An Oakland cemetery’s ‘notorious’ Vallejo real estate

In 2014, a 6.0 magnitude earthquake struck just south of Napa. The quake – the most powerful in the region in 25 years – injured 200 people, killed one and caused up to $1 billion in damage, including substantial damage in downtown Vallejo.

Nearly a decade later, most of the damaged Vallejo properties have been repaired and reopened. But one building – the old Crowley Department Store at 436 Georgia St. in the heart of downtown Vallejo – has remained behind a scaffold and thick black netting ever since the quake tore holes in its second and third floors. 

The fact it remains closed and unrepaired has been an ongoing source of frustration for many downtown merchants and Vallejo residents.

“It’s been an eyesore and a problem ever since the Napa earthquake and nothing has been done,” Vallejo resident Stephen Hallett said during a May 23 City Council meeting. Later in the meeting, Mayor Robert McConnell called it “a notorious building.”

Residents have filed complaints about the deteriorating property for years. In 2016, one resident complained to the city that the building had “bricks being dislodged and falling on [the] sidewalk.” In 2018 and 2021, at least eight people complained about it on the SeeClickFix website, calling the building “blight,” and saying that it’s preventing the area from “becoming the beautiful bustling downtown it could be.” 

The building is owned by Evergreen Cemetery Association, a former nonprofit organization tasked with managing an endowment to maintain Oakland’s second largest cemetery. The Georgia Street property is one of at least 16 properties in Vallejo that the organization owns. 

Just like its Vallejo real estate, Evergreen’s Oakland-based cemetery has received complaints alleging poor maintenance. Consumers have complained to the California Cemetery and Funeral Bureau about insufficient watering, weeds and damaged headstones. The organization has been fined by both the city of Vallejo and the cemetery bureau.

Evergreen Cemetery Association is operated by Buck Kamphausen, an 84-year-old businessman who’s lived in Vallejo since the 1970s. Kamphausen told the Vallejo Sun in an interview that government agencies – including the cemetery bureau, a local water district, and the city of Vallejo – have made it difficult for him to maintain his properties. 

Earlier this year, Kamphausen’s lawyer, Steven Gurnee, said that his client’s business lacks funds to water his cemetery to the extent that the cemetery bureau requires it to.

But information on Evergreen’s financial status is hard to come by. Despite state and federal requirements for it to disclose its financial dealings, the business has not turned in up-to-date records. The cemetery bureau says it has not received any financial reports since 2018, and Evergreen’s nonprofit status was placed on an auto-revocation list in 2015 after it failed to turn in required forms to the IRS for three years.

Evergreen has been penalized both by the IRS and the cemetery bureau due to turning in records late, or not turning them in at all. Kamphausen has confirmed that the IRS revoked Evergreen’s nonprofit status. Fillings also show Kamphausen is facing a cemetery bureau formal accusation that seeks to revoke or suspend his ability to operate Evergreen and three other cemeteries due in large part to the late or missing records. According to the accusation, these cemeteries have been fined over $80,000 since 2011.

The most recent available financial documents from the cemetery bureau obtained through a public records request show that Evergreen had substantial assets. As of about five years ago, the business had an endowment worth over $44 million. Tax records dating from 2009 to 2011, along with cemetery financial records from 2011 to 2018, show that the then-nonprofit did millions of dollars in transactions with three for-profit businesses that list Kamphausen as its registered agent in California Secretary of State records. Kamphausen denied involvement with two of the businesses.

The records also show Evergreen used funds to buy expensive vintage vehicles, like a 1924 Mercedes Benz. Kamphausen, a collector of classic cars, said he uses some of these vehicles for the cemetery and others as investments for Evergreen’s endowment.

When the Vallejo Sun asked Kamphausen about the Georgia Street building, he said he’s “just about to finish plans for it” and hopes to get permits within the next two months to house a railroad exhibit, a rental space for a business, and apartments upstairs. According to Kamphausen, past requirements to provide parking for apartments, which have recently been lifted, along with difficulties sealing the building, have caused delays.

