Sunnyside Cemetery received a lifeline Tuesday night when the Long Beach City Council voted unanimously to approve the city’s acquisition of the site that had run into financial issues in recent years.
With the vote, the city will assume ownership the 13-acre grounds that was established in 1906 and is the final home to some 16,000 people, some of whom are among the city’s founders. Sunnyside is the second oldest cemetery in the city next to the city’s municipal cemetery that was founded in 1901.
Taking on the site will come with some yet-to-be-determined costs that the city says will become more clear as it gets familiar with the price of maintenance for Sunnyside.
Despite the unknowns, the vote decision won praise from the public and elected officials. Without the city’s intervention, Sunnyside would have been on the verge of closing.
“This is not just a historical place; it’s a place that has deep emotional connections to many of the residents that live in our city,” Mayor Robert Garcia said. “To be able to acquire the site and bring it into our Long Beach park system and to really create synergy with the rest of our park system is really special and really, really important.”
Roxanne Patmor, a member of the board of directors of the Long Beach Historical Society, said she appreciates the city’s intervention at the site, which is filled with not only people’s ancestors, but their stories, which are highlighted by the Historical Society’s annual tour of Sunnyside.
“We always say that every plot has a story and that’s especially true at Sunnyside,” Patmor said. “And this is your guys’ chance to be a hero and save Sunnyside and we thank you.”
Early estimates put initial cost of bringing the site up to speed at around $180,000 annually to pay for irrigation, landscaping, gopher control and maintaining public access. Maintenance at the city’s smaller municipal cemetery, which is about four acres, costs the city about $60,000 annually.
In addition to ongoing operating costs, the city estimates there will be upward of $1.5 million in basic public-safety and access improvements. However, that figure does not include costs for converting the existing landscaping, updating utility systems, improving amenities or services for visitors, or the cost of replacing historic features such as headstones or caskets.
While the city intends to seek grant funding and other possible revenue sources, much of the initial work and ongoing maintenance of the site is currently unbudgeted.
A city staff memo to the mayor and City Council notes that the “significant financial unknowns” and the uncertainty of securing outside funding could potentially have adverse impacts on current city programs like park maintenance.