By Brian Biggane
Delray Beach City Manager Terrence Moore said he is hiring a consultant to come up with recommendations for decades-old issues at the city’s cemetery that have been resurrected in recent months by irate city residents concerned about its upkeep and management.
Dozens of residents lined up during the public comment portion of the City Commission’s Aug. 18 meeting, criticizing the lack of progress at Delray Beach Memorial Gardens Municipal Cemetery and repeatedly urging the commission to appoint a citizens’ advisory committee to work with the consultant before any decisions are made. Moore said that will happen.
“I will keep the City Commission informed relative to the services being rendered, the name of the consultancy, and the specific steps to be finalized … for your review and consideration in the coming weeks,” Moore told commissioners. “I’d like to give this opportunity a chance to be productive and successful.”
Mayor Tom Carney, who said he had walked through the cemetery recently, said, “There’s a lot of systemic problems there that I don’t know that we’re ever going to be able to correct.”
Later he added, “I want to underscore this really is just the first step.”
One resident after another lodged complaints about the cemetery. Several, including Sandra Owens, said they had bought a plot only to have the city sell it again and bury someone in it without notifying them or refunding their money. “I want to be buried next to my mother,” Owens said. “That’s it.”
Kevin Mitchell, one of several funeral directors who spoke, delivered a detailed list of considerations to be made, including an audit of past practices and erecting a building on the premises to serve as an office for a full-time caretaker, another request.
An oft-repeated complaint was the state of the grounds and the gravestones, and a consensus that erecting a mausoleum was not a good idea.
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