Suffolk News-Herald

Carver Memorial Cemetery Park is back in business.

The state cemetery board on Thursday issued a license to DD&B Carver Cemetery LLC, the company that bought the East Washington Street cemetery about two weeks ago. Last year, repeated public complaints about poor maintenance prompted the board to revoke the license from former owner Abraham Applewhite.

The license means Carver can begin selling burial plots again, said Carver manager Vincent Newby. Since the revocation, only existing plot owners have been able to be buried in Carver.

&uot;We are ready to resume selling gravesites,&uot; Newby said. Five funerals have been held at Carver since DD&B assumed ownership, he added. Meanwhile, he has spent much of the past couple of weeks tackling the string of complaints the new company inherited from Applewhite.

Newby had the grass cut in the cemetery last week and has established a regular mowing schedule for the summer. The company has contracted with a debris removal company to haul away the abandoned vehicles and other debris that has cluttered the cemetery for years.

&uot;We are aggressively trying to make everybody happy,&uot; said Newby.

The new owners, W. Michael Robinson, Valerie Robinson and William Mann, indicated that they expect to spend from $40,000 to $60,000 to clean up the cemetery that has historically catered to Suffolk’s black community.