Residents’ frustrations, however, could continue. It’s still unclear when the building will be ready.

“I’d like to finish it in a year,” Kamphausen said. “But with the way the economy is with [the costs of] getting labor and materials, I don’t know how long it will be.”

Kamphausen has done business in Vallejo since the 1970s, and is a major figure in local politics

Kamphausen has been involved with Evergreen Cemetery since the early 1970s. He runs at least 15 cemeteries and funeral homes across California, including Vallejo’s Skyview Memorial Lawn. His other  businesses include auto and real estate sales. 

Kamphausen works with local political organizations, such as Vallejo’s branch of the NAACP, its Chamber of Commerce, and Central Core Restoration Corporation. He also regularly contributes to political campaigns such as the re-election bids of Solano County Sheriff Tom Ferrara and District Attorney Krishna Abrams. He donated to former Vallejo City Councilmember Pippin Dew’s campaigns twice, contributing $1,000 in 2013, and over $5,000 in 2018. Dew recently filed forms to run for Vallejo mayor in 2024.

Evergreen also owns the Vallejo Times-Herald building, where U.S. Rep. John Garamendi and state Sen. Bill Dodd have offices. Terry Curtola, who was Vallejo’s mayor from 1979 to 1986, is a trustee for Evergreen.

But, despite his political connections, Kamphausen says that the city is to blame for the state of his properties.

Residents have sent the city over two dozen complaints about ten of Evergreen’s buildings since 2015. They include claims that the properties have trash left outside for extended periods along with graffiti. 

The city has fined Evergreen three separate times between 2018 and 2020 for the covered building on Georgia street. It issued another fine in 2018 for public nuisance violations for a building housing a tile store on Tennessee Street after it received two complaints of unpermitted structures on its roof.  The fines totaled over $2,750. The city also sent a warning letter to Evergreen for one of its buildings on Virginia Street, a three story home, for altering it without a permit.

Kamphausen feels the city doesn’t stop residents from harming his buildings, which makes it difficult to maintain them. 

“I’m trying to keep up with the mess this town’s created,” Kamphausen said. “But you try to do something to make a building look nice, and the next day it’s got graffiti all over everything.”

According to Kamphausen, he has a crew that maintains his Vallejo based properties, but the city doesn’t inform him of problems, so he often isn’t aware when something needs to be addressed.

“The city doesn’t notify us of any complaints,” Kamphausen said. “The city doesn’t do anything.”

Evergreen Cemetery has faced complaints, lawsuits, and fines 

Evergreen Cemetery is located in East Oakland, near the Eastmont Town Center. It opened in 1903.  Kamphausen bought the approximately 25-acre cemetery in the early 1970s. Surrounding neighborhoods have a large Black population, and photographs on tombstones show many people buried at the cemetery are Black. 

Notable Evergreen burials include jazz pianist and bandleader Earl ‘Fatha’ Hines, child actor Alan Clayton Hoskins, several prominent members of the Hells Angels, and a mass grave and memorial to Jonestown Massacre victims with over 400 unclaimed bodies. Evergreen also has a crematorium where Black Panther Party founder Huey Newton was cremated.

Since 2014, some people with loved ones buried in Evergreen Cemetery  have criticized it in court filings and Yelp reviews due to what they see as inadequate upkeep. The most common issue people have had with the cemetery is insufficient watering. Others complained about trash and debris on gravestones, fallen and dirty headstones, and weeds.

In a ruling from 2015 in response to a cemetery bureau accusation, Judge Perry O. Johnson cited three people who had relatives buried at the cemetery who complained about under watering. Johnson wrote that Tammi Marie Geeston “observed that the grounds were dry, cracked with ‘no grass’ around the gravesite of her late sister,” and that she “found the ‘terrible’ appearance of the ground not to be ‘comfortable’ as the final resting place for her.” 

