Cemetery Changes Proposed : Director Intends to Run Mount Hope in the Black

In 1869, a group of prominent civic leaders donated 170 acres of land between what are now Market and Imperial avenues to the City of San Diego for use as a private cemetery named Mount Hope.

For more than 100 years, Mount Hope pretty much ran itself--a city accountant made sure that the money earned by selling burial plots paid for the maintenance of the cemetery. But in recent years, the budget crunch touched even the city graveyard--in the 12 months preceding July 1, San Diego spent $636,650 on Mount Hope, and took in about $50,000 less than that, according to Martin Breslauer of the property department.

But all that’s going to change, if George Stelter has anything to say about it.

Stelter is the newly hired city cemetery director and, as he readily admits, “There’s some turning around to do here. Mount Hope doesn’t have to make money, but it shouldn’t be a drain on the city.”

On Wednesday, the City Council’s Public Facilities and Recreation Committee ordered the city manager’s office to study Stelter’s marketing strategy for putting Mount Hope back in the black.

“It’s time this place be run more like a private business,” Stelter said.

Despite its gloomy financial picture, Mount Hope’s rates are not among the cheapest in the city. Stelter said they are “above the norm.”

“We have to be concerned when we don’t have low costs or a profit margin,” said Councilman William Jones, the committee chairman.

Before accepting the Mount Hope job in April, Stelter, 63, had owned and managed his own cemetery in the Northern California city of Redding since 1950. “It was a nice little business and made a nice profit,” he said.

But attracted by the San Diego climate and relishing the idea of “semi-retiring” here, Stelter on a whim answered the city’s advertisement seeking a cemetery director. He got the job, sold his business and moved here for an annual salary of $22,000--and the chance to meet the challenge posed by Mount Hope.

Stelter is the first cemetery professional the city has hired to run Mount Hope. “I don’t mean anything bad by this, but the expertise to make Mount Hope meet the public need has not been here before--the previous directors were into accounting,” Stelter said. “There are a lot of little details that go into making a cemetery a thing of beauty.”

About 5,000 burial plots are available on the 90 acres left at Mount Hope (70 acres of open land once belonging to the cemetery were sold by the city some years ago), but Stelter thinks that number could be increased to “35,000 or 40,000, with a little work,” involving the stacking of graves on top of one another in family plots.

Stelter already has asked that the city offer time-payment, “before need” programs for those who desire to purchase plots at Mount Hope ahead of time. And he wants permission to set aside an area of the cemetery for those of the Muslim faith.

Other potential money-makers are a city-run store offering caskets and flowers. “It’s never been done, and I can’t understand why,” Stelter said. “You can’t compete with the private establishments without programs like this.”

In addition, Stelter wants the power to set individual burial rates. The City Council has set fees annually in the past, and the current flat rate is $1,100 per plot. “There’s no flexibility there, and that’s wrong,” he said. “I’ve got to have a freer hand on pricing. Without it, there’s no opportunity to dicker.”

The city manager’s office will report back to the committee within 90 days, and the council ultimately will decide the fate of Stelter’s proposals. Breslauer said he did not know if they might prove controversial.

“When you look at the whole city budget, (losing) $50,000 is not a lot of money, and that could determine how far the council will go,” he said. “Nobody’s saying the city should go into the funeral business, but there’s no reason why Mount Hope should not be an attractive alternative for the people of San Diego.”