Several citizens showed up to the meeting to express concerns they had with the city-owned cemetery with Belinda Rodgers acting as spokesperson for the group.
“We’re not here to place any blame or point fingers,” Rodgers said. “I just want to express some concerns about the cemetery and how it looks.”
Rodgers said the main complaint that she has heard from several concerned citizens – and one she also shares – is the use of Roundup weed killer around the bases of the tombstones in Greenwood Cemetery.
“There are some places where I measured it as eight inches around the rock,” Rodgers said. “It looks terrible.”
Rodgers said she had offered to replace the dead grass around her family plots, but was told not to.
Other concerns about the cemetery included leaning headstones, sunken graves and other needed maintenance around the cemetery like trimming trees.
Mayor Jim Wilkerson explained the cemetery budget to those in the audience and talked about how the city workers responsible for maintaining the cemetery were getting older and are unable to do some of the tasks they had in the past.
There was discussion of possibly hiring a contractor to keep up the cemetery grounds in the future.
Brent Holman, the chairman of the city’s cemetery committee, also spoke and advised those in attendance not to spend any money on their family grave sites.
Holman said the committee is getting ready to update the city’s ordinances regarding the cemetery and he would not like to see anyone do something that may not be allowed by the new ordinances.
Also regarding the cemetery, city clerk Sharon Head read a resignation letter by sexton Sean Willeford.
He will be retiring at the end of July and recommended Nannette Starks as his replacement.
Wilkerson said Starks was the only individual to put in an application for the position and that she has already been hired.
She is currently working with Willeford and will take over his duties regarding the cemetery in August.
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