By Joel van der Veen

DAVIDSON — Town council has announced plans to appoint a committee to oversee the Davidson cemetery in response to recent concerns over its condition.

Council discussed these plans, as well as more immediate actions to be taken, at its regular meeting at Davidson Town Hall on Tuesday.

A delegation, which included residents Clarke and Debbie Doell and funeral director Todd Lockwood, visited council during the meeting to voice their concerns and offer suggestions.

Distributing photos she took recently at the cemetery, Debbie Doell read a list of her concerns, including reports of heavy loads being hauled through the site and large mounds of clay being left atop of graves.

“We feel that there has been a lack of maintenance and direction, and we would like to address this,” she told council, adding that she wanted to offer constructive advice, and not “to run anybody down.”

Lockwood said that he hears concerns directly from families because of his role as a funeral director.

“I’m out there a lot,” said Lockwood. “I’m feeling the heat from families that want something to take place . . . We’re the last people they see out there.”

Mayor Clayton Schneider expressed his thanks to the delegation for coming and explained plans to form a committee that would include representatives from town council and public works, as well as Lockwood and possibly additional members.

The proposed committee would meet four times a year at the start and, as present issues are dealt with, could scale back to a couple of meetings annually.

Schneider said council wants to move forward and address these concerns, saying, “If we just work together, we can get some problems solved.”

His thoughts were echoed by other council members, including Coun. Tyler Alexander, who said the need for work was evident in several areas.

“I think we have the staff to do it,” he said. “We just need to get everybody on the same page.”

Doell said the mounds of clay are “impossible to work with,” even for families who take on the task of maintaining their own plots.

Lockwood said the preferred practice is to level a gravesite with existing earth once a casket has been laid, then to top it up with around six inches of topsoil.

“It’s a learning curve,” he said of the process of digging and filling in graves. “It’s not a problem, it’s just something that needs to be worked with.”

Council was also asked about the cemetery fund, to which donations can be made in memory of the deceased, but Edom said it has essentially run dry.

“There’s virtually nothing in it,” he said, noting that only around $450 was donated last year, and that the fund was drained last year as the town dealt with excess moisture.

Edom said another factor behind the delay is that the town equipment can’t move some of the larger gravestones.

He said that Remco, which manufactures the stones, will move them as needed, but won’t deal directly with municipalities, instead working through funeral directors.

Lockwood said he was willing to offer his help to the committee. He also suggested that the town consider increasing its cemetery fee, which currently stands at $100, compared to city cemeteries that charge between $1,500 and $2,000 and require the use of burial vaults.

After the delegation had left, Schneider identified several key goals, such as immediately dealing with the Russell family plot, which has been in a state of disarray for more than a year.

Speaking later to public works foreman Doug Torrie, who also attended as a delegation, Schneider said the town needs to find a good source of topsoil, as well as a location to store it, and then using the soil to top up graves.

He also directed the staff to remove the existing mounds from gravesites, and noted that council would look at updating the town’s cemetery fees and bylaws.

Torrie said his staff was instructed as of Tuesday to stop driving heavy loads through the site.

Debbie Doell said Thursday that she appreciated council members taking the time to listen to her concerns and that she felt hopeful about their response.

“I felt it was very positive,” she said. “I felt that they did hear what we were stating, and they made constructive suggestions.”