Nathan Pilling

nathan.pilling@kitsapsun.com

POULSBO – A few months ago, while Poulsbo resident Bill Austin was at the city’s cemetery, he looked up at the sign he built years ago that framed the burial ground’s entrance.

“This is wrong,” he thought as he looked at it. The sign had begun to rot and leaned forward. It, like the rest of the cemetery, had begun to deteriorate around the edges.

“It looked a little forlorn,” Councilman Ken Thomas said.

And so this fall, a group of councilmen, city staff and community volunteers set to work at the cemetery, aiming to improve the neglected site. Soon the parking lot was paved, a deteriorated message board was hauled out, trees were planted, debris was removed and water lines were installed throughout the grounds.

The work was paid for out of the city’s Cemetery Reserve Fund — made up of donations and funds from plot sales — as a way to kick off improvements, Thomas said.

On Tuesday, Austin stood looking up at the most recognizable of the improvements, a new entrance arch he designed and donated to the cemetery.

“It’s going to be here for a couple of hundred years or more,” he said of the metal and cement construction. “Forever, hopefully. It’s indestructible.”

The city’s committee eventually plans to hand off planning and care for the site to a community group, which Harlan Knudson, a cemetery deed holder, is working to organize. It will be a Friends of the Poulsbo Cemetery group, Knudson said.

“I’m quite enthused about the whole thing,” Knudson said. “It’s a chance to give back.”

Thomas has a long list of improvements planned for the site, including marked sections, plot number markers, a display map, a kiosk at the site where visitors can search for those buried there, a smartphone application showing relevant information about each plot, an “adopt a cemetery section” program and more.

“These are all things that are going to take a long time,” Thomas said. “But we’re not afraid to think long term.”

The Caldart Avenue cemetery first served as a community burial ground in 1911 before it was transferred to city ownership in 1920. About 2,000 of the cemetery’s 3,500 plots are used, according to the city.

Those interested in learning more about Knudson’s community group can attend a planning session at 9:30 a.m. Feb. 14 in Poulsbo City Hall.