The Snyderville Basin Cemetery District boundary is identical to that of the Snyderville Basin Recreation Special Service District. It was formed last year to open up burial options to those outside of Park City limits who otherwise would be buried along the Wasatch Front or elsewhere.
The average primary residence in the district is valued at $1.25 million, county civil attorney Ryan Stack reported to the Summit County Council Sept. 25.
To pay for a cemetery, that resident’s annual bill would be $14.44. For a Snyderville Basin business valued the same amount, the bill would be $26.25.
Currently, the cemetery district doesn’t have any budget, according to board chair Max Greenhaulgh.
“We have not had any monies at all to proceed, and we've been established for about a year,” he told the council. “So I just wanted to express the gratitude on behalf of the district, behalf of our board, for all of the in-kind contributions that the county has given us.”
The county attorney’s, auditor’s and treasurer’s offices have all donated time to the project, he said. Summit County Public Works also loaned equipment to excavate soils on potential sites for testing.
Greenhaulgh said the bulk of the budget will be used to build cemetery facilities and infrastructure. The current preferred site is along Olympic Parkway, across the street from the Run-A-Muk Dog Park, although the district has back-ups.
To save money, the board prefers to use county-owned property for the cemetery rather than purchase new land. Either way, the cemetery won’t need to pay property taxes.
Landscape architect and board member Pete Gillwald said they’d like to have a mix of traditional and nontraditional cemetery elements, including some space for green burial techniques.
“We're not looking to sit there and take 10 acres and just grid it out like you would see in a traditional cemetery,” he said. “We're looking at probably trying to create … space that ties in with the trails and make it more a community effort.”
A public hearing on the cemetery project is slated for October and the council is expected to vote on the proposed budget and taxes in December.
Editor's note: Gillwald has announced Park City Miners football games on KPCW for more than 20 years.
