Vallejo cemetery owners seek to exclude evidence of neglected maintenance, financial audits in asset seizure case

FAIRFIELD – Vallejo-based cemetery owners Buck Kamphausen and Joshua Voss have asked a Solano County Superior Court judge to disregard evidence relating to cemetery maintenance and financial audits as part of their effort to prevent a state regulatory agency from seizing more than $50 million in cemetery assets over their alleged mishandling of those assets and their financial reports, court filings show. 

The evidence includes nine declarations from family members of people buried at Mt. Tamalpais Cemetery and Mortuary in San Rafael which allege neglected maintenance, and a declaration from an auditor with the California Cemetery and Funeral Bureau which alleges “questionable distributions” from trust funds for Mt. Tamalpais cemetery, Skyview Memorial Lawn in Vallejo, Evergreen Cemetery in Oakland, and Chapel of the Light in Fresno. Additionally, Kamphausen and Voss asked the court to disregard two Vallejo Sun articles.

Kamphausen and Voss accused the bureau of “seeking to distract the court.” They say the bureau is trying to “improperly expand its claims” against them by introducing declarations which include “speculation, unfounded assumptions. and multiple layers of hearsay.” 

Judge Christine Carringer delayed a hearing on the asset seizure Jan. 30. The court is scheduled to hear the case on March 6 and 7, when Carringer will determine  whether the declarations are admissible.

Ultimately, the court will rule on whether or not Kamphausen and Voss’s cemeteries can transfer over $50 million in trust funds to a religious nonprofit corporation called Evergreen Ministries, which now operates the cemeteries. Kamphausen is Evergreen Ministries’ CFO and Voss is its vice president. The cemetery bureau has no authority over a religious organization, and bureau lawyers have called the potential transfer a ploy to avoid oversight in their court filings.

Evergreen Ministries was formed in Nov. 2022, about five months after the bureau opened an accusation against Kamphausen and Voss’s cemeteries which said they had turned financial reports in late for over a decade, and that Mt. Tamalpais and Evergreen Cemeteries had been fined by the bureau six times since 2019 for failure to comply with maintenance standards. As a result of the accusation, the bureau ordered Kamphausen and Voss to surrender their licenses to operate cemeteries in October. 

The cemetery bureau then attempted to seize over $50 million in cemetery trust fund assets. These funds are seeded by consumers’ purchase fees for burial plots and legally must be used for cemetery maintenance. 

In its filings, bureau attorneys say California code allows them to seize the funds due to Kamphausen and Voss’s pattern of refusing to turn over financial reports and because their further control of the trust funds will be “hazardous” to the public and cemetery plotholders. Kamphausen and Voss’s attorneys say that the bureau’s control of the cemetery trust funds would be harmful to the public and plotholders because it would prevent them from accessing funds to care for the cemeteries.

The evidence that Kamphausen and Voss are seeking to exclude includes a declaration by cemetery bureau auditor Michelle Arthur, which states that “very little if any” cemetery trust funds have been used for cemetery maintenance at Kamphausen and Voss’s facilities between 2018 and 2022. 

Aurthur said there had been about $2.3 million in “questionable distributions” from cemetery funds, including about $1.35 million in payments to two companies managed by Kamphausen and/or Voss: Neptune Society of Central California and Neptune Society of Orange Co. Over $50,000 in cemetery funds were also used to pay for taxes in locations where the cemeteries did not operate and Kamphausen and Voss are storing about $1.6 million in solid gold in a vault at Skyview cemetery.

Kamphausen and Voss are also seeking to exclude nine declarations from those with family members buried at Mt. Tamalpais in which they complained about cemetery maintenance.

Jan Richard Carragher, whose parents and grandmother are buried at the cemetery, stated in a declaration that “many of the grave markers and headstones are sinking, buried in dirt, surrounded by weeds, and in some cases surrounded by animal feces.”

Eleanor Kenny, whose mother and brother are buried at the cemetery and who bought a pre-need plot there for herself, wrote in a declaration that the grounds “have become riddled with holes dug by ground dwelling vermin and weeds have been allowed to flourish and obscure grave markers.” She also stated she objects to “Evergreen Ministries control of trust funds with no oversight” from the bureau, as Kamphausen controls that religious organization, and is “the same person who has allowed Mt. Tamalpais to deteriorate to its current state.”

Five declarations include photographs showing overgrown weeds, unwatered grass, and piles of dirt obscuring grave markers.

There have been numerous complaints about neglect at Mt. Tamalpais outside of court as well. Over 1,500 people have signed a petition that called its conditions “disgraceful” due to the presence of weeds, gopher holes, unwatered grass, and buried headstones.

Two executive directors of Bay Area Jewish congregations, Tracey Klapow of Rodef Sholom and Gordon Gladstone of Congregation Kol Shofar, attended the court hearing on Jan. 30 and told the Vallejo Sun that their congregate members have complained about the neglect of Mt. Tamalpais cemetery for years. Both congregates regularly inter its members at a Jewish portion of the facility. Kol Shofar has contracted with Mt. Tamalpais since 1989. 

“Anytime I have a conversation with someone about the cemetery, people remark upon the lack of maintenance and the state of it,” Gladstone said.

He also called the transfer of what once was a secular cemetery with a Jewish section to a non-Jewish religious organization “deeply troubling,” and stated that the congregation was not consulted or informed about the transfer.

Gladstone called the conditions at Mt. Tamalpais “extraordinarily embarrassing for the congregation” and “distressing” as family members of those buried there often can’t locate their graves because the grounds have become so overgrown with weeds.

Gladstone said he objects to Kamphausen and Voss attempting to exclude evidence about the cemetery’s care in the case.

 “The desire by Kamphausen and Voss to not allow talk about the maintenance issues while they’re litigating over an endowment that oversees maintenance is aggravating to say the least,” he said.