More than four years ago, a group with loved ones in the deteriorating Shenango Valley Cemetery mausoleum demanded the cemetery association take action.

In January 1998, their demands seemed to fall on deaf ears. The chairman of the cemetery board of managers, Archie O. Wallace, told them money endowed for the cemetery grounds couldn't be used to fix the mausoleum.

The next year, the group sued the cemetery association. As the lawsuit languished, water continued to leak through the roof and down the marble plates. "The lawsuit cost too much money to pursue it, but it's not dead," said Bill Bolinger of Mayfield Heights, Ohio, who has a parent in the mausoleum.

Browbeating and suing the cemetery association managers proved unsuccessful. So, one annual meeting at a time, the mausoleum group got one of its own on the board of managers. Mark Wasser was elected in 2000; Janet McCutcheon in 2001. Both are from Greenville.

Saturday, the group captured a majority of the five-member cemetery board of managers. At the annual lot holders meeting, Ed Pinch, Hermitage was elected, ousting incumbent Harley J. Cook, Hadley.

Would the long-sought majority finally move to repair the mausoleum? Probably not yet.

"That would be foolish. If we learned anything else after all these years, it's that we need to listen to all sides," Wasser said.

The first move will be to get the board of managers to listen to a different solicitor, Wasser said. Another legal opinion may shed light on whether endowment money can be used to repair the mausoleum, he said.

During the lotholders meeting, Wasser asked if proxy votes could be submitted at the board of managers meeting. Wallace, who is a Greenville lawyer, ruled it out of order.

The mausoleum was built in 1914 and turned over to the cemetery association in 1927, when the builder went out of business. The builder left the association a mausoleum repair fund of only $2,000.

The cemetery endowment fund was $589,162 at the end of 2001, according to a financial report read by Wallace. During the year, funds from the endowment were used to repair sidewalks at a cost of $5,866 and to replace a deck on a mower at a cost of $2,180, said David Hinkson, cemetery superintendent.

No repairs were made to the mausoleum in the past year, Hinkson said.

"Other cemeteries keep up their mausoleums," Bolinger said.

A lotholder asked why mausoleum downspouts weren't replaced or fixed.

"Because the matter is in litigation," Wallace responded.