Over a month after Jackson, Miss., residents stood in front of the Jackson City Council to decry the condition of the capital city’s overgrown cemeteries on June 4, a short-term solution could alleviate the issue. Staffing shortages have hampered the city’s ability to maintain them in recent years.
In a 4-2 decision on July 16, the council voted to allow PDT Logistics, LLC, to cut and maintain overgrown grass on the properties.
The company had previously voluntarily cut and maintained at least one of the properties, Cedar Lawn Cemetery, on West Capitol Street, WLBT reported on June 26.
“Anything is good, but … the City should have to do it,” James Hopkins, CEO of Reset Jackson, said in a July 17 interview with the Mississippi Free Press.
Hopkins was one of the residents who voiced their concern during a June 4, 2024, Jackson City Council meeting at New Hope Baptist Church over a lack of upkeep and grass covering headstones at the graveyards.
“We take care of our loved ones their entire lives, and when they leave here, if you’re not cremated, they’re going to go to somebody’s cemetery,” Hopkins told council members and residents. “We pay for those cemeteries to be kept up.”
Hopkins went on to say during the meeting he understands that there is a staffing shortage within the department and that he’s taken it upon himself to cut the grass around the plots where his loved ones are buried.
“It’s an embarrassment, it’s disrespectful, and it’s hurtful to know that I can’t go out to my mother’s grave or my wife’s grave without bringing a weed eater. It’s sad,” Hopkins said on June 4.
Cedar Lawn Cemetery, comprising 83 acres, is one of the largest cemeteries in the capital city, City of Jackson Solid Waste Manager Lakesha Weathers said during the July 16 council meeting while pleading for approval of the temporary contract.
And it is just one of the six cemeteries in Jackson.
“There’s no way with the staff that we have in-house that the cemeteries can be cut and maintained,” Weathers told the council on July 16.
Three solid waste division employees are dedicated to maintaining the cemeteries, and the other four maintain right-of-ways, Weathers said.
Weathers’ has been responsible for overseeing the maintenance of the city’s cemeteries since the city decided earlier this year to move much of that responsibility from under the Department of Parks and Recreation to Solid Waste, a division of the Public Works Department.
She said on July 16 that contracting the maintenance out is a “short-term solution” to help solve the issue as quickly as possible but shared that the City is also looking into longer-term fixes.
While the majority of the Jackson City Council approved the contract, Ward 1 City Councilman Ashby Foote and Ward 5 City Councilman Vernon Hartley both voted against the measure, which they believed to be a last-minute decision to address a long-standing problem.
“We can’t wait until something becomes an emergency and then throw out, ‘Well, this is the solution we decided to go with,’” Hartley said. “In this city, we have to maintain our personnel. We have to work drainage issues, cemetery issues, right-of-way issues every single week. I talk to a lot of folks; they’re just tired of the excuses.”
