Cemetery Commission - Regular Meeting

Okay. So my name is Patsy Pole, and I am calling this meeting to order on 02/26/2025. We'll start with the call to order. Gina Even? Here. Betty Quiet Williams? Present. Poehl? Here. Clay Sullivan?

Here.

Tim Bauer Kemper is absent at the moment. Cindy Kaspers is absent at the moment, and Brenda Butler is absent. Okay. And there are no citizen comments. Correct.

Alright. Have you had a chance to look over our minutes?

And if you

have, do you see any changes that should

be made or additions or subtractions? I move. K. I'll second. Second. All in favor. Aye. The roll on that. Yeah. Alright.

Once you stop at the cemetery, you find six other things you don't know. Well, nothing unusual. Just stuff I hadn't seen before.

But when you get here after the meeting, it's only a dollar fine.

K. Put it on put it on my tab.

We're doing a roll call for approval of minutes. So Clay Sullivan.

Yes.

Attention. Tatsy Cole? Yes. Fayed by Gilliam? Yes. Tina Heben? Yes. Tim Bauerkemper? Sure.

Motion passed. Alright. Now let's move to reports, and we're

to have a staff report regarding the birdhouses that were attached to tree trunks.

Yes, ma'am. I'm happy to provide that. Jamie Lee Case, director of Parks and Recreation. Sorry. I'm not in there with you. I'm protecting you from my husband, unfortunately, tested positive for flu a this morning. So being safe than sorry. No. It's definitely not the measles. So I did wanna let y'all know that I found out that, so those have been there for a substantial amount of time. I have found the researcher that installed them. It was, a part of her dissertation when she was doing her master's thesis regarding the tuffeted titmouse. She, right now, she is residing in Round Rock, but she does have master naturalists and members of the Greenbelt Alliance that do check on them periodically.

She will come to remove them, but it will have to be after the nesting season. So the nesting season has already begun and will end in late June. So once the nesting season is done, she will come and remove them herself. I asked if she wanted us to help her. She said no. I'll care of it probably because she wants to you know, she installed them, so she wants to

take some responsibility in removing them. But we do have to wait until after nesting season to get those removed.

Thank you. Any questions?

Did she ask permission?

Yes, ma'am. She had

Oh, okay.

I I I have one of her nest boxes. The one I saw down there looked different and was not one of hers, but it's not there anymore either. But I have one of them. She did. She asked permission. She had approached the city overall to place them on city property because she needed a variety of it was a really interesting project. I talked to her a number of times when she was in my yard checking them. And so so yeah.

Oh, interesting.

She did have I know she approached city because I tried to get one for the church too because the titmouse the titmice are really cute little birds. So Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Anybody else with comments? Alright. We'll receive a report from the condition of the cemetery, and I'm the one that checked the condition of the cemetery. I can tell you anything. Tell me. It all looked good. I did find, Hunter, it's it's on a plot. And and, you know, it it's one of those streets that dead ends, and it doesn't have a street sign on it, so I have no idea what the name of the street is. But I can see why it's missed because the land goes down.

And if you're on the road, you can't see it. And it's it's a mess. There it's and I think it's been a mess for a long time because there are Easter eggs and and Christmas things and, you know, it's several different holidays. And and then they tied a bunch of stuff to the tree. And so this is the

Is that done by the Park Street houses?

The what?

The Park Street houses, those houses that kind of

On the cul de sac next to

the There's

a cemetery.

Yeah. There's a cul de sac that is kind of

You wanna try to see There's

and the new section, I guess you would call it. There's about eight houses, would you say, Fay? Six, eight. Yeah.

And it's not and and it's not an infant's.

Yeah. Is it towards the very front of the cemetery?

You can see the you can

sit Rancho at twelve. Anything.

Yeah. It's gotta be right along those Park Street or houses.

It's and the tree has all kinds of stuff in it. Interesting.

I would bet.

Find out through that.

Yeah. I'll take a look at pictures. I can probably guess, but I would bet it's I don't walk that direction very often.

Yeah.

Because

And, also, as I say, the land goes down. And if you're walking or driving, I just decided I was gonna go down that dead end street, and that's when I saw it.

Mhmm.

What if you're driving into the cemetery from and which way do you go to? The right?

Well, I looped

You have to go to the right when you go to the new cemetery. Yeah.

It could go straight.

You I

could straight.

But Then you end up

eventually go to the right. But that but that street doesn't have a name on it that I could see. If you can see what else going on.

If it's if it's where I'm if it's where you're describing and where the street the the street itself makes a turn. It makes kind of a curve, but it also goes straight for about, would say, maybe 20 yards. Let me see if I can

There was another one that was it was funny because it's it was on that plot where there's a beautiful

Oh, no.

