Suamico board denies proposed cemetery ordinance, asks for rewritten draft in January

Trustee Romas moved on Dec. 16 to deny Ordinance 2024-10, which would have created a new Chapter 14 governing the village cemetery, and asked staff and the village attorney to prepare a revised draft for the board’s January meeting. The motion to deny carried unanimously, 7-0.

Clerk Bartletti opened discussion by noting that Trustee Romas had provided multiple questions, comments and proposed wording changes to the draft. Board members said they wanted attorney review to ensure the ordinance was correct before the board approved a second reading. As Trustee Romas put it at the meeting, "I'll make the motion to deny the ordinance 2024-10 as presented and we'll come back in January with a new ordinance, the new number and you would review that." The board agreed that returning with a clean, reviewed draft would be cleaner and less confusing than trying to re-number or amend the current draft midstream.

Trustees discussed timing and packet deadlines for the January meeting and asked that proposed changes be sent back to staff and the attorney in time for packet preparation. No formal substantive provisions of the cemetery ordinance were adopted at the Dec. 16 meeting; instead the body voted to deny the current draft and to bring a revised ordinance back for consideration.

Next steps: staff will compile the board's proposed edits and submit them to the village attorney; the board expects a new ordinance number and a new first/second-reading sequence at the January meeting.