The City of Hattiesburg is set to take over maintenance responsibilities of 116 graves at Riverview Cemetery off of East Hardy Street in Hattiesburg.
Hattiesburg City Council members recently approved the measure after it was determined that many of the graves – most of which belong to military veterans – have deteriorated to the extent that they pose a danger to people visiting the cemetery. A resolution issued by council states that city officials tried to make contact with family members to upkeep the plots, but were unsuccessful.
“Riverview Cemetery is a city (owned) cemetery, and it’s very, very old,” said Ann Jones, who serves as the city’s chief administrative officer. “There is a section that is predominantly all veterans … and most of those graves have fallen into severe disrepair.
“So state statute gives authority that once you’re not able to make contact, in order to be able to maintain the integrity of that cemetery, this a process that a municipality has the authority to go through.”
Although Riverview Cemetery itself is owned by the city, the plots in the cemetery are privately owned – usually by the deceased’s family – making those sites private property. By law, the city cannot maintain private property, which made the acquisition of the graves for maintenance necessary.
“This is a process that state statute has set so a city can maintain those graves that have fallen into disrepair, when a family contact can’t be discovered,” Jones said.
According to the resolution, many of the graves in the veterans’ section of the cemetery date back to the late 1800s and include veterans of World War I and World War II. Jones said most of the upkeep on the graves could be handled in-house by the city at a nominal cost.
“Cost estimates that we had would be less than $5,000,” Jones. “That’s a one-time cost; cumulatively, many of these repairs would be a one-time repair. They wouldn’t need to be repeated annually.”
