WESTBROOK–A rosebush in Westbrook’s Woodlawn Cemetery blooms with beautiful red flowers, but is so overgrown it almost hides the gravestone it was meant to adorn.

At other gravesites, green shrubs planted years ago as tidy sentinels to flank either side of the gravestones now tower above them and encroach onto neighboring graves.

And on some graves, pottery knickknacks and other adornments are so numerous that they create hazards for cemetery mowing and maintenance crews.

All the flowers, shrubs and ornaments at Woodlawn and the four other city-owned cemeteries have been placed on gravesites with loving care. However, in many cases, care of those graves has lapsed. Also, some of the items on the graves were put there in violation of the city’s cemetery rules.

The result is a hodge-podge appearance of the city’s burying grounds, and some potential safety concerns. Now, in an attempt to address those problems, the city’s Cemetery Board of Trustees is proposing updating the regulations for Westbrook’s five municipal cemeteries for the first time in almost two decades.

The proposed new rules won endorsement from the City Council’s Facilities & Streets Committee in June and are due to come before the full City Council on July 12.

Arty Ledoux, the city’s deputy director of public services, who works closely with the trustees on cemetery operations, recently summed up the goal of the proposed changes.

“What we’re trying to do is keep the beauty and dignity of the cemeteries and also maintain a level of safety for the maintenance crews,” he said.

Ledoux said the new rules are designed to be sensitive to established graves at the cemeteries while creating guidelines on how the cemetery will look going forward.

For example, most existing plants, trees, and shrubs at the cemeteries would be allowed to remain. However, the rules say that no new in-ground trees, plants or shrubs could be planted. Flowers could be planted, but only if they were close to the gravestones.

Also, existing plants, trees and shrubs could be removed if necessary to dig another grave that they’re encroaching on, or if they are too large or not properly pruned.

In addition, while the new rules allow knickknacks, such ornaments could only be placed on the base of the gravestone, not on the ground.

Also, only one shepherd’s hook – metal poles that can hold hanging flower baskets or ornaments – would be permitted per plot. Balloons would be allowed to commemorate a birthday or special occasion, but would have to be removed after one week of display.

Currently, some graves at Woodlawn have several shepherd’s hooks and some have pottery ornaments all over the plots.

However, those items are not allowed under the current cemetery rules, last revised in 1993.

Those rules say that “lawn ornaments (such as balloons, wooden crosses, ducks, fish etc.) are not permitted.”

The new rules now would make such ornaments legal, but place some restrictions on their use.

Giving a tour of Woodlawn Cemetery recently, Ledoux explained the reasons for such restrictions. He said it’s extremely difficult to mow around such ornaments. Also, if they get broken, it’s upsetting to the family and a potential hazard for the mowers. Balloons become bedraggled after about a week, he said.

The city’s five burying grounds are the Larrabee Heights Cemetery on Lisa Harmon Drive, the Conant Street Cemetery on Conant Street, the Highland Lake Cemetery on Bridgton Road, the Saccarappa Cemetery on Church Street, and Woodlawn Cemetery on Stroudwater Street.

Ledoux said three cemeteries are still active: Highland Lake, Saccarappa and Woodlawn.

Woodlawn, which is about 45 acres and has about 10,000 graves, is the city’s largest cemetery, he said. It costs the city approximately $75,000 per year to contract out to have the cemetery mowed and trimmed, he said.

Ledoux said Woodlawn has “the most issues because it is the largest and has the most activity.”

He said the proposed changes in the rules were prompted by a complaint from a woman who was obeying the current regulations while tending a family member’s grave there.

“She didn’t think it was fair that she had to follow the rules and others didn’t,” Ledoux said.

But more than that, he said, the woman was concerned that the appearance of the cemetery was deteriorating.

The cemetery rules have not been enforced as perhaps they were in the past because of staff cutbacks, Ledoux said. The city used to have a full-time cemetery director and crew, but those positions were eliminated during budget streamlining in the last decade, he said.

He drove around Woodlawn recently, pointing out some of the problems, such as graves that have become engulfed by the plants, trees and shrubs around them. He measured one huge shrub that had grown into a hedge that covered adjacent gravesites.

Even some neat-appearing graves had plants or knickknacks placed beyond the borders of that grave’s plot so that they encroached on other graves, Ledoux said.

To address the concerns raised by the complainant, Ledoux said, the Board of Trustees decided to revise the rules and, if they’re adopted, launch a one-year public education program about them before they take effect on June 1, 2011, as planned.

Jim Brooker, one of the three members of the cemetery board, said that in developing the revised rules, the board reviewed regulations from other cemeteries in Maine and also out of state.

Before the Facilities & Streets Committee voted 3-0 on June 14 to refer the proposed rules on to the rest of the City Council, committee members stressed that they want the city to use care in dealing with family members about the changes.

“Whatever we do, I know that we will do it with all the sensitivity that we can,” said Councilor John O’Hara.

Ledoux and Brooker said the city will work with individuals case by case if needed to resolve problems.

“There’s always two sides to the story,” Brooker said.

Still, he said, some guidelines in a cemetery are necessary.

“We have to have rules and regulations, just like you do in life,” he said.

Arty Ledoux, Westbrook’s deputy director of public services, demonstrates with a tape measure how a shrub at Woodlawn Cemetery has become so overgrown it overlaps existing graves. The city’s Cemetery Board of Trustees is proposing changes in cemetery regulations to promote beautification of the cemetery and eliminate safety hazards posed by some grave ornaments. Staff photo by Tess Nacelewicz