City updates board on cemetery headstone project; environmental covenant item withdrawn after records found

The Board of Public Works and Safety on Oct. 6 heard a status report on the city’s multiyear cemetery headstone preservation project and was told the next phase is budgeted at $50,000. Parks staff described work completed to reset foundations, re-erect toppled monuments and stabilize older headstones.

Chip Horner, director of parks and recreation, showed before-and-after photos and said the program has addressed more than 300 monuments as part of an estimated total inventory exceeding 15,000 headstones. Horner said work focuses on restoring foundations and grouping repairs by sections of the cemetery to maintain continuity over the seven-year program. He told the board that the council approved funding and the Board of Works administers spending for the repairs.

Separately, the board was presented with an environmental restrictive covenant item that staff withdrew during the meeting after locating a previously recorded covenant from 2014 related to mitigation for work at Hance Dam in Nineveh. City attorney Lynn Gray explained the covenant governs a mitigation area near Blue Heron Park and ensures that the protected area will not be disturbed as part of that mitigation exchange; as a result the newly proposed covenant was unnecessary and the item was withdrawn.

Parks staff asked the board to note that the cemetery project also improves operations because crews spend less time performing interim maintenance in areas where monuments have been stabilized. Horner said the project’s next phase is included in the city’s budget for the coming year and staff may return for future funding requests as needed.