Minutes of the Friends of the Geer Cemetery 02/04/2008
At the Home of Jessica and David Eustice
809 Colonial Street, Durham

Members Present: David Eustice, Jessica Eustice, Mr. RK. Bryant Jr., Chantae Bohannon Mangum, Carrie McNair, Carrie Mowry, Allen Dew, Ron Bartholomew

Ownership of the Cemetery ~
We have emails from Mayor Bell, Councilwomen Cora Cole McFadden and Diane Catotti, all letting us know that they have forwarded our questions to General Services and The City Manager's Office.
We have a question from Denise Hester about what would happen to the holders of original Cemetery Plot Deeds if the City took over the cemetery.
State Law says that if you have relatives buried in a cemetery, you are allowed to go into the Cemetery to maintain it.
We could run an advertisement in the legal section of Herald Sun for four weeks asking those individuals who hold deeds to the plots in the Geer Cemetery to come forward.

Ownership Options:

1. Continue to try to get the city to take over
2. Ask the County to condemn the Cemetery, and let the city take over
3. Locate individuals with Deeds, partner these individuals, Preservation Durham, the City and/or the County
4. Model our project on the Mt. Hope Cemetery in Raleigh.

Next steps Options:

1. Raise money somehow - Preservation Durham might help us with publicity
2. Set up a fund through Preservation Durham and begin to work in the Cemetery.
3. Set up a Perpetual Care Trust through the Triangle Community Foundation.
4. We need someone like Ward Sutton in Rocky Mount to help us identify graves and lost stones.
5. Ron Bartholomew heard about the FOGC from Tom Miller. Ron Bartholomew of Durham Marble Works is interested in our project and might be able to help us set up old headstones on volunteer workdays. Preservation Durham may be able to help us find some volunteers to help. We need to make sure our workdays do not conflict with their events.

Actions taken:
Jessica made a motion that we contact the Herald Sun and run an ad for 4 weeks asking individuals with deeds to Geer Cemetery plots to come forward and make their wishes known.
Allen Dew amended the motion to request that the City of Durham or the Herald Sun donate the advertising.
There was some discussion ~ The motion carried unanimously.

Jessica will contact General Services and the City Manager's Office to follow up on our question about ownership.
Jessica will contact TROSA about donation of Bricks.
Ron Bartholomew may be able to donate a stone for a sign.
Next Meeting:

Minutes submitted by Jessica Eustice, 2/11/08