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Ongoing legal proceedings had halted all business at the cemetery since 2005, even for families that had purchased plots prior to the state’s investigation. That changed temporarily on Feb. 1 this year when a judge ordered that Geneva Hegemier’s remains be interred in a Grand View mausoleum. After another court-ordered interment in February, funeral workers trying to bury the body of John Lenn in April found signs of an existing casket already in the plot that had been sold to Lenn’s family and canceled the burial.

More than 140 people have joined a class-action suit filed in November 2005 against cemetery owners. Another 100 people filed a personal injury suit in July this year.

The owners and operators named in both suits include Howard, Goldsman, Jack Grossman, who ran the cemetery from 1990 to 1999, and members of the Hepburn family, which ran the cemetery from 1929 to 1990.

The case remains in the pretrial discovery phase, during which attorneys secure the appropriate documents and gather facts and information on the plots and financial history of the cemetery.

Howard was replaced in January as a defendant in the class-action lawsuit by her estate, which her brother, Thomas Trimble, administers.

Teachers’ contract with district settled

7The Glendale Teachers Assn. and the Glendale Unified School District reached an agreement this fall on a two-year extension to the teachers’ contract, after about a year of contentious negotiations.

The two parties laid out their positions in fall 2006. By March 2007, an impasse was called and a state mediator stepped in. In June, the mediator referred the situation to the California Public Employment Relations board for a fact-finding session. A tentative agreement was reached after a marathon 37-hour fact-finding session in July.

Under the new contract, teachers receive a pay increase of 5.1% retroactive to July 1, 2006, with an additional 2% increase effective July 1, 2007. The contract also makes changes to the step-and-column salary schedule, the pay framework for teachers depending on their years of experience and level of educational degrees. The contract is effective through June 30, 2009.