Sale of Hearse: Reconsideration

Thank god for the Herald! We are so lucky that there is an outside source to find out what our elected and appointed selectman and planning commission officials are up to…

I've been on Granville's planning commission for six years and for the last year and a half we have been faced with removing a building behind our school that for many years has housed Granville's town hearse. It has been housed there for so long and not used that few people know of its existence.

This isn't some fifty's Cadillac hearse, this is a mid- 1800's horse-drawn hearse with both wheel and sled runners, original glass windows, tasseled curtains and velvet bed in great condition. It's a beautiful piece of history and more specifically the history of Granville.

There have been several ideas and offers to house the hearse in barns around the area to be able to preserve the hearse for the town and eventually to find proper housing so it can be displayed and possibly put into use again, as well as the suggestion to sell the hearse.

There have been several people (including myself) opposed to the selling of the hearse from the moment this problem presented itself to the planning commission.

Then to my surprise, upon returning from a two-week trip I sat down to read the Herald and I see that in the short time I was gone, without a planning commission meeting where a vote should have been held as to whether or not to sell the hearse, ads were placed to sell the hearse, bids taken, the planning commission requesting a special select board meeting, meeting held and a bid accepted…hearse sold! For only $1,500!

Never has anything happened so fast in all my years on the planning commission! If only we could move this fast on more important issues!

After talking to several other people in town that were equally surprised at the sale, I went to the selectboard meeting Monday night to question how all this had occurred and to protest the sale of this piece of Granville's history.

There will be another special selectboard meeting concerning the sale of the hearse on June 15 (Friday) at 6 p.m. at Granville's Town Hall. If a town lets its officials sell its history for pieces of silver what will it have left?

PS. Granville is looking to fill several vacancies on our planning commission. If you are interested please give me a call or come to our next meeting on June 11 at 5:30 at the Town Hall.

Rhoda M. Stockwell

Granville