By Thanksgiving, the city may know whether it will be the official owner of the troubled Memorial Park Cemetery in East Lawrence.

District Court Judge Robert Fairchild on Tuesday granted the embattled owner of the cemetery, Mike W. Graham & Associates, the chance to file arguments on why the city shouldn’t take control of the cemetery. The city has been caring for the cemetery since May 2005, after a judge found that Graham & Associates had failed to keep the cemetery properly maintained under state law.

Fairchild is scheduled to hear the arguments, and perhaps rule on the issue, at a Nov. 22 hearing in Douglas County District Court. Bryan Brown, a deputy attorney general in the office of Atty. Gen. Phill Kline, said the state would continue to work to transfer ownership to the city.

“The defendants’ whole strategy seems to be to take up as much time as possible,” Brown said. “They think time will make this go away, but it won’t.”

The city also wants to receive ownership of the cemetery, 1517 E. 15th St., as soon as possible, said City Manager David Corliss. Maintaining the cemetery costs the city about $10,000 per month, and the city is limited in its ability to sell burial plots because it doesn’t have clear title to the land.

Corliss also hopes the lawsuit will give the city access to a trust fund that state law required Graham & Associates to maintain for maintenance purposes. Brown said a joint account covering Memorial Park and another Graham & Associates cemetery in Shawnee County has a total of about $650,000.

Attempts to reach an attorney for Graham & Associates were unsuccessful Tuesday.

The state filed a civil lawsuit against the cemetery owners in April alleging that they had illegally “swept” money from maintenance and merchandise trust funds – required to be kept in Kansas – to an Alabama bank account.

Brown has asked the defendants to pay more than $1 million in damages and that ownership of the cemetery be permanently transferred to the city.

Brown has said that Graham & Associates previously indicated there were private parties interested in purchasing and operating the cemetery.

But Brown said serious discussions never materialized with those individuals after he demanded that they undergo a criminal background check and present documentation showing they had the financial resources to purchase and operate the cemetery.

The cemetery has been under scrutiny since August 2004 when about two dozen patrons began complaining that tombstones were overgrown with weeds and maintenance of the property was basically nonexistent.