Statue of Jesus Christ. And then and then right below the statue, there were two gnomes, one on each side, and I thought they were Christmas gnomes. So I got out of the car to go check the Christmas gnomes and complain. No. They're Valentine gnomes. So

who knows?

I thought they could stay till Easter.

I'm I'm betting looking at it. Is one of the ones that goes close down to where the new section's gonna be.

That's that's what I was figuring.

That's kinda what I'm driving the terrain.

Yep. That's the only spot that There are

there are some that are almost hidden to right when you get to the Park Street houses. If you turn towards the Park Street houses, there are a couple graves down there that are hidden too, but that looks more like right by the new section.

It's been there for a long time.

Yeah.

I I would just say this. I think we have to continue to be vigilant. I know the the woman who's buried next to my plot, her family is always bringing stuff, but they don't get rid of the previous stuff. And so I just take it down to your office and leave it. But, you know, there's Christmas stuff right now, and I picked it up today and and put it down by the office, but also they'll tie ribbons on the branches.

And I know it's a family that loves that woman, but I I just think we have to be vigilant of that because you, you know, you if some these people aren't gonna read the restrictions

Yeah.

No more than we read all the legal stuff that comes with You're right. Whatever.

Yeah.

And or or when we have a medical appointment or surgery and we sign all that and we don't read it, do I speak for most of it? What? Yeah. No point in it.

No. No. Well and two, if it meant that much to them, they're gonna go somewhere and complain somebody took their decorations away, and then the explanation would be there.

We'll see. Appropriate. At Christmas, I had a day of the dead doll still on that grave. And, I mean, they're very good. They come. I've never seen them, but I know they come. And but they they're not good about picking up, you know, the older holiday things. Okay. That's Well,

I'll I'll I'll relay that to Scott.

Yeah. Make sure

it's And that's that's all I saw.

Everything looked the way you would expect it to in February. After freezes. Yeah. Major freezes. I

I got caught up at the church, and so Patsy I I texted her and said, I'm about to leave. And then a little while later, I'm like, I haven't left yet. And she said, I'll check it myself. And I said I walked it I walked a chunk of it this morning, and then I but I was gonna check one grave, and it's not a condition thing. It's not a commission thing. It's a a friend who died. He was 55, died month and a half ago. So I went by to see and, of course, it's not fully settled yet, but there's a sinkhole. I'll point it out to you I'll point it out to you after. Okay. I kicked some dirt in it, but my guess is that dirt's gonna move on down. It's gonna need more than I kicked. Yeah.

K. Any other comments? Alright. And we'll talk about the expansion project.

Maybe? Yes. So Bert had to step away. He's he works from home on Wednesdays, and he's helping with his father-in-law right now. So he apologizes that he had to step away real quick. He met with our permitting department. The permit will be issued within ten to fourteen days. After that, we do just have to wait for the next round of funding to be issued, which the debt sale is in June. So that will bring us to a grand total of, like, $956,000, to start, construction and, start moving some things around. So getting some progress.

So, hopefully, you know, later this year yeah. So we'll have to issue RFPs and all that other stuff for construction unless we have something or some company on contract pardon me, already. So could potentially have someone under contract by the end of the year with construction starting sometime next year.

Very good. That's exciting. Thank you.

Yes, ma'am.

What what is the total cost, or do we have that for the full completion of ready to ready to do internals? Do you know that? Or

Yeah. We won't know that until we get bids, to to be totally honest, because we do have to build the roadways and all of that stuff. And so that's where, you know, a big chunk of that will will go. So yeah. But we won't know until we actually get bids in on the pricing.

I didn't know if there was any if there were any estimated costs that were used for funding or if there's a budget set. I don't know beyond our advisement piece. Like, what's the Right. Is it gonna take? How many years and how many cycles of funding to actually be ready?

Yeah. It'll probably take at least another round of funding just to address the house. We will know what funding we have left over from the infrastructure, component once we get those bids in. It's possible that we could have enough funding. You know, just under $1,000,000, could potentially do infrastructure and the house. I'm not I don't remember what a, linear foot of drive is costing right now, and it's been in flux. Bert may know better than I am or I do. So I'm a little bit at a disadvantage on that, unfortunately.

But so the 900,000,000 that we have that's, I guess, designated for infrastructure, once the infrastructure is done, will it be ready for sales and then in termments, or is there more

Yes, sir.

After that? Okay.

Yes, sir.

Okay. So that's that should be the million. We're hoping the million will cover that. And then whenever the so there's not, like, three phases before we're ready to sell or internments?

Right. Yeah. So this the money that we have allocated currently should address the roadways, the required detention, for example. So then once those infrastructure improvements are completed, then we just have to plot out, and we're ready to rock and roll with sales.

