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City department visits inspire Council members new and old
Getting a chance to visit all City of Greencastle departments firsthand and converse with their supervisors recently has elicited praise from all involved.
Over the last couple of weeks, the newly elected Greencastle City Council, Mayor Lynda Dunbar and Clerk-Treasurer Mikayla Johnson completed eight facility tours and meetings with city department heads. The group traveled to the Fire, Police, Street and Parks departments, Forest Hill Cemetery, the Water and Wastewater Treatment plants and met with the city attorney at City Hall.
“It was very valuable,” offered City Council President Stacie Langdon, beginning her third term representing Second Ward. “It was very good for the group having so many new people (three totally new Council members and the return of David Masten after more than 20 years). It was so valuable for everyone, especially the people who are new.”
Mayor Dunbar agreed that it was a worthwhile experience all around.
“It’s important for the newly elected Council members to learn more about the various departments and begin establishing strong working relationships with our department leaders and supervisors,“ the new mayor said.
Fire Chief Rob Frank, Police Chief Chris Jones, Street Commissioner Andrew Rogers, Park Supt. Greg Ruark, Water and Wastewater Supt. Oscar King, Forest Hill Cemetery Supt. Jason Keeney and City Attorney Laurie Hardwick, all sat down individually with the group to discuss their operations and share day-to-day challenges.
Among the topics addressed, Langdon said, were staffing needs, succession planning, aging buildings, required certifications, vehicles and limited space.
The meetings helped make department heads “aware we want to help them,” she added.
Some of the biggest realizations coming out of the meetings, the Council president suggested, were “that both the police and fire departments have outgrown their facilities.”
Meanwhile, Hardwick’s presentation proved “extremely important,” Langdon said, explaining that the city attorney went over aspects of the open door law, ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act), the Human Relations Committee and progress of the YMCA project.
One of the highlights of the 2024 City Council retreat tour was the visit to Forest Hill Cemetery, Langdon said, as Supt. Keeney offered historical perspective on the 70 acres of cemetery grounds available for burials as part of 180 acres his department maintains.
For example, Keeney noted that more people are buried at Forest Hill (12,123 graves accounted for) than currently live in Greencastle (approximately 10,000 residents).
“Cemetery history is my thing,” he told the Banner Graphic. “My grandparents actually dug graves at Brick Chapel and other places.”
The cemetery was officially organized in 1865 after the old City Cemetery (off Hanna Street east of Blackstock Stadium) was deemed too full for further burials. Forest Hill, Keeney told the group, was laid out by noted Cincinnati landscape architect William Tinsley, a proponent of Frederick Olmstead school of landscape design. Olmstead was responsible for New York’s Central Park, the gardens at the Biltmore estate in North Carolina and other noteworthy properties.
Keeney advised the group that Forest Hill is laid out as a “hidden city with meandering paths” and originally was often used like a park in the days before Robe-Ann Park and others were developed. “People came to the cemetery and met their relatives and had a picnic,” which is something Keeney wouldn’t mind seeing return. “People already walk here,” he noted, adding that the DePauw cross country team has run through the park for practice as well.
When the new pathway is developed along Veterans Highway and the old depot is moved onto a corner of cemetery property as a trailhead, Keeney said he’s hopeful the pathways can be linked.
In addition to the famous Civil War soldier monument that was recently restored, Forest Hill is also home to the art deco-style Abbey building from the 1920s, a structure more readily seen in big cities but is front and center in the Greencastle cemetery as the final resting place for people like basketball legend Jess McAnally, members of the Houck family and several doctors. Keeney said he has been told the glass in the abbey is Tiffany glass, although he has found no proof and has no paperwork “saying this was ordered from Tiffany’s” to substantiate that.
The cemetery itself is the final resting place for a number of famous people, including the Forest Hill’s “most well-known interment,” murder victim Pearl Bryan, whose headstone remains in the southeast section of the property where pennies are still left heads up for her. The train used to stop at the top of the hill, Keeney recalled, as curiosity seekers walked down for a glimpse of the grave of the beheaded Bryant, killed in Fort Thomas, Ky., in 1896 in what was then the “Crime of the Century.”
Also buried at Forest Hill are former Chicago Cubs’ pitcher Edward Henry Eiteljorge, DePauw University Professor Clint Gass, who worked on the Manhattan Project at Los Alamos, N.M., five senators and congressmen, veterans “from almost every war” in which Americans have been involved -- including Sgt. Nathaniel Cunningham of the 1st Virginia Regiment, a Revolutionary War veteran who was re-interred at Forest Hill from the old IBM property about 35 years ago -- along with multiple mayors and city councilors.
“The history of Greencastle is interred right here,” Keeney concluded for the Banner Graphic.
Meanwhile, overall, the time and effort involved in the city department retreats was well worth it, Langdon said.
“The new City Council is doing everything we can to help our department heads and staff members succeed,” she assured. “The Council believes communication and transparency will benefit everyone as we strive to work as a team to make the City of Greencastle as successful as possible.“
Each department within the city will be assigned a Council liaison at the March City Council meeting. The liaison’s responsibility will be to interact with the departments and give them a voice within city leadership. The current Council is composed of Vince Aguirre, Katherine Asbell, Mark Hammer, Tina Nicholson, Darrel Thomas, Masten and Langdon.