A ghost of a chance?

We had a lot of fun doing the "backyard burial" story, and think most people got a good chuckle out of it.

It was one of those classic cases where people assume some kind of law is in place, then discover nobody had ever gotten around to actually doing it.

Nobody we talked to wanted us to write it, although to their credit, they talked anyway. And it really wasn't anything we'd discovered. Once city hall realized there was a gap in their ordinances, they started working on it right away, which was how we got involved.

Most of the council want to make sure all the loopholes are closed and initially most wanted to make sure backyard burials didn't happen. But Councilman Geoff Schroeder asked a good question. "Why?" Or rather, "why not?" All too often governments jump at prohibiting things when they don't need to, so it was nice to see somebody at least questioning a quick prohibition.

In fact, assuming some basic standards are set, such as those the county has, we're not all that sure we disagree with him. If the city set similar requirements, including platting a family burial plot, ensuring the proper maintenance of the gravesite in perpetuity by requiring the title holder of the land, if it's sold, to be responsible for maintaining it, and making sure the presence of any grave is disclosed during a property sale, as well as certain set-back requirements and making sure a grave doesn't foul any water supplies, we think in those exceedingly rare cases where someone might want to do it they probably should be allowed to do so.

We put enough restrictions on property ownership as it is. A man's home should be his castle, and if he wants, maybe his mausoleum --if certain conventions of propriety are maintained.

But it will probably take a while for the city to come up with some basic standards, unless they decide to simply ban the practice. It'll be an interesting debate over the next few weeks.