STARKVILLE — Aldermen on Tuesday adopted a cemetery and burial rights policy as a way to manage and upkeep city-owned cemeteries.
A generally unknown aspect of a city, Mayor Lynn Spruill said, is maintaining its cemeteries. The city owns and operates both Odd Fellows Cemeteries on University and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. drives and has also taken authority over Brush Arbor Cemetery. It accepted this responsibility after the development of the cemeteries.
While state law lays out the proper steps for acquiring a burial deed, Spruill said she wanted to create a policy for the city to follow, establishing management and a record-keeping process.
“We do need to do something affirmative about it because we are continuing to get requests and issues associated with it, so we need to have a policy of some kind,” Spruill said.
Spruill said she believes the city needs to take record of all transactions regarding burial plots and deeds moving forward because the city currently does not know who owns some deeds or headstones. Because the cemeteries are more than 75 years old and have deteriorating conditions for headstones and demarcations, the city will take certain measures for any future sales, deed transfers and abandonment of plots.
In order to gain access to a plot, a person must provide proof to the city that the plot is abandoned by researching its deed history and must cover all costs associated with that process. If a plot is found to be occupied, the owner may withdraw from interment (not be buried there) or may accept a double interment leaving the existing remains with the proposed remains.
The city will not consider a plot abandoned unless there has been no ownership activity for more than 100 years.
The city does not oversee cemetery headstones but does maintain the landscape. Upkeep for landscape will be included in the annual fiscal-year budget.
Deed and plot registration will be maintained and updated as necessary with the assistance of the Golden Triangle Planning and Development District.
Spruill said the city will work with various ad hoc groups involving the cemetery to assist in the upkeep of the headstones and elements of the cemetery that are not within the purview of general landscaping and maintenance.
While Spruill said there are no plots currently available at either Odd Fellows Cemeteries, this policy will help individuals find ways to obtain a burial deed.
“Unless you have a deed at this time, we don’t know what’s there,” Spruill said. “This policy addresses anyone who wishes to purchase one, swap one, think that there may be an unused plot — we have some requirements that if you’re going to do that, you’re going to have to go in and do the research to determine that there’s not already an internment there and bring it back to (the board), and we will work with you.”
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