I have never written a review of a funeral home much less advised people to stay away from one. Our experience having a family member recently interred at City View Cemetery was beyond terrible – it was appalling. To say the owner Rick lacks communication skills is an understatement. My emails and phone calls were routinely unanswered which laid the onus on me to make sure arrangements were in motion – I live on the east coast. I repeatedly emailed simple, routine requests such as quotes for burial options, paperwork that my elderly father needed to sign, a proof of the marker (which when I finally received was backward – date of death first followed by date of birth). It’s almost like this was their first funeral. Rick assured me in April that a marker only takes 4-6 WEEKS to secure so I would able to order it in time for a June service. He actually added that that because my brother’s marker was smaller than the average size his would only take a MONTH. When I arrived in June I was told by another employee it routinely takes 4-6 MONTHS for a marker to be produced. No apology that I had been misinformed by THE OWNER. Twice I had a local family member go to City View in person to gather information I couldn’t get out of Rick. He never offered an apology except to tell me how “busy” he was. In May, Rick and I discussed over the phone that the date of my brother’s interment in June and we set a date and time. When I arrived in Oregon I called to confirm as I had no faith that this had been scheduled and could not get a written confirmation from Rick (or an invoice which I requested THREE times). I spoke to someone I believe was named Kevin on June 3 and not surprising he had to call me back because he couldn’t find any information concerning the scheduled placement. I have no doubt that if I hadn’t called and we had just showed up there would have been no preparations made. And to make matters worse when we did show up, we were told by Kevin (again, this person never introduced himself to us or even offered condolences – I think his name was Kevin) that markers take 4-6 MONTHS and we were asked to fill out additional paperwork before my father was asked to write a check – right before he buried his son. What is wrong with these people? The lack of professionalism and compassion was truly shocking. When we left the grave site, I asked the man who oversaw the placement if we would be notified once the marker was received and he replied that he thought they could that for us. What? Wouldn’t it just be routine to let a customer know that their love one’s maker has arrived? All I could wonder was why these two brothers are in this business since they clearly don’t care. Their actions don’t relay any sense of empathy or sensitivity to a grieving family. And I do have a point of comparison – when my mother died, the services provided by Golden Funeral Service was what a grieving family should expect: professionalism, compassion, competency - they went out of their way to make it easier for us – not harder. We didn’t have to monitor their employees to make sure they were doing their jobs. All I can think of are those poor people going to City View Funeral Home and Cemetery at one of the lowest points in their lives and the sloppy and inattentive treatment they can expect. GO SOMEWHERE ELSE.

Very disappointing experience when my family was grieving. My son was killed in a motorcycle crash and was taken to City View by the city of Salem. From the first phone call my son had with them, down to the last contact we had the day of the service for my son, we experienced a complete lack of compassion and professionalism. I have had to put two of my dogs down at a local vet and received much more care, concern for my feelings, and compassion than my family did from City View. Every staff member we came in contact with was indifferent, never once expressed condolences, and treated us with a complete lack of understanding for our grief. We were given misinformation about the death certificate, had to sit through a "meeting" where the paperwork was filled out by hand when it could have easily been done online or at least on a computer. Despite our misgivings, we went ahead with a service at City View since my son's body was already there. Nobody at City View helped to facilitate the service or ensure that our family had a private place to sit before the service. One bathroom meant that I had to stand in line and wait my turn as people approached me. My son sent a slide show ahead of time and still had to track down somebody from the funeral home to ensure it was set up and ready to go. The guy then told my son to go out into the chapel to complete a sound check. Even then, the slide show was not set the way we asked which resulted in an awkwardly long presentation. As we were meeting with family and friends afterward, a staff member hovered continuously waiting for us to leave. I wouldn't wish this experience on any grieving family. We wish we had moved my son to a different place where we would have been treated with care and compassion.

This is the second time my family has trusted City View. Needless to say we won’t be making this mistake again. To begin with we walk into the funeral and the flowers were sitting on the floor rather than in stands. When I finally find someone to help us he is completely clueless on how to use a computer. He did not even know the password to log in. When I asked for our memorial cards that were supposed to be included I was met with extreme rudeness and attitude like I was the problem for asking them for something we paid for. At the end of our service one of the employees comes up to our grieving crying family to start talking about the bill without even offering condolences. This establishment is in it for the money and does not care about the community and families it serves. Ps this is not about Rick. He is amazing