BELLEVILLE, Ill. – In a unanimous vote, the Belleville City Council said that the city can push forward to the next phase in a plan to buy an embattled cemetery in town and turn a large wooded area on it into a solar farm. But as one councilman said, nobody’s breaking out the chainsaws just yet.
The council voted to allow the city to submit a plan to the state of Illinois to purchase Mount Hope Cemetery.
The 120-plus-acre cemetery has been at the center of controversy for decades now.
It was first abandoned; now, the state controls it. But the city has spent more than a million dollars maintaining it over the past 20 years.
Now, the city wants to buy the cemetery, clear 25 acres of trees, and lease that land to a solar panel company.
City leaders say the solar farm would help cover the ongoing taxpayer burden.
Still, some neighbors are not thrilled.
