About 30 bodies separated from the main cemetery at Northern Nevada Adult Mental Health Services could be relocated to the main site to make way for construction of a new agriculture building.

A public workshop on Tuesday invited community members to give their input on how the move could be accomplished. Members of the small crowd generally seemed amenable and all agreed the process should be as respectful and dignified as possible.

The proposal would help meet a critical need for new buildings, said Harold Cook, administrator for the State Division of Mental Health and Developmental Services.

“What we have are a bunch of buildings anywhere from 50 to 80 years old falling down around us,” Cook said. “Up until two weeks ago, we had people working in buildings without heat. They had to wear gloves in order to work indoors.”

The health services hospital, built in 2001, was designed with the intention to expand the facilities if the demand ever arose.

Cook said to allow room for an agriculture building, about 30 bodies buried in that specific spot would need to be reinterred in the eastern cemetery along 21st Street in Sparks. The main cemetery is located with an existing agriculture building and the hospital to the west, another Department of Agriculture building to the north, the Sierra Regional Center to the south and a residential neighborhood to the east.

But there are some concerns about cremation, for which the project’s regulations allow, Cook explained.

“My intention is simply to relocate these remains to a more suitable location and do this with all appropriate ceremony and dignity that we could afford these folks,” he said.

Some community members have referred to both sites as two separate graveyards, but legally only one has been recognized.

“It was badly designated and badly utilized and for some reason a few graves were situated way west of the cemetery,” he said. “We don’t know why.”

Most of the 30 bodies were buried in the 1940s. Some graves have markers but most of the remains have never been positively identified.

Dennis Cassinelli, a member of the nonprofit Friends of the Northern Nevada Adult Mental Health Services group, recalls vividly when trenches were dug in 1945 across the cemetery, a process that involved digging up bodies, to make way for a pipeline.

“I was very young, only 5 years old, and the memory of that horrible event stuck in my mind forever and it’s still there,” Cassinelli said.

After Monday’s meeting, Cassinelli said he was pleased with what he had heard and was relieved that the wording of the original regulations did not accurately reflect the true intentions of the relocation of the bodies.

“At first it appeared they were going to continually desecrate the main cemetery and I learned that’s not their intention at all,” he said.

The Friends group, which consists of about 20 members, including Cassinelli and others who live out of state, said their goal is to help keep the cemetery out the hands of future developers. They would like to see the burial grounds spruced up with added memorial benches or walls honoring the dead.

Others at the workshop worried that making the main cemetery more attractive might encourage the homeless to flock to it and discourage visitors. Cook said it’s not unusual for vagrants or the homeless to use cemeteries as a campground or for shelter.

Marc de la Torre, citizen services coordinator for the city of Sparks, said the city has expressed an interest in working with the Friends members in dedicating a memorial to the unidentified dead on the portion of the park adjacent to the cemetery.

“The city of Sparks has agreed to work with the organization on whatever they want for the park,” de la Torre said. “There’s a request to remove the playground and another request to put up a memorial plaque, so they’re prepared to work with them.”

Cook will be responsible for contacting any possible living descendants of the interred to ask whether they would want their relatives to be reburied or to be cremated. According to the regulations, it would be a year before any action would take place, giving him enough time to consult with the families.

A public hearing takes place at 3 p.m. today at Sierra Regional Center, 605 S. 21st St. in Sparks, to discuss detailed responsibilities and proposals to relocate the remains as per the Nevada Administrative Code.