Okay. Folks have asked every so often. I'll run into somebody or somebody are they is that gonna happen? When is it gonna happen? And I say,

is year.

So I don't Yeah. Know. And they said, how much? And I said, at next commission meeting, I'll ask, is this all we're gonna have to do, or is this gonna be three years worth of funding before we're even ready to sell?

Right. One once we get those bids in, we'll those contractors have to provide us a schedule on what the anticipated timeline is for from start to completion. So whether that's a hundred and eighty days or three hundred and sixty five days, you know, they'll be able to tell us exactly what that timeline is, and then they have to have the project completed within that timeline.

Okay. So it's once once people see dirt moving, they'll know when dirt stops moving. It'll be sale time.

So Right.

There's not Yeah.

I mean, we'll

That was kinda what I was getting at is Yeah. What's our you know, are is there four phases, one phase, 12 phases?

I

mean, right right now, we're essentially in phase two because phase phase one was doing the design. And so we're essentially entering phase two of the project with, you know, those infrastructure improvements. Yay. Hi, Bert. Hi. I I don't know if you heard Tim's question at all before you got your camera back on.

So what was the what was the question?

I was mostly wanting kind of a and I don't I know we don't have any hard numbers because, obviously, it hasn't gone to bid, but a kind of an overview of more time line of the project. And is the approved funding anticipated to be enough to do substantial completion so that we're ready to sell graves available for internments. What people what the regular person would call the cemetery the new part of the cemetery is ready to be a cemetery. Yeah. And so Well Obviously

That's that's our intent.

Okay.

I don't know if Jamie said we we kinda have to wait and see what what the cost estimates are. Our original our original intent was to develop the in infrastructure, put the streets in, put the water in, put put everything in place for those columbariums, put the fence up around the outside, and then we if we had money left over work on the building, if we didn't, we'd have to go for additional funding for the building. So that's that's kind of doesn't have to be done before. No. No.

But, but our intent was to try to have, and we started from the get go working with the survey companies so that they already have the preliminary lots laid out, and it's just once we give them the go ahead, they can go in and set the pins and and those are but but we won't do that until we have the the final you know, we we we actually get the infrastructure put in so that they can make any adjustments that have to be made. But it's the intent is to have all the grave spaces that are available in the new section be available on day one, not k. Not in a phased way that we've done in the past. Just because this is such a small area, we wanted to get it done all at the same time.

Yeah. So once once people see dirt moving, that's the last phase of this project functionally to have the cemetery the new section ready to roll?

That that's the intent. Yes.

Yeah. Okay. That's Now that's good. Was just kinda look I was kinda looking for lot

of variables in there, Tim.

Oh, everything changes, but more a matter of here's the plan as people ask. And especially once they start seeing dirt move, they're gonna ask. You know, folks I know who know I'm on the commission start to or know I spend a lot of time wandering around there and so Well, the whole

the whole design was to so the whole design was to have the fence, the roadways, the water, and any electrical that we need in place, before we start selling lots. Now we have to see what those costs come back as. And and it may be one of those things where we have to, I I don't know. We have to make some amended portion of that that we may have to phase some of it in. But I can tell you phase one, for sure, we're gonna put a fence up.

You know? We're we're gonna do everything we can to get the, get all the roadways. It doesn't it doesn't pay to to do dirt work in in the roadways in in pieces. It it's not it's not good to have to mobilize those people more than once. So I would think that we're gonna do the dirt work, the roadways, and the fence is one part. And, I mean, that's pretty much it, but we we do wanna try to run the the plumbing while we've got things torn up and

Sure.

You know, have have water spigots available so people can water their graves if when you know, as long as we have that ability to do that. You know? So that's and any any lighting if we if we light anything. So Sitting Thank

you. Are you set? Are you set? Yeah.

That gives me a picture so that if people ask, they I can Yeah. Tell them, here's what we know and yes.

That's good.

Thank you.

Yep. Okay.

You're welcome. Thank you.

Our last report has to do with the commission assignment appointments, and I was not reappointed to the commission. And so there you will have a new member coming in in March, and Cindy was reappointed. So that's the way it is, and this is my farewell meeting. And I I just wanna tell all of you what a pleasure it's been to work with you. We were pretty dysfunctional when I first got on the commission, And I had people that said I said, I don't know what I'm doing.

And I had people say, we will show you. We will help you, and that's exactly the way it's been. I think we have a better relationship, the commission, with our staff than than we've had in the past. And I think when I look back, what I get the most pleasure from is that we looked at the restrictions in the cemetery, and we did the research. We found out what other city cemeteries were doing, and we either added or we clarified or sometimes we subtracted.

