Funds left decades ago to care for the graves of several individuals could go into the city of Dalton’s cemetery fund.
The Dalton City Council voted 3-0 on Monday to join Wells Fargo Bank in petitioning Superior Court to dissolve the Margaret H. Bard Cemetery Trust, the W.C. Martin Cemetery Trust and the Elizabeth Roberts Cemetery Trust. The three trusts have a total of about $55,000 in them. Mayor Annalee Harlan Sams typically votes only when there is a tie, and council member Nicky Lama was absent.
Attorney Tom Minor, whom the city asked to handle the matter, said it is an “unusual” issue.
Minor said Martin left $2,000 in his will “to upkeep his family’s cemetery plots. The First National Bank of Dalton, of which he was the president at that time, was named as trustee. His will was probated in 1941. That money is now approximately $14,000. That money has been used throughout the years to pay the trustee and to maintain his family’s cemetery plots.”
Bard and Roberts also left money to maintain their family’s plots and named First National Bank as the trustee.
Minor said the Roberts plots are in city-owned West Hill Cemetery; the Bard plots are in West Hill and the Old Presbyterian cemetery, which is now maintained by the city; and the Martin plots are in West Hill and in the Tilton Cemetery south of the city.
Minor said that over the decades through mergers and acquisitions Wells Fargo Bank acquired those responsibilities as trustee.
“They are not able to maintain this because the costs of maintaining these trusts are eating into the corpus and pretty soon it will all be gone,” he said.
He said the bank asked City Administrator Andrew Parker if the city could take over the trusts, and Parker asked him to look at the matter.
He said officials had concerns about maintaining the terms of the trusts, so the bank asked if the city would accept the money outside the trusts.
Council member Steve Farrow asked if the bank had looked for heirs of the people who established the trusts.
“They do not have to notify the heirs, as I understand it,” Minor said. “But I did talk to the Wells Fargo attorneys. There will be notices published in the legal section of the paper.”
Minor said the bank would be responsible for any notices that are published.
Farrow also asked about the Martin plots in the Tilton Cemetery.
“I’ve had a number of conversations with the Wells Fargo attorneys,” he said. “Tilton is not in the city of Dalton, so we can’t be involved in that.”
Minor said he isn’t sure who maintains the Tilton Cemetery.
“I guess that family plot would no longer be maintained,” he said.
The council members also voted 3-0 to approve:
• A request by Shazman Ali to rezone to general commercial from heavy manufacturing 4.05 acres at 1028 Willowdale Road. The property contains a 20,100-square-foot warehouse that the owner plans to renovate into an indoor pickleball facility.
• A request by Danielle Putnam to rezone to rural residential from medium-density, single-family residential .32 of an acre at 405 Mosedale Drive. The owner wishes to build a duplex at the site, which is currently undeveloped.