* After promising legislative action this week to deal with cemetery regulations, nothing happened, and it’s the usual Statehouse disaster…
State lawmakers left the State Capitol until the fall without addressing promised reforms of the cemetery industry spurred by the discoveries of disinterred remains at the Burr Oak Cemetery in Alsip and political jockeying in the 2010 governor’s race may be a factor. […]
Sen. Emil Jones III, a Chicago Democrat whose district includes Burr Oak, said he agreed to delay potential legislation after a variety of interests raised issues about how to best deal with reforms in the cemetery industry. But Jones also said he felt slighted that he was not asked to help develop Hynes’ reform package.
Jones, however, was quoted in a Hynes’ news release touting the package and a Hynes’ aide said the lawmaker met with the comptroller about the legislation.
But Hynes said that after talks involving the Senate’s Black Caucus, Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart, state’s attorneys, county recorders and Rev. Jesse Jackson, “everything was lined up” until Quinn “decided to move an amendment that basically threw a wrench in everything and killed the bill.”
* Hynes is a likely Quinn opponent in the Democratic primary, so it’s no wonder that politics might be involved. But there were other reasons…
Senate President John Cullerton (D-Chicago), who Tuesday offered up the possibility of a Senate vote this week on the cemetery legislation, backed away Wednesday. Without elaborating, he cited concerns toward the legislation from the cemetery industry and from the Archdiocese of Chicago.
“There are questions raised by the cemetery community, by the Catholic cemeteries who didn’t have a lobbyist here who called in. So, as a result, we’re going to take that up when we come back,” Cullerton said.
* Still, it’s hard to shake the cynical notion that Quinn is trying to milk this issue for all it’s worth. Remember this leak to Sneed yesterday?
Watch for Gov. Quinn to weigh in on the Burr Oak Cemetery nightmare by calling for public hearings similar to the ones he convened to deal with the University of Illinois admissions scandal.
From the governor’s Thursday public schedule…
Governor Pat Quinn will hold a press conference to announce the formation of the Cemetery Oversight Task Force
Rev. Jesse Jackson isn’t impressed…
“We don’t need a committee. We need a regulation,” said Jackson, who called on Quinn to order lawmakers back to Springfield immediately to take up the cemetery legislation. “We don’t need to study this. It’s obvious what the deal is.
But the governor made it clear that he knows what’s best…
“I know all about cemeteries. I go to a lot of funerals.”
* Hynes’ dead proposal included the following…
- requiring all cemetery staff who sell plots to be licensed, just like doctors, barbers and cosmetologists.
- requiring cemeteries to provide “reasonable maintenance.”
- requiring cemeteries to keep detailed maps and records and to file them with the county recorder of deeds.
- creating a consumer bill of rights.
But the Daily Southtown, which has been all over this Burr Oak story, editorialized against the plan today…
Illinois Comptroller Dan Hynes calls for a plan to give the state new and needed oversight concerning cemeteries. Plenty of legislators are clamoring for the same.
Translation: “This is appalling. This is bad. The public is calling for heads on a pike. We should … DO SOMETHING!
Let’s create new offices! New officials! New documents and processing systems! Let’s pay for it all with new taxes and proudly proclaim we’re leading the charge against this moral assault on our dearly departed, dead citizenry.
Except of course, grave robbing is already illegal.
It’s time to step back here.
Such a stupid, likely isolated criminal scheme simply must not be allowed to create an entire squadron of cemetery functionaries - wandering with global positioning units to track the mostly peaceful, mostly quiet, grave sites of hundreds of thousands of Illinoisans.
Indeed, it’s this kind of misguided thinking that has led Illinois state government into the bloated, fetid bureaucracy it has become.
Thoughts?
* Related…
* Catholic Cemeteries head to temporarily oversee Burr Oak operations: judge
* Chicago archdiocesan official to oversee Burr Oak
* Not over yet The Burr Oak nightmare . . .
* Former utility worker tried to blow whistle on Burr Oak scheme
* Burr Oak Cemetery cited several times for shoddy financial reporting
* County Compiles Photo Database in Cemetery Probe
* Mississippi museum wants Till casket