The ruling also states Tammy R. Cooper filed a complaint with the cemetery bureau after she “observed hay-like organic material over the gravesite” of a loved one. She stated that the “grounds reflected an appearance of lacking watering for many months.”

In 2019, one Yelp user named Jersey C. claimed that she had filed complaints twice with the cemetery bureau over the site’s upkeep.

“Shame on you Evergreen Cemetery!” she wrote in her Yelp review. “You took our money and refuse to water the grass! It looks like hay and it’s very depressing!”

In 2016, the state placed Kamphausen and Evergreen Cemetery on a four year probationary period in part due to the site’s maintenance, but Evergreen successfully had the terms of its probation reworked in 2017 after a judge agreed that the state’s requirement that the cemetery provide “sufficient water” to the grounds was “unconstitutionally vague.”

In 2020, the cemetery bureau fined Kamphausen $250 for his “failure to exercise supervision and control” over Evergreen Cemetery to assure it complied with laws regarding its maintenance. It cited the cemetery for “failure to adequately water its grounds,” and ordered the cemetery to water adequately. Last year, the bureau accused the cemetery of not following its order.

In February of this year, the bureau fined Kamphausen $1,750 for multiple issues related to Evergreen Cemetery, including a $300 fine for failing to notify consumers of its maintenance standards. It also sent the cemetery a warning letter for failing to comply with cemetery maintenance requirements.

Kamphausen told the Vallejo Sun that the local water district limits the amount of water Evergreen Cemetery can use, which poses difficulties.

“We’re under agricultural water,” Kamphausen said. “So they don’t allow us the amount of water that’s needed. We’re very limited on the amount of water we can use and when we can use it.”

The East Bay Municipal Utility District oversees Evergreen Cemetery. Nelsy Rodriguez, a district spokesperson, said that Kamphausen’s claims are false. While the water district does “encourage water conservation,” it “does not impose water limits,” and “customers are free to use however much they need.” According to Rodriguez, the water district also “doesn’t recognize the phrase ‘under agricultural water.’”

Earlier this year, Kamphausen’s lawyer Steven Gurnee told the Vallejo Sun that the cemetery bureau often asked Evergreen to water its grounds during droughts, and that Evergreen makes insufficient profits from its endowments to water to the extent that the bureau has asked it to. Gurnee did not respond to written questions for this article.

Kamphausen said that the old age of the cemetery also makes it difficult to maintain. Starting in 1955, state law required that private cemeteries like Evergreen place money from every burial into an endowment fund, but the law did not require such investments before that year. Funds from those buried before 1955 in Evergreen were not placed into an endowment.

“We have a good half of the cemetery that has never paid into a fund,” Kamphausen said. “So half of the cemetery has to carry the maintenance costs for the other half.”

During a visit to Evergreen Cemetery in August, the Vallejo Sun witnessed dried brown and yellow grass throughout most of the grounds, bird excrement on headstones, unkempt torn signs, overgrown walkways, and a large hole in the fence. 

Kamphausen said that “it’s pretty hard to clean bird droppings off of thousands of headstones” and that whether a walkway is overgrown is “a matter of personal opinion.” As for the unkempt torn signs and the fencehole, Kamphausen said that he was unaware of these issues but would have them fixed the next day. But three weeks later, when the Vallejo Sun returned, the problems remained.

While Kamphausen acknowledges that Evergreen and other of his cemeteries face complaints, he insists that, when dealing with cemeteries, “there’s always complaints because you’re dealing with nature.” In the over 50 years that Kamphausen has operated cemeteries, he said he’s never “had a lawsuit from a family,” and that he’s “always been able to come to a settlement outside [of court] that makes people happy.”

One of these out of court settlements occurred in 2014, when Evergreen paid six family members of Joseph Sloan Jr. an undisclosed amount after they filed a lawsuit for $975,000 that accused the cemetery of losing his cremains.

