CLEVELAND, Ohio — Some Northeast Ohio area residents are fired up over the condition of a Cleveland area cemetery.
It's located in the historic Slavic Village neighborhood.
They say it's overgrown and littered with damaged headstones.
In recent years, it's become a literal dumping ground.
They reached out to News 5 after watching a previous story on the poor conditions at Brookmere Cemetery in Old Brooklyn.
We don’t just report the initial story—we follow through to its conclusion. Read and watch our previous reporting on this story below and see more stories that we've followed through on here.
They say the site at Harvard Grove Cemetery in Slavic Village made their stomachs sink.
They're hoping someone steps in and helps fix up the space.
"My heart hurts," said Donna Baioni.
As Baioni and her husband Dave were paying their respects at the Harvard Grove Cemetery, they couldn't help but feel a bit uneasy about its future.
"It was just a peaceful, beautiful place and it hurts to see headstones knocked over," Baioni said.
"What we're worried about is the stones that are down. Who's going to replace them? It's gonna take a lot of work to find who they belong to," Dave Baioni said.
For years, they've witnessed repeated damage at the Slavic Village burial space along Lansing Avenue.
Within moments of pulling in, our News 5 camera captured dozens of sinking, sliding, and damaged headstones.
Many were knocked off their bases.
Others had rolled into various aisles.
Some were so old—we couldn't even make out the engraving or date of passing.
Then, there's the downed trees and overgrown grass.
Donna Baioni has been coming here for 60 years to remember her grandparents and great-grandparents.
"This is not the place that I remember as a girl."
The recent site she says shows clear disrespect to everyone.
"If this was your loved one, would you do that? How would you feel if somebody were knocking over the headstone of somebody you loved," Baioni said.
In addition to this mish-mash of gravestones all over the place—the couple says they reached a boiling point when they tried to drive back to their loved ones' headstones and couldn't even make the turn because there were piles of garbage dumped on the pathway.
"Roofing materials. Hello! I tried calling the city and the cemeteries and nobody answered the phone. I've called several times," Baioni said.
We took her concerns directly to the City of Cleveland.
News 5's Mike Holden both called and emailed the City of Cleveland, The Mayor's office, the Cemeteries Line and contacted the councilperson for the ward.
A spokesperson with the city released the following statement:
"The dedication and hard work of our Cemeteries Team, which consists of 12 laborers responsible for 12 cemeteries, is evident through the 1,216 service requests they have completed to date this year – which averages out to completing a request approximately every business hour. These service requests include various responsibilities such as headstone installation, raising, and leveling; burial prep work and post internment service tasks; grass maintenance; as well as other cleaning and general upkeep duties.
We are happy to help residents anytime we are able but it’s important to note that the City is limited to the extent we can help. If a headstone is damaged by the City during the course of maintenance, we hold ourselves responsible and cover the repair costs. However, most of the time, damaged headstones are due to acts of nature or vandals – both of which fall out of our purview. We recommend that families who have damaged headstones should contact their insurance company. Some have burial policies [progressive.com] which include burial plots and headstones, and some damaged grave markers [insurance.com] fall under homeowners insurance – as stated by a State Farm spokesman in this Chicago Tribune report [chicagotribune.com]."
Baioni says she understands there are larger issues occurring in the city, but she hopes this sparks some change.
"I would like to say to the city—I know it's gonna take a lot. I know it's not gonna be easy, but remember we have these old cemeteries," Baioni said.
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