Representatives of West Oak Grove Cemetery told the Oak Grove City Council on March 30 that worsening health issues among the cemetery’s aging board have accelerated the need to transfer operations, leading council members to begin exploring whether the city or another entity may need to take it over.
The council took no formal action, but members agreed to gather more information, including checking with other cemeteries in the city and with Anoka County, before a possible work session on the issue.
The request came from cemetery president Marie McCallum, who appeared before the council with legal counsel and licensed funeral director Michael Sharkey. Sharkey said the cemetery first approached the city in November 2025 asking for help, but the situation has become more urgent since then because of health problems affecting board leadership.
“Life gets in the way of life sometimes,” Sharkey said. “What we have experienced since November is our leadership, and I don’t want to get into anyone’s personal health situation, but Ms. McCallum has accelerated personal health problems that we just didn’t see coming. We have other board members who have also said, yeah, things are not going good for me.”
Sharkey said board members range in age from 71 to 90, shortening the timeline for any transition. He said the cemetery still has 2,445 sites available, representing more than $1.9 million in potential sales inventory, and said current board members could help train whoever takes over operations.
Mayor Weston Rolf said the city would need to weigh both the public interest in preserving the cemetery and the cost of taking over its operation. He said Oak Grove does not currently have staff to run a cemetery and would likely need to hire someone if it assumed control. Based on the information presented, Rolf said the work appeared to amount to about 370 hours per year.
“One, we don’t have the staff to do this,” Rolf said. “So, we would have to hire staff.”
Council Member John West said he was concerned about what would happen if no other entity stepped in.
“Does it just get overgrown and no one touches it?” West said. “At some point, someone would have to do something about that.”
When Rolf asked about county involvement, Sharkey said Anoka County would not take over the cemetery and said Minnesota statute directs such ownership questions to a municipality rather than a county. Rolf said he still wanted to ask the county what options might exist.
City Administrator Loren Wickham said Oak Grove has three other cemeteries, including one connected to a church. Rolf and West both said checking with the county would be a good first step before any work session on the matter.
Council Member Paul Tradewell said the city should do more homework before making a decision, including checking with the county and other cemeteries in Oak Grove. Council Member Mike Wylie said he was interested in how often other communities had faced similar situations.
Council Member Angie Bray Johnson said she supported the idea of a takeover, arguing cemeteries do not appear to be an attractive private investment, especially when about half the gravesites have remained unsold since the cemetery began in 1901. She also said money would transfer with the cemetery and that taking it over would help protect both the site and the city in the near term.
“I wouldn’t want my family members’ stones to be destroyed,” Bray Johnson said. “The history that’s there, I mean, if you have seen the way that cemeteries can get destroyed, I wouldn’t want to see that in our city.”