AN INTRODUCTION
WHAT IS THE PIONEERTOWN PRESERVATION PARK PROJECT & WHO'S BEHIND IT?
Howdy. My name is KEN and I have a dream that I am trying to turn into a reality. I have formed a corporation in the great State of California with the task of designing, developing, maintaining, promoting and ultimately preserving, indefinitely, the Pioneertown Preservation Park Project: a cemetery unlike any other in the world!
The Pioneertown Preservation Park Project (P4) will harvest all of the greatest past and present interment designs and technology to allow for maximum use of both space and resources. In addition to this, P4 will also incorporate a revolutionary long-term cemetery financing plan by offering, from the start, amenities which present day cemeteries are only starting to offer.
In correlation with the numerous potential non-traditional amenities that P4 will offer, this necropolis will have a goal unlike many modern day burial grounds: the celebration and preservation of life, both before and after death.
Think of a cemetery that also acts like a country club.
That’s exactly what P4 is going for!
LEARNING OVER THE PAST 3 YEARS
A Community Meeting was held at Pioneertown in September of 2o18 to propose this idea to residents. Responses gathered from that meeting and the town's social media page are slightly conflicting, but show that a majority of Pioneertown residents and shop owners are interested in seeing P4 completed.
Since then, the project hasn't stopped developing.
I had originally tried to seek out a nonprofit status in order to qualify for grants, tax breaks and public funding. The biggest hurdle P4 faced with that plan was simply the act of combining the cemetery and the country club.
The Attorney General will grant a 5o1(c)(3) status if we want to be a community center corporation and a 5o1(c)(13) status if we want to be a cemetery corporation. P4 wants to be both, but a nonprofit corporation can’t engage simultaneously in a 5o1(c)(3) exempt activity and in an activity that is exempt under a different subsection of Section 5o1(c).
As a practical matter, this problem rarely occurs. But P4 is an exception. That being said, there are a few terribly impractical ways to get around that predicament. But each would be an insanely complicated project with plenty of additional hurdles for everyone involved.
The amount of work that would go into getting P4 a nonprofit status is impractical. That is to say that it is highly unlikely that P4 would even qualify without having to first be gutted. But that seems for the best, as the process has been quite a learning experience. P4 is now what it needs to be: a C Corporation!
This level of incorporation truly offers the best benefits for P4. As a for-profit cemetery corporation, we can take advantage of Perpetual Care Funds and Trusts that are only available to cemeteries; a wonderful perk in lieu of a nonprofit status.
BENEFITING THE COMMUNITY
An initial benefit to the community that P4 would offer would be the creation of around 5-1o new permanent jobs and countless other temporary positions right here in Pioneertown.
Instead of capitalizing this cemetery by seeking grants and donations, as we would with a nonprofit status, we have incorporated and nailed down a diehard business plan that will allow our community and the tourists visiting town to help fund the project.
We are giving the community of Pioneertown the first chance at funding and ultimately managing P4!
P4 is one of the only business in Pioneertown that caters only to the residents, not the tourists. In fact, P4 is the only businesses in Pioneertown that will allow residents to buy in, become a shareholder and share in the potential profits of the company. Exactly like the original Pioneertown Land Corporation.