Tilton condo owner agrees to cease cemetery disturbance

TILTON — The owner of two condominium units adjacent to Lake Winnisquam has agreed to honor a cease-and-desist order that the selectboard issued following months of discussion about the developer’s desecration of the Philbrick family cemetery.

According to the selectboard, Alex Obekhov, who wants to replace the two buildings with slightly larger structures, has encroached on the cemetery boundaries, removed tombstones and grave markers, installed generators and a compressor for air conditioning, and dug a gas line through the cemetery.

Spearheaded by selectboard members Jonathan Scanlon and Patricia Consentino, the group has been considering ways to persuade Obekhov to restore the cemetery where some of Tilton’s founding citizens are buried. According to Scanlon, one of the Philbricks interred there was part of the Sanbornton Regiment that marched to Portsmouth to defend the union in the early days of the Civil War.

“Nobody in their right mind would say it’s OK,” Scanlon said during a July 22 meeting.

He cited New Hampshire statute RSA 635:6, which states that no one can “purposely or knowingly destroy, mutilate, injure or remove any tomb, monument, gravestone, marker, or other structure, or any portion or fragment thereof, placed or designated for a memorial of the dead, or any fence, railing, gate, curb, or plot delineator or other enclosure for the burial of the dead.”

The law further prevents any municipality from allowing the disturbance of a cemetery.

Further, RSA 635:8 declares that such an offense is a Class B felony, with a conviction requiring the payment of restitution for damages and replacement of the removed items.

Scanlon and Consentino have been pushing the other three selectboard members — Eric Pyra, Scott Ruggles and Joseph Jesseman — to take legal action against Obekhov since last April, when Tilton’s health officer, Katherine Dawson, discovered the damage to the cemetery. Scanlon and Consentino joined her in a visit to the property, taking photographs of the broken headstones and other damage. Boundary markers had been cut to make room for a portable toilet. A footstone was found at the bottom of a dug trench.

Jesseman, who is vice chair of the board, agreed that action should be taken, but he said the focus should be on restoration, rather than punishment.

Board Chair Ruggles argued that proving the owner had acted “purposely and knowingly” could be difficult. He presented a hypothetical case in which a hired contractor clearing the land clips a headstone, not knowing it was hidden under the grass or bushes. He questioned if the property owner could be held responsible.

“You’ve got to understand, you get into a court of law, are we going to blow $7,000 to be told that they didn’t purposely do it?” Ruggles asked. “So we’re going to take our prosecutor off of cases, or have to add to his caseload that’s already overloaded? ... Instead, we can actually work with the landowner in town, have him restore it.”

Instead of initiating legal action, the selectboard agreed to send a cease-and-desist letter to Obekhov and ask him to meet with the board to set a course of action.

The letter, dated July 25, stated, “This Notice to Cease and Desist is written to notify you ... that the cemetery on your property must remain undisturbed per RSA 635:6.” Signed by the chair of the selectboard, with questions to be addressed to Town Administrator Jeanie Forrester, the letter did not address any restitution or replacement of markers.

Forrester said that Obekhov stopped by the Town Office on Aug. 8 “to acknowledge receipt of the letter and confirm that he will not touch the cemetery.” She added that the property owner “has been very willing to work with the [selectboard] to address their concerns.”

Those concerns also included the proximity of the condos to the cemetery. By law, any structure must lie at least 25 feet from a cemetery, but because the triangle-shaped property does not allow for such a setback, and is considered “grandfathered” because structures already exist there, Obekhov received permission to rebuild at a greater distance from the cemetery than the existing structure. Yet, according to Consentino, the new building is “inches” from the cemetery.

The selectboard has been in touch with the New Hampshire Cemetery Association and New Hampshire Old Graveyard Association, with both groups agreeing that disturbing the cemetery is a felony. By law, a landowner must petition the NH Cemetery Association to relocate any graves, and cannot simply remove the markers.

While the initial disturbance of gravesites may have preceded Obekhov’s ownership, Consentino pointed out that, even after the town had pointed out the problem to him, he put in concrete pads over the graves and installed the generators and an air compressor.

The town had no contact information for Obekhov, other than a mailing address, so he could not be contacted for this story.

The selectboard plans to take up the cemetery issue again at their next meeting, on Thursday, Aug. 18, at 4:45 p.m.