Cross said.
The lease on the solar farm would be for 25 years. If the company no longer wanted to operate it for some reason, a provision would require that it remove the panels, according to Cross.
Teri Maddox is a reporter with the Belleville News-Democrat, a news partner of St. Louis Public Radio.