And and it took all of us, including Jean who's not here and including other members who are no longer present. But I we've handled some citizen issues, and I think we've handled them well. In the end, nobody was upset with us. In the end, the people followed through graciously, and and and I'm gonna miss you. And I told I said once, well, I don't know if I'm going to reapply because I've been on for a long time, but then I did.

And you and so I told my children I was fired. And they reminded me this is not a job. And that that's impossible, but that's how you feel.

Yeah.

You know? You feel funny. And but I know I don't know the person. It's a

I don't understand.

Well, I don't either, but I I had heard that happen with you. I've got I know another person that was on another one.

A chairperson.

Yeah. That was not and I'm not sure what's going on with all that, but I have a concern about that.

Well, I'm sure you're getting a very nice person. And

I'm assuming the person. It's the system. Well, it's not the person coming on. It's the system of what's happening, that something's

Yep.

Well, I think we makes sense, does it?

It doesn't make sense.

At all.

And I think but I think we should be grateful that there are people in the community who want to be on this commission. It's it doesn't get a lot of glamorous attention. I am so glad for that.

Having sat in other commissions, I'm glad I'm on this one and not that one.

Because No.

Because nobody screams at this one.

I know. I know. So

I repeat myself that I've repeated as a public speaker. This is if you have political intentions in this city, this is not the commission.

No. No.

That's my first issue. My second issue is I wish the city council, and I hope they hear a tape of this comment. When you choose people, you need to choose people that have a vested interest in the cemetery. Cemetery.

But this new person may have.

They may have. And I'm not pointing fingers. But I think for a commission like this, that is at utmost importance because those of us who have loved ones and could be our future burial place have a vested interest in keeping this cemetery view. And that's all I have to say.

And I want to tell you that Gene called me Monday and talked with me, and that meant a lot to me. Yeah.

Yeah. No.

Is he okay?

Yeah. He's out of town.

He'll miss you. Well, he needs

I think it's just I'll miss you.

Yeah. We're

I mean, I've just been able to to work with people that otherwise I'd never a big profession. Never crossed paths with. You know? And it's been lovely.

Mean, we

done a great job.

Done a fabulous job, and I might commend you for your positivity. Yeah. Because it's just it's huge these days.

Yeah. Yep.

Well, this has been hard for me, and I I didn't expect it to be because, you know, I told you after a meeting, was thinking of not doing two more years, and then I thought, I'm gonna do two more years. Yeah.

So was this your first two year term?

First three

two terms.

Yep.

Her first three year term.

Yeah.

Okay. Oh, it's a three year term. That's why I didn't okay. Okay. Yeah. Times were confusing.

I always get mixed up about

all that.

Well, they switched some of those term lengths some point in the last

They they changed, I think, in 2039, 2020. I think it might have been to meet you. I think it was in 2019 because I think I was still in the city clerk's office. So it was before I came here. So 2018, 2019, somewhere around in there where the city council wanted everybody to serve three year terms. There are some state regulated boards like the zoning board of adjustment, for example, that have a mandated term of three years, and so we were just coming in line with some of the state regulated boards. So that that's why everybody was brought into a three year term.

Another thing we did, you know, when I first got on the commission, I guess it was Robert who was chair, and he said, who who will check the cemetery? And nobody said anything. And I thought, well, as a new member, I can't do anything else. I don't know anything, so I'll check the cemetery. But we kept working with that, and now we've got a schedule.

A plan.

And we all check the cemetery. And that I think that's an important point because we all know what's out there. We're not relying on what one person says even though Tim lives there and Randall lives there. He

wanders around. Think that's what

he's My dogs know every smell in that smell. Very good.

By keeping an eye on the restrictions as we know them and we have amended them, by adhering to those restrictions, even if people don't complain or whatever, they see the restrictions as time goes on because we're adhering to them, and it's they're consistent. I agree. And I think that's important, such as birdhouses. I mean, that's a good example.

Well, also, I saw a bench that was sort of catty corner, and I thought, no. Is that screwed down?

And It was. Yeah. It was. So

No. That's that's neat. That's something you can be proud of that you accomplished during is this board being actually active in checking you're not coming to a meeting about a cemetery without having Mhmm. Okay. We checked it.

We've looked. Because one of the most important things in any sort of board or commission is active participation that you're engaged, in operations, not in management, but you're engaged with whatever it is you are responsible for. And so that's amazing to me that there was a time that there that this commission wasn't making sure there were eyes on the cemetery and information fed. So that that you can be proud of because getting an active board and commission rather than is critical for any operation. Yeah.

Well I think I have to fix that in multiple I wish you well. And it will be you you're gonna continue to be wonderful. And I have a feeling this this new member is going to be wonderful. So you just help her all you can, and I know you will. Okay. And so we have no question and answer session at the end. And do I hear a motion that we adjourn?

Move we adjourn. Second. All in favor?

Aye.

Meeting adjourned.