23 August 2024
HERMANTOWN — Two parcels about halfway down Sunnyview Road, a quiet, dead-end gravel street, haven’t been maintained in at least two decades.
At first glance, the only thing a passerby might notice is a rotting A-frame shed to the side. But matted-down footpaths through the overgrown lot lead to a line of concrete pavers, one marked with faded and stained artificial flowers. Others are freshly uncovered or recently removed.
The pavers are headstones marking the burial sites of pets. From the 1960s until the early 2000s, the late Jowon “Jo” Brand, of Saginaw, used the property as Brand Pet Cemetery.
City of Hermantown documents on a recent rezoning proposal estimate “hundreds” of pets are buried there, noting that while some headstones are marked, many are not.
However, Brand provided a higher estimate to the Duluth News Tribune in a 2001 story about grieving the loss of pets.
“I have way over 1,000 animals buried here,” Brand said. “People want their pets to have a proper resting place instead of just being thrown away like garbage.”
That includes Reven Niaga, a schnauzer buried there since the late 1980s, by Amy Garthus, of Hermantown, and her parents.
Garthus said she would visit Reven Niaga’s (the words “never again” spelled backward) burial plot often shortly after he died. The cemetery was well kept, and graves were marked more often by paint sticks than headstones.
She recently returned to the cemetery for the first time in years to recover Reven Niaga’s headstone after learning that the Hermantown City Council is considering rezoning the property from public back to R-3 residential — a classification the lots held until 2016.
Although most of the lettering had worn off, she said her boyfriend found the headstone near the two now-grown trees her dog was buried beside.
“I couldn’t believe he found the patio block,” Garthus told the News Tribune. “Most everything was worn off of it, so I just reordered new stuff to get put back on there, and I just took the patio block with me. I wasn’t going to dig the dog up.”
According to the City Council’s Aug. 19 meeting agenda packet, the property’s current owner, Pete Walkowiak, inherited the property when Brand died in 2021, and recently requested the rezoning.
Hermantown’s land use regulations list R-3 residential zones as areas where the city must plan for public utilities as it could allow for higher-density residential use if demand is high. While some commercial use is allowed, it must be permitted.
Like its neighbors, single-family homes with large lots, the property was zoned R-3 until 2016, when it changed to “public,” a designation meant for areas that have public services or parks. The property has always been privately owned.
In 2015 documents related to that decision included in the Aug. 19 council meeting agenda packet, Adam Fulton, the Hermantown community development director at the time, said public zoning will “memorialize the public nature of the land use that has been created at the cemetery” and that he spoke with Brand, who was “supportive of a rezoning of the property as she intends for it to remain as a pet cemetery indefinitely.”
“This zoning designation is not of great importance, given that your property has historically been used as a pet cemetery,” Fulton wrote in a 2015 letter to Brand. “However, it could be important in the future.”
Walkowiak, who did not respond to an interview request from the News Tribune, requested the two parcels be zoned back to R-3. That prompted a public notice in the Hermantown Star informing readers with pets buried there that “you have an opportunity to retrieve any markers, memorials or pet remains through the month of August 2024.”
At first, there was no response. Then, the “Missing Pets In The Northland” Facebook page shared it in early August.
That sparked anger among some of the page’s followers, who had the false impression that the city was about to dig up the property to prepare for development.
“During the first two weeks of the notice in the Hermantown Star, there were no responses from the public,” the City Council’s agenda packet said. “During the third week, the notice was picked up by an online social media page, which triggered multiple inquiries/comments and questions from the public as well as media outlets.”
“Missing Pets of the Northland” deleted its original post and replaced it Aug. 6 with an updated post that clarified the city was only responsible for considering the rezoning request.
The post also alluded to death threats directed at city staff.
“We are absolutely APPALLED that city of Hermantown employees are now receiving death threats!!! Absolutely unacceptable!!!” the post said.
Hermantown Assistant City Administrator Joe Wicklund declined to discuss specific responses received by the city but said that because the social media post lacked context, people reacted more aggressively than if they had known it was just a simple rezoning.
At its Monday meeting, the City Council held a first reading of the rezoning, but despite the initial backlash, no one spoke up during the public comment period. A second reading is expected at its Sept. 3 meeting.
Garthus said she’s thankful the current owner has allowed people on the property to collect headstones and remains and that she supports him turning the property into something else if he chooses.
After all, she said she and everyone with a pet buried there could have played a role in maintaining or even just visiting it the last two decades.
“I’m just as guilty as the next person for being able to go up there and spend the time probably like I should have over the years,” Garthus said. “It doesn’t mean I love my dog any less, but just to see what it looks like now, that tells you right there that life moves on, people move on. … It’s a beautiful neighborhood up there, so if (Walkowiak) has the opportunity to make it nice, I say go for it.”
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