In court filings, Evergreen’s lawyers, James Lassart and Adrian Driscoll, acknowledge that the cremains and the urn that held them went missing, but did not admit that the cemetery was at fault for losing them.

Evergreen Cemetery Association has faced consequences for not turning in required tax forms and financial reports

Evergreen Cemetery has been full since at least 2015, and there are no more burial plots for sale. Like other cemeteries in the U.S., it relies on profits from endowment funds to provide for its continued maintenance. Kamphausen said he’s also used his “own money from other companies to keep it alive.”

The state of California regulates how endowments are managed through the cemetery bureau. Nonprofits like Evergreen must also file annual forms to maintain their tax-exempt status. Evergreen, however, is years behind in its filings to both the state and federal government and has been penalized by both.

Nonprofit organizations of all types are required to submit tax filings that the IRS makes available to the public.  But Evergreen Cemetery Association appears to not have turned in such filings for over a decade, as the most recent filing available is from 2011. 

Tax attorney Sarah Adkisson told the Vallejo Sun that turning in these tax forms annually is legally required for nonprofits. She said it’s in the public’s interest for nonprofit organizations to be transparent with their finances by making their tax records available.

“There is a strong public policy argument for the public to be able to access these documents,” Adkisson said. “Nonprofits are given multiple tax breaks…there is a certain sense that the public has a right to know what the organization does with their and the government’s money.”

When asked about the federal tax filings, Kamphausen said, “I can’t talk specifics because I haven’t seen that form.”

In 2015, the IRS put Evergreen on its auto-revocation list after it failed to turn in its tax fillings for three consecutive years. Kamphausen confirmed that the business lost its nonprofit status, which has caused it to have to pay higher taxes than it has in the past. He said he wants Evergreen to get its nonprofit status back.

“Our nonprofit status will come back,” Kamphausen said. “That’s one of the things we’re working on now. We’re having to pay taxes that are astronomical.”

Evergreen has also been fined six times since 2016 for failing to file annual cemetery fund reports to the state when they were due. The fines totaled $12,000. Cemetery bureau spokesperson Peter Fournier said the bureau requires these reports “to avoid mismanagement and ensure the protection of consumer funds.”

Late and missing reports are part of an open accusation the cemetery bureau filed last year that seeks to revoke or suspend Kamphausen’s license to manage cemeteries. The accusation also names three other cemeteries run by Kamphausen, including Skyview Memorial in Vallejo, that turned in their financial reports late or haven’t turned them in yet. In total, these cemeteries have paid over $64,500 in fines due to late or missing reports.

Kamphausen blamed the late reports on mistakes that his long-term accountant made in recent years. He told the Vallejo Sun that Evergreen has been working on fixing errors, and has turned in all of the forms relating to Evergreen recently.  Fournier said Evergreen has still not turned in any of its required reports after 2018.

Evergreen Cemetery Association has done financial transactions with other businesses Kamphausen is involved with

Evergreen’s most recent financial reports, submitted to the cemetery bureau in 2018, show that its $44 million endowment includes $24 million in real estate investments. The real estate investments include over 20 tracts of land across California, 16 of which are in Vallejo. The Vallejo tracts contain over two dozen addresses; 11 of these addresses sit within four blocks of each other on Virginia and Georgia streets in the city’s downtown. Kamphausen told the Vallejo Sun that Evergreen recently sold one of the buildings on Virginia Street, along with one of its buildings in Los Angeles.

In addition to investments in stock, mutual funds, and real estate, tax forms from 2009 and 2010 show Evergreen Cemetery Association bought classic vehicles. The nonprofit bought a 1924 Mercedes Benz for about $160,000 and a 1924 American LaFrance fire truck for $95,000. In total, records show Evergreen bought over $600,000 worth of vehicles. 

