A grass-roots effort

GLENDALE — People with loved ones at Grand View Memorial Park are willing to do for free right now what the city of Glendale has failed to do with $107,800 in two months.

That was the message Laguna Beach resident Lenore Devlin brought Tuesday to the City Council, as at least one city councilman lamented the city’s inaction at the cemetery.

Devlin’s plan: to mobilize people in Glendale, her own community and Los Angeles County agencies to open the cemetery.

“We’ll all bring water,” she said. “We’ll bring our rakes. We’ll cut. We’ll do whatever is necessary to keep it clean.”

But city staff members said they are doing everything they can.

Grand View, the city’s oldest cemetery, has for the past two years caused problems for people with loved ones buried there, according to city officials and attorneys in the multiple lawsuits against it.

Two years ago, state inspectors found the remains of thousands of people who were never buried or properly disposed of there.

The cemetery was prohibited from conducting any new business — which eventually led cemetery operators to close its gates in July 2006.

Responding to public outcry over its closure, the City Council reopened the cemetery to the public for limited visitation hours.

The City Council renewed the Sunday visitation days on June 26 — also sending city staff members to trim or remove trees on site that have become dry to the point of creating a public safety hazard.

But nearly two months have passed, and no work has been done, Devlin said.

“The mothers and myself just want to go in and continue to visit our loved ones,” she said. “That’s it.”

At least one City Council member said the city is taking too long with the work.

“I was under the impression that staff was working on this because we allocated the funds,” Councilman Bob Yousefian said. “It’s been a month and nothing has happened. I just drove down there, looked at it, and I was horrified.”

Yousefian said the city should have taken care of dried-out trees and grass much faster than it did in the past two months.

“We have almost a million dollars’ worth of department heads out there and they can’t figure out a simple task, which is to go out there and put some water on those trees,” Yousefian said.

Also frustrated with the slow pace, Devlin said she is taking measures into her own hands.

She is trying to persuade the Los Angeles County Probation Department juvenile camps to have youth-to-community services at Grand View, Devlin said. A probation officer at Camp Holton in Sylmar has said the arrangement is a strong possibility, she said.

A Los Angeles Probation Department representative could not be reached for comment.

Devlin also said she will work with her community in Laguna Beach while her contacts rally people in Glendale.

She has been speaking with Armen Javadyan, president of nonprofit organization Human Rights Central Committee of Armenia and Russia in the U.S.A., to spread the word on his Internet talk show.

Devlin, a resource specialist for the Los Angeles Unified School District, lost a former student on March 27, 2004, she said. Ara Azaryan, who was like a son to her, was stopped by three men on his way to visit a friend’s house, she said. When he got out of the car, one of them shot and killed him. He was 23.

She was a regular visitor to Grand View when it was open. She said not being able to pay respects to her former student is devastating.

“I was like a substitute mother to him,” she said.

The City Council is scheduled to give further directions to staff members and appropriate more money for Grand View on Tuesday, said Zizette Ayad, community relations coordinator for the city of Glendale.

After the city did its assessment of the trees at the cemetery, it found that trimming and removing the trees would cost $154,500, Ayad said.

As to the public’s growing impatience with city staffers as Grand View sits neglected, Ayad said she understands their sentiments and hopes that they understand the complications the city faces.

“Unfortunately, a lot of people don’t understand that we don’t object to it,” she said.

“It’s not up to us, it’s up to the court. So I know there’s a lot of people who have volunteered and are willing to do work, but the owners will have to agree to it. And who will be responsible for letting them in and providing the equipment they need?”

Watering the trees is not a simple task, she said. The water has to go directly around the area, and then it has to be soaked properly for the first 30 days in order for the water to absorb into the ground, she said.

“It sounds a lot simpler than it looks, but it is really complicated,” Ayad said.

“We understand they are frustrated. We understand the job looks a lot simpler than it is. We have experts that deal with trees

and they understand what needs to happen.”