Save Our Cemetery seeks aid to annex veterans burial grounds
February 18, 2025
By Cassandra Day, Staff Writer
MIDDLETOWN — A grassroots campaign of war veterans hopes Connecticut lawmakers will address an “impending crisis” by adopting a resolution to expand the State Veterans Cemetery after Middletown denied a state Veterans Affairs request to buy 90 acres of adjacent city land three months ago.
Organizers are urging the governor and legislators to make the issue more of a priority, according to Charles Pickett, of New Haven, senior vice commander of the Veterans of Foreign Wars Department Connecticut.
He, along with two other veterans, Veterans of Foreign Wars CT vice chairpersons Mike Monaco of Glastonbury and Oakdale resident Charise Hewitt, launched the Save Our Cemetery campaign to advocate for an annex to the Bow Lane cemetery instead of a whole new one.
The state cemetery hosts an estimated 273 in-ground cremated burials a year, according to the state’s request for proposals package. As of Nov. 21, 2024, it said, 711 in-ground cremation burial plots remain. The projected exhaustion of this burial option is late summer 2027.
Many citizens spoke out at the Nov. 12 Common Council hearing on the matter, mostly rejecting the proposal, citing potential environmental hazards from chemicals used in the embalming process, along with pesticides and herbicides applied on the grounds.
Area veterans strongly supported the measure.
As a result, the Connecticut Department of Veterans Affairs had to decline a $4 million National Cemetery Administration Veterans Cemetery Grants Program, Deputy VA Commissioner Joseph Danao has said.
The agency went through a competitive process to apply for a limited amount of money through the National Cemetery Administration.
Pickett, who attended the council meeting, said he was “dispirited” by the testimony considering the “impending crisis.”
A municipal veterans representative for the city of New Haven, Pickett is the grandson of former state representative and state senator Charles J. Arrigoni. His father is Navy veteran and former state senator John F. Pickett Jr.
The Iraq and Afghanistan wars veteran was raised on Ridge Road in Middletown, graduated from Xavier High School in 1985, and now teaches freshman English at the Sound School in New Haven.
“Every year, I go back to my hometown and the headstones are getting closer and closer together,” Pickett explained.
VFW CT Commander Stanley Borusiewicz created a temporary Veteran Cemetery Committee at the November Council of Administration meeting, and named Pickett chairman.
State Veterans Affairs Commissioner Ron Welch testified Feb. 13 during the Veterans and Military Affairs public hearing on HB05117, an Act Concerning the Department of Veterans Affairs and a Connecticut Veterans Cemetery.
The average annual burial rate at the cemetery over the last five years is 763, Welch said in support of the legislation. As of Feb. 1, there were 1,990 available casket plots, 677 available buried cremains plots, and 1,767 available columbarium niches at the cemetery.
The average annual rate of usage for the three types of plots are 169 caskets, 273 buried cremains and 160 columbarium niches, he said. “At this rate of usage, we project the depletion of available casket plots in December 2036; buried cremains in August 2027; and columbarium niches in June 2035.”
The Department of Administrative Services posted a request for proposals to acquire buildable land for use as a new state cemetery. Proposals are due by Feb. 28.
“With the Middletown State Veterans Cemetery reaching capacity, there was a real possibility eligible Connecticut veterans would have to be interred out-of-state on Long Island or Massachusetts in a VA national cemetery,” Pickett said. “Veterans I talked to saw this as shameful if not very disrespectful.
“Many of them questioned if their home state of Connecticut really valued their service and sacrifice to our nation. For some veterans we talked to and emailed, it was a real existential crisis,” he added.
Pickett is asking supporters to encourage people to visit CTVets.us and join the SOC email list, encourage veteran groups to endorse the resolution, and ask their state legislators to support the effort.
For more information, visit soc.vfwnewhaven.org. For details on the bid, go to portal.ct.gov and enter “DVA – RFP 25-01” in the search bar.
Cassandra Day is an assistant managing editor with the Middletown Press. She is an award-winning multimedia journalist and resident of the North End of Middletown who has been reporting nearly every facet of the city for over two decades.