At a gathering of Randallstown residents opposed to a funeral home operator’s plan to install a crematorium at its Liberty Road location, the mood alternated between engaged anger and bitter resignation.

“I don’t want to be breathing in human remains. I just don’t,” said Desirée Gomez, whose home is about two miles from 9200-9206 Liberty Road, where the Wylie Funeral Home is seeking state approval to operate a cremator that would burn six human remains a day, six days a week.

“This doesn’t add any value to our community which is already plagued with so many issues. Why bring in another one?” Delores West asked.

Residents are furious about the lack of notice, saying they and other neighbors hadn’t been told about the proposal and most of the community still doesn’t know about it.

“There are supposed to be notices for any kind of development – signs, certified letters to adjacent property owners,” complained Steve Smith, who walks his dog every day past the funeral home. “Why hasn’t anybody been here? Where are the television stations? Where are the newspapers?”

Most of the 18 people seated around a public library table Thursday night had just caught wind of the proposal days earlier thanks to resident Cynthia Laney’s online posting inviting neighbors to an informal gathering to share their concerns with The Brew.

It was an opportunity to vent. Demetra Davis observed that there ought to be some regulations preventing such places in close proximity to residential areas.

“A crematorium can just be stuck here where there’s a nursing home and houses all around,” Davis marveled. “I thought there were stipulations!”

She and the others were dismayed to learn that the Maryland Department of the Environment (MDE), which held a community meeting in August on Wylie’s request for an air quality permit, has made a tentative determination that it can be issued.

The deadline to submit public comment, they also learned, is fast approaching: October 20, this coming Tuesday.

“Tuesday? This Tuesday?” one person said, grimacing. “Is this even worth it?” another wondered.

Laney, who has been writing letters to elected officials, suspects the crematorium is a done deal favoring a politically connected business.

“They know there’s not scientific proof that what comes out of that stack is safe,” she said. “If they’re doing this for one business, it’s like the powers that be have already decided this is what they’re going to do.”

Market for Cremation

The crematory’s main political patron, in this crowd’s view, is their representative on the Baltimore County Council – Julian E. Jones Jr., whose victory in the June Democratic Primary puts him on a sure path to become the next County Executive on November 3.

Asked by The Brew for comment on the community members’ concerns, Jones has not yet provided a response. Spokesman Luca Amayo told The Brew the 4th District Councilman is “looking into it.”

While Jones is “familiar with the concerns,” he “has not yet taken a position,” Amayo wrote.

Residents, however, say Jones has been a vocal supporter, including at an October meeting where Laney says she confronted him afterwards.

“I said, ‘Instead of you siding with your constituents and being concerned about our welfare, you went right up there and sided with the enemy to tell us all the reasons why we should want this mess in our neighborhood that could be harmful to our health,’” she said, recalling that he failed to respond.

In 2024, Jones touted the crematorium project at a gathering at Wylie sponsored at a local catering hall.

“Join me tonight . . . for a community meeting hosted by Wylie Funeral Homes,” Jones wrote, in an online post about the November 12 event.

“Wylie will provide updates on safety measures, environmental protections, noise and odor concerns, and how the project could enhance property values,” Jones enthused.

The Brew sent questions and a request for comment to the company’s CEO, Brandon M. Wylie. He has not responded.

At a public meeting held last November on the company’s permit application, Wylie explained that “cremation is becoming more of an option” for his customers.

“So in order to better serve the families that we serve on a daily basis, we’re just trying to have a crematory where we can control all of those items inside our facilities as opposed to outsourcing them to other crematories,” he told WMAR.

An expert testifying for the company said there will be “no smoke or odor from the facility” and that emissions would be well below the limits.

That wasn’t the case earlier this year for the Vaughn Greene Funeral Home on York Road in Baltimore, which had two visible emissions of black smoke.

These occurred within months of its cremator coming online after years of intense community opposition. Under its permit, the Vaughn Greene crematorium must have no visible emissions during normal operation.

$66,000 in Campaign Contributions

The funeral company, which Brandon Wylie’s father, Albert P. Wylie, started in 1993 in West Baltimore, has an Eastside city location on The Alameda in addition to the Baltimore County operation.

When the elder Wylie turned 80, a section of Harlem Avenue was named after him. Baltimore State’s Attorney Ivan Bates, a fraternity brother, attended the celebration last April.

When Wylie’s Alameda branch opened in 2023, the ceremony drew VIPs, including Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott, State Senator Cory McCray and then-City Council President Nick Mosby.

In addition to being a high-profile, multi-generational business that does charitable work in the community, Wylie Funeral Homes has been a dependable – and sizeable – campaign contributor to city, county and state electeds, as well as statewide officeholders.

From 2020 to the present, Brandon Wylie, Wylie family members and affiliated companies contributed at least $66,000 to Maryland Democrats in the Baltimore area and beyond, rarely doling out less than $500 at a time.

During this six-year period, the group contributed $19,500 to Brandon Scott, $10,000 to state Senator Antonio Hayes and $5,000 to Governor Wes Moore.

This past April it contributed $500 to Julian Jones, according to online records at the State Board of Elections.

“We’re a dumping ground”

At least one person in the community who knows about the planned crematory approves of it.

Beatrice McNeil’s home sits on a side road facing an existing building where the “Matthews Environmental Solutions Power Pak II Plus Human Crematory rated at 175 pounds per hour” is to be installed.

“I don’t have a problem with it. They have a lot of new technology for the equipment, so it’s going to be fine and not affect us,” she said, adding that she appreciates the landscaping, trees and tall white fence the company erected along the property line.

A crematorium providing a more affordable option than traditional burials would be a boon to the community, she argued.

Not so, the group at the library said, arguing most of the customers for cremation will be people who don’t live near the funeral home. The operation will hurt an already unhealthy community’s quality of life and property values, they said.

“We have all these failing businesses, and the community needs to be cleaned up,” Smith declared.

Gomez pointed to the whizzing traffic and profusion of aging shopping centers and businesses along Liberty Road.

“We have a million gas stations and all these stores. So many businesses that are emitting pollutants,” she said. “We don’t need another one.”

“The smoke shops, the convenience stores, and don’t forget the barbecue guy – there’s smoke coming out of there all the time,” Davis said, as others chimed in to raise the issue of group homes.

“It’s like Randallstown is a dumping ground,” Gomez observed, returning to the topic of the their councilman’s failure to take a stand on the issue.

“Julian Jones wouldn’t want this where he lives,” she said, which prompted several to remind the group where he resides:

On a large suburban lot in leafy Woodstock in western Baltimore County.