A month after Ojai Valley cemetery controversy, work resumes

Wes Woods II, Ventura County Star
·2 min read
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Michael Chapman, right, talks to a construction worker at St. Thomas Aquinas Cemetery in the Ojai Valley on Sept. 8th. A month after work on a restoration project stopped due to community concerns, workers have started sifting through soil before the project resumes.
Michael Chapman, right, talks to a construction worker at St. Thomas Aquinas Cemetery in the Ojai Valley on Sept. 8th. A month after work on a restoration project stopped due to community concerns, workers have started sifting through soil before the project resumes.

A month after work on a restoration project at St. Thomas Aquinas Cemetery outside Ojai stopped due to community concerns, workers last week started to move dirt again.

On Oct. 3, crews began to sift displaced soil at the Catholic cemetery to check for possible human remains or historic objects of value, said Jennifer Trunk, a residential permits manager for Ventura County. Ground-penetrating radar equipment has also been brought in.

The sifting work is expected to be completed in about three weeks, said Adrian Alarcon, a spokesperson for the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, which owns the cemetery.

The 2-acre property is located at 600 E. Villanova Road near Villanova Preparatory School.

The archdiocese had been in the process of adding a new 48-unit columbarium — a building to hold ashes — with walkways and landscaping. But work came to a halt on Sept. 5 when county planners issued an indefinite stop-work order.

Relatives of the dead had worried when mounds of dirt and a wood cross that marked graves were removed for the project.

The cemetery, which has been inactive since around the 1930s or 1940s, lacks complete records on who is buried there. Community members feared the earth-moving work could inadvertently disturb undocumented burial sites.

“I hope they don’t find remains in the piles of dirt," said Michael Chapman, who has ancestors buried on the grounds. "Who wants to have their remains dug up?”

Chapman said the soil-sifting process appears to be adequate, but added he'd like to see results of the findings made public and the entire cemetery analyzed.

Michael Chapman points out the area where his great-grandmother is buried at St. Thomas Aquinas Cemetery outside Ojai on Sept. 8. Crews are now sifting dirt before resuming a construction project halted last month due to community concerns.
Michael Chapman points out the area where his great-grandmother is buried at St. Thomas Aquinas Cemetery outside Ojai on Sept. 8. Crews are now sifting dirt before resuming a construction project halted last month due to community concerns.

The wood cross that was removed when work began marked his great-grandmother’s and great-uncle’s graves. The archdiocese said the cross is being refreshed and will be reinstalled in its original form and location.

A ground-penetrating radar process, which started Thursday morning and was scheduled to conclude Saturday, will help identify existing grave locations, Alarcon said. It uses a noninvasive geophysical imaging method with radar pulses to investigate the subsurface, she said.

Mark Tovar, who lives near the cemetery and has chronicled the project on social media, said he thinks the archdiocese should scan the entire grounds to make sure construction didn’t alter other areas. He also hopes for full transparency.

Construction work won't continue until the soil-sifting process is complete, Alarcon said in an email.

“We will share the findings of the report with the community,” she added.

Wes Woods II covers West County for the Ventura County Star. Reach him at wesley.woodsii@vcstar.com, 805-437-0262 or@JournoWes.

This article originally appeared on Ventura County Star: A month after Ojai Valley cemetery controversy, work resumes