Residents ask Clay County preservation board to form cemetery subcommittee

Kathy Gess, a Clay County resident and genealogist, told the Clay County Preservation Board during public comment that volunteers who document and restore historic cemeteries are ‘‘kind of disjointed’’ and asked the board to re-establish a cemetery subcommittee within the county preservation structure.

Gess said she and volunteers have been working on several sites, including one in Orange Park, and that others such as Pleasant Point and Foreman's Cemetery have active volunteers but lack a central organizing body. “We need the preservation board to be kind of our foothold and have a committee of people that can come together and manage that information,” Gess said.

The request prompted a staff-direction response from a board member: staff…