Cremation wall for veterans planned at Mansfield Cemetery

A changing public attitude toward burial and cremation will mean a new look for the veterans Honor Grounds area of the Mansfield Cemetery.

Richland County commissioners on Tuesday approved the transfer of $270,000 from the Veterans Service Commission’s sinking or reserve funds to its burial account to develop a columbarium or cremation wall that could increase by 28-fold the number of spaces where veterans can be interred.

According to plans presented by Pamela Bautz, administrator for the Mansfield Cemetery Association Inc., a 160-foot-long wall will be created with cremation units placed together to span the width of the Honor Grounds. Each section will be 11 feet wide with space for 96 burial niches on each side, 5 feet of space between the sections and handicapped-accessible concrete walkways and concrete benches for rest and contemplation.

“I’ve seen for the last two years our numbers have completely switched where more than half of our burials are cremations versus full body burials,” Bautz said. “Being that the cemetery is landlocked, I don’t have any more land that I can work with the veterans on, so everything that they have purchased from us is everything that I have left that we can develop for them.”

Bautz said that instead of having 104 land sites where veterans can be buried, the wall can deal with over 3,000 people that are cremations, depending on how the sections are configured, because the columbaria can fit two people per niche. The cemetery in general handles about 400 burials per year.

Plans also call for the veterans’ flagpole to be moved to a 28-foot by 13-foot open area in the center of the Honor Grounds that will have the flags and colored and stamped concrete representing all military branches. The area will provide space for the veterans’ burial detail and families to gather for services.

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Purdy Construction, of Mansfield, will do the concrete work for the walks and columbaria foundations at a cost of $106,890, while Turner Vault Company, of Northwood, Ohio, will provide the units at a cost of $153,742. Abuts said the concrete work should begin in the next two weeks and the first vaults become available in November.

Commissioners proclaim Pretrial, Probation and Parole week

Commissioners also issued a proclamation Tuesday marking July 21-27 “Pretrial, Probation and Parole” week in Richland County. The proclamation notes that community corrections professionals safeguard the public from criminal activity by supervising and providing services and referrals and promoting prevention and intervention to juvenile and adult offenders along with providing services, support and protection for crime victims.

Director of Court Services and Chief Probation Officer J.J. Bittinger said the office currently has over 1,000 people under supervision — including 120 in drug court — with probation officers making more than 69,000 contacts in 2023. Those contacts include face-to-face home and work visits and talking with employers and service providing agencies.

“If somebody is in a treatment facility, it’s contacting them for a progress report. If they’re working someplace, it’s contact with the employer or some type of contact that way,” Bittinger said. “We want our people out there working and doing productive things rather than not. It’s all about getting people back on their feet and back on the street and being productive members of society rather than the criminal element.”

Bittinger also noted that more than 11,000 drug tests were administered in 2023 with a failure rate of less than 18%.

Officials said the biggest changes in recent years have been taking over some of the duties of the Ohio Adult Parole Authority and directing offenders to services to help keep them out of jail.

“When I started probation it was a time when everyone went to jail because we are a misdemeanor court, and that’s pretty much it,” said Angie Lindsay, chief probation officer for Mansfield Municipal Court. “Now there are grants for jail diversion which means our goal is to refer as many people away from jail as possible. Our approach has become more of a social work type of goal where we give them the tools. Somme people just need basic life skills.”

Common Pleas Court Judge Brent Robinson agreed that the system tries more now to deal with the issues rather than jail time, noting that most of the people in his court have substance abuse or mental health issues.

“There’s still a segment that’s bad — bad, dangerous people. Those are the kind of people that you lock up as long as you can to protect the public and punish them,” he said.

Robinson also pointed out that while there are a number of community agencies that help people deal with substance abuse, mental health issues are “tougher” to handle. He said some people are denied certain mental health programming because local programs or community-based corrections can’t handle their level of problems.

One other major change is that both the county and municipal court probation departments now use the same type of ankle monitoring devices for convicted and accused offenders. Officials say that provides a better transition of supervision when people facing felony charges are bound over to Common Pleas Court following preliminary hearings in Municipal Court.

This article originally appeared on Mansfield News Journal: Cremation wall for veterans planned at Mansfield Cemetery