Cemetery Commission - Regular Meeting

I call this meeting the Cemetery Commission of the City of San Marcos to order.

It's 4-0-2. Okay, I will do the roll call. Brenda Butler, here. Faye Fike-Hilligan, here. Clay Sullivan, here. Tim Bauer-Kemper, here. Cindy Casperis, absent. Bobby Moore, here. Debbie Thompson, will be absent.

So, Chair, you have a quorum. Thank you very much. And 93 on our agenda is citizen comment. I do not see them citizens here, so other than we. So let's go on to the minutes.

Consider approval by motion of the July 22nd, 2026 regular meeting minute.

Everybody minutes. Any corrections or additions? Any discussion? Is there a motion to approve?

I move that we approve the finish. All in favor? All in favor?

Oh, that's okay.

Okay, there you go.

All right. Moving on to reports. Receive a brief report from the scheduled commissioners to check the condition of the cemetery. And I'll ask Bobby to give that report.

Hey, do you want me to do a roll call for the motions?

We didn't vote.

Oh, I just bulldozed it through, but sure, I'll take the roll call. Okay. Bobby Moore. Aye. Brenda Butler. Aye. Faye Clayett-Gilliam. Aye. Tim Bauerkemper.

Aye.

Faye Sullivan.

Aye.

Okay, motion passed.

Now we'll have a brief report.

Well, Gene, Scott, Hunter. So Scott, I've got, okay, I'm getting it. And Faye and I just did a ride around. And it's close-cropped, and it's brown, so it's hot and dry. But it's neat. But it's well-kept. You know, it looks very neat. And we drove around. We did a pass-by on the columbarium lab. But we did a pretty good, complete ride, and we didn't see anything. out of order, and so it looks good to look good to me.

Only thing I would add is it looked to me like the columbarian of cleansing had been extremely.

Yeah, that picture.

I know it looks even better than the pictures.

May I comment? Not to diminish the efforts that Scott has made with the D2 and all of that, but I would like to make a statement that the And Burt deserved the lion's share of the credit for the final condition of that because we worked on it quite a bit, Scott did. But Burt brought me a machine and a high pressure sprayer and some assistance, labor assistance. And so it was a combined effort from he and my staff, but he deserves the lion's share of the credit here. And Bobby, you were going to follow up with what we might do for

future and to keep it that way now that we've got it that way well we've completed the report on the cemetery because the next item is talking about the columbarian columbarian yeah i just i i want to thank gene uh i i went up there uh the second week of august And I knew that some work had been done on it, and I wanted to go see it. And it was – all of the scratch marks were gone. And I was thinking to myself, you know, it's about 50 percent better than what it was when we looked at it in June. And I would like – I don't know if they would – I think we kind of had a commission – Where am I looking for? The way it was in June, I think the Commission, I would like the Commission to be on the record is that that was unsatisfactory. Well, then, Jean and Bert. Scott worked on it again, and Gene invited me back a week ago, and I would say now it's 90%. It's not perfect. There are still some ghost shadows, but the ghost shadows in the brown areas are kind of irrelevant, and the ghost shadows in the white area are still visible in the bright sun, but they're not the dark stains anymore. And so what I want to make sure happens is that we as a commission do not accept how it got to be based on the fact that through nobody's fault, it was just one of those things that wasn't attended to. And I would like for this to be attended to regularly. And I also would like to ask if the, if it, would be possible for us to ask. We're asking Scott and Jean to take on some extra work. And Bert had to bring equipment up there. Do we wait until it gets as bad as it was in June before we decide it's gotten bad enough again and go do something about it? Or do we do something regular about it? Or do we ask the Parks and Rec Department to investigate alternative strategies to make it possible for us to maintain that look or better? Because I'm assuming that in 2021, it looked better. When it was first laid down, then it does now. I just don't want us to accept good enough and just be lackadaisical about it and let it slide again.

That's my fear. I'm just teasing, but I think that since she has nothing to do, maybe Jamie can get a hand brush and go just do it once a week. Well, the toothbrush.

I don't know.

We have it on our schedule once a quarter to go up there and check it. Fantastic.

But I want to thank everybody that worked on it because it sure looks a lot better. And while we were up there, just to show everybody why it's important that we keep it. At least that good is while we were up there, Scott came up there with potential customers that asked Scott to show them the columbarium. And if it looks like that, as opposed to the way it looked in June, it's a lot more presentable. And so we got an eyewitness experience as to why it needs to be kept up.

And I think the monthly checks by the commission But various conditioners can also pay extra attention every time. It doesn't take much to swing down there and keep an eye on it. So I think that quarterly inspection is probably reasonable. And then if we got in between time, we got folks every month going in there and just eyeballing it. I think maybe let's check in about three, six months from now and see what we think we're doing.

The other thing we did, we purchased a squeegee that we gave to Scott. So if we do have any rain, we'll keep praying for rain. When we do have that, he has something he can run up there and squeegee it off. And Bert, that's supplemented.

I had already an air blower is actually probably more of the most effective tool for getting that. I mean, you could blow the If you got a little pooling on there, which we did, which contributed to it. When I say pooling, it might have been a 16th or an eighth of an inch. It's not a problem. But it's enough that and it's near a tree. And I trust Kelly's judgment on this. Probably contributing to that was a pollen that happened to an oak tree is basically over the top of it. But Bobby, we will take in conjunction with his help. I'll take a proactive approach.

And I think it's a great idea.

It's real easy that and I think 99% of the time I'm present when we do the. Drive throughs and we'll just make a note as it varies from the people that are up there that we make a point to make that an integral part of our inspections that we go through on the month. And if it looks like we need it on the quarter. Well, you'll know get the equipment up there and I will have Scott. If and when we do have a significant rain event, go up there with an air blower and blow all that moisture off so that it's not sitting there. And you don't get that. Kelly thought of it and I thought accurately. So it's pollen and it's like a little bit of a scum or a film that you would see on a hard surface when water puddles and it stays. Because that's what came off. Even the scratch marks that you see. I am convinced were dogs that would go up there because they do come through, but proactive I think is the answer and we'll commit to that.

I just want to again, on behalf of the commission, thank you all for the effort that you put in last month to bring it to the condition that it's in today. Substantially better than what it was.

All right, let's move on to the brief staff report on the status in surgery.

We have a little bit of movement again. We have two outstanding things that we're trying to get finalized. There's some update that has to be done to the plan set for. Erosion controls that the our department says it needs to be in plans. And then they're waiting on the engineer to seal the plans once they didn't want the landscape architect seals that went into engineering. So we have an engineer that's working on the project that just says they have to do that. So once we get that all together, then we can hopefully get it done. put together in the package that goes out.

Do you have any guesstimation about winning that money? No, ma'am.

I've just been embarrassed by trying to give guesstimations when we're dealing with anything that they do with our own organization. So I wish I had the answer. I would I would hope that it would be soon.

Providing this slow everywhere. Great.

Well, there's always the problem is we get everything put together and we think we've got it. They review it again. And I said, oh, yeah, it is.

So, you know, by the way, every time that happens, if it's a dollar an hour across on it, it pushes it back 30 to 60 days everywhere. That's standard operational procedure. I'm going through it myself.

Any questions or comments? Let's move on to item number four, question and answer session with press and public. I see no public and no press. So I'm going to move on to item number five, adjournment. Is there any motion to adjourn? I'll make a motion. Okay. Is there a second?

Second. Second.

Motion's been seconded. Made and seconded. We don't need a roll call for this one. All right. All those in favor of adjourning? Aye. All right, then. I guess we're adjourned.