These Commissioners Rarely Hear Complaints

It’s a dead-end job, but Irwin Lundstrum tries to dig it anyway.

Year after year, election after election. If there’s a hot button to rile others into running against him for cemetery commissioner, the 72-year-old has yet to find it.

And he’s been pushing for almost 20 years.

“It’s one of those jobs nobody wants anyway,” says the commissioner from Waverly. “If somebody else filed, I sure wouldn’t.”

This year, each of Spokane County’s six cemetery districts has at least one commissioner opening. Some have several. But only two people have filed for a total of 11 open slots.

But don’t fret yet. Those peaceful grounds will still be kept green. “Somebody will always have those positions,” promises Noel Elliot, assistant elections supervisor.

In most cases, that means the current commissioners stay in office, whether they run or not. The only way out of this political graveyard is to flat refuse.

And commissioners aren’t about to do that. Lundstrum just resigns himself to taking the job every term.

“It’s important,” Lundstrum says. “Somebody has to do it, that’s the thing.”

In Waverly, commissioners organize Memorial Day cleanups. They manage the budget. They’re responsible for having the place surveyed. “And if there’s a grave to be located, it’s up to us to get up there, measure it and get it all figured out,” he says.

It’s like that everywhere.

“They make the decisions, y’know,” says Joanne Green, secretary for the Spangle Cemetery District. “We have put in an automatic water sprinkler this year, and we upgraded it. Before, we had to turn it on and off ourselves.”

Spangle Commissioner John Holling was one of only two in the county to file again for his seat. He’s warmed it for a dozen years.

“I had time, and it was right before harvest, so I thought I’d file,” he shrugs. “I thought I’d do it the right way.”

Holling farms wheat, barley and lentils. In Spangle, all three commissioners are farmers. That’s another reason many don’t file harvest time is just the wrong time to be pestered.

Take Rodney Clouse of the West Greenwood Cemetery District, the only other re-filing commissioner on the ballot.

“He’s working on his farm now,” says a woman answering the phone at his home. “He’s pretty hard to get ahold of.”

Cemetery districts can be desperate when commissioners move away, or God forbid, have their mail forwarded to the great beyond themselves. “One fella moved out, we did manage to find somebody,” Lundstrum remembers. That commissioner had to talk someone into taking over.

Lundstrum has yet to succeed at being succeeded.

He and the others will be back in the jobs they know all too well.

“They’ll be filled,” he vows. “The same old people.”

, DataTimes