Saturday, February 15, 2025
Gatesville City Manager Brad Hunt was recently invited to speak at the monthly meeting of the Coryell County Historical Commission about the recent vandalism at the Gatesville City Cemetery.
Over the last several months, vandals have pushed over large tombstones at the cemetery, and, in the past, drug paraphernalia has also been discovered scattered throughout the cemetery.
“I drove around the cemetery with our new police chief, Jeff Clark, a few weeks ago and the police department will be patrolling Restland and City Cemetery and all the cemeteries in the city limits a lot more carefully and try to catch people who are not doing cemetery business – especially after hours and at night,” Hunt said.
“It’s the kids that get in there and do dumb things, and it’s just so disrespectful and we’re really going to work on that.”
He continued, “Right now, we have a four paragraph ordinance on the books, and it just talks about the trust for the cemetery and there are no rules, no hours posted, no definition of who’s responsible for what, so were taking some sample ordinances from other cities around Texas, and I have my staff working on a much more thorough ordinance that we will be presenting to our city council at the end of January that should be in effect by the end of February.”
Hunt explained that the cemetery hours will definitely need to be posted, and that it should be stated that you cannot be there after dark. He also mentioned that there will be rules posted about behavior inside the cemetery. “These are the less financially impacting steps that we’re trying to take to create a better cemetery experience and to preserve some of those historic markers that are getting damaged,” he said.
He also spoke of future financial needs that would better safeguard the cemetery, such as putting a fence around the cemetery and a gate that can be locked at night, which would limit the traffic that often cuts through the cemetery on non-cemetery business.
“In that financial aspect as well, there will be some kind of security cameras at the cemetery that can be monitored by the police at the police station, so that it would be noticed when people are doing things they shouldn’t be doing there as well,” he said.
When asked if the city could straighten and raise the toppled stones, Hunt replied, “We don’t have any funding to upright any of the privately owned markers. Most of the ordinances I have read in my research have a procedure by which the city, usually the parks director, can contact the family or the trust of these historic markers to notify them of the damages.”
After reassuring the historical commission of the steps that will be taken in the future to safeguard the place where many of the founding fathers of Gatesville are interred, Hunt said, “The city does care about the cemetery and we’re going to protect it.”