Kamphausen has multiple warehouses of vintage vehicles. With Joshua Voss, he operates Monterey Auction Company, which auctions cars. Kamphausen said that he uses some vehicles for cemeteries, such as fire trucks for watering. Other vehicles, he uses as investments, as Evergreen also has done with gold and silver, in order to resell them at a profit to care for the cemetery.

“I sold two Mercedes for probably half a million dollars,” Kamphausen said. “Then we put the money back into the cemetery. I’ll do anything that’s honest to make money to keep Evergreen alive.” 

Records show that Evergreen Cemetery Association has also done millions of dollars in transactions with for-profit businesses associated with Kamphausen, some of which he denied involvement with. 

Cemetery fund reports show that Evergreen invested about $2.9 million in two for-profit companies, Lightprop LLC and Alca Property LLC, from at least 2011 until 2017. As of 2011, Alca owed Evergreen over $2 million and Lightprop owed about $900,000.

By 2017, Alca Property had paid off $257,000 of its loans, or about 13% of what it owed to Evergreen. Lightprop did not pay off any of its loans from 2011 to 2017. 

Richie Clyne, a Nevada based businessman, owns Alca and Lightprop. Clyne and Kamphausen have both worked together on projects involving classic cars. Both companies’ standing in California was forfeited in 2014 but they are still active in Nevada. Kamphausen said that these days he no longer does business with Clyne. The Vallejo Sun contacted Clyne by phone, but he did not return calls for an interview.

Secretary of State records show that Kamphausen was Lightprop and Alca’s registered agent for California, meaning he is the point of contact for legal notices. Kamphausen, however, denies involvement with the companies.

“I don’t have anything to do with those companies,”  Kamphausen said. “I don't know how I got listed as an agent. Somebody may have listed me, but I have nothing to do with them.”

County assessor records show that in 2018, Alca and Lightprop transferred nine parcels of land in Vallejo to Evergreen, including a building used in the Netflix series “13 Reasons Why.” That same year, the companies no longer appeared on Evergreen’s cemetery financial reports. In exchange for the land, the debts appear to have been forgiven.

“Richie couldn’t make the payments, so we took the properties back,” Kamphausen said. “We may have lost money but it was not something that hurt the overall picture. You can’t win on everything.”

According to tax filings from 2009, 2010, and 2011, another $100,000 was transferred between Evergreen and Alameda Realty Company, a for-profit stock corporation that does business in cemetery real estate lots. Kamphausen is its CEO. 

Kamphausen described Alameda Realty as a “holding company” for Evergreen Cemetery and an “operating company” for small amounts of real estate. Holding companies buy and control the ownership interests of other companies. Operating companies are responsible for the daily affairs of a business.

According to Kamphausen, transactions between Evergreen and Alameda Reality covered “rent or maintenance.” When pressed for more specific details about the transactions, Kamphausen said “without looking at the books I can’t tell you.”

But Alameda County assessor records show Alameda Reality did not own Evergreen Cemetery at the time or since and that the land is owned directly by Evergreen Cemetery Association. Alameda Reality does own at least two parcels of real estate in Oakland, a single tenant retail building, and commercial land. 

What lies ahead for Evergreen Cemetery Association

The current cemetery bureau accusation against Kamphausen is still open. According to Fournier, the bureau spokesperson, such accusations can take a “considerable period of time” to resolve.

In 2015, Kamphausen faced another cemetery bureau accusation alleging he, along with the nonprofit that owned Sunrise Memorial Cemetery in Vallejo, failed to maintain and properly manage that cemetery. Kamphausen then transferred the title and rights to Sunrise to Hillside Baptist Church. A judge dismissed the accusation in 2016.

When asked if he intended to transfer Evergreen to a church, Kamphausen said, “We might.”

When pressed for further details about the future of Evergreen, Kamphausen said the company has “a whole plan for the cemetery” but that he “is not going to tell what we’re going to do.”

“We have been very aggressive trying to find ways to create income for Evergreen,” Kamphausen said. “I don’t want to let the cemetery go bad.”