Removal of cemetery memorabilia dismays community

Hannah Koeller

The approval of the recommendations for new cemetery procedures at an October city council
was brought to light and questioned last week.
The revisions made to the cemetery ordinance include no solar lights, no benches or statues and
allows only flowers and plants at the graves sites if they are planted behind the stones.
However, sometime on the first week of the month, city workers removed childrens toys,
handmade fences and other mementos from the cemetery in addition to those listed.
All the items removed from the grave sites were left in piles at the city office. A number of
citizens, after learning what happened, went to look through these piles for their personal items.
Because no legal notice was sent to the paper for publication, dozens of community members,
led by Lowell Johnson, attended the city council meeting on Nov. 7 to question the actions taken.
It was probably the most disrespectful thing Ive ever seen happen in the city of Flandreau,
Johnson said. Youre not only messing with peoples emotions, youre messing with their
family.
He said his biggest question was why nothing was sent to the newspaper to notify the public of
the change in procedure.
After the ordinance updated, according to Mayor Mark Bonrud, city maintenance workers saw
the change and decided to get an early start on cleaning off the graves while completing the
mowing at the cemetery.
It was a lack of communication, Bonrud said. Once our city administrator found out what was
going on, he told [the workers] they werent supposed to be doing this until it was put in the
paper And again, we would have put that in the paper a number of months before this action
took place.
But the whole of community members in attendance said they have a hard time believing the city
workers would take this action upon themselves with no directive from a city official.
Johnson said, in his opinion, regardless of if there was a directive or not, the responsibility would
fall back on City Administrator Don Whitman and his control of the city workers.
He, and others in attendance, called for the resignation of Whitman or swift action by the council
to remove him from his position.
I would encourage you to rescind all procedures youve just put in place for the cemetery and
form a group of local citizens who have family out there so we can have some input as to what
can be out there, Johnson said. Youve basically outlawed everything that can be at the
cemetery.
One item brought up multiple times was the solar lights, which Johnson said light up the
cemetery at night and make it look like a little city, and why those could not remain at the
cemetery.
Bonrud said the city council, at the recommendation of Mike Skroch, funeral home director,
looked at surrounding towns and those cemetery procedures as a way to keep the cemetery
beautiful but also provide an ease of maintenance.
Dont you think beauty is in the eye of the beholder? said Kirsten Thompson. The stuff thats
on my sons grave might look like junk to somebody else, but those are toys that have been out
there for 16 years. Those are things that people have left us and those are our memories.
Another item noted was the apparent rough and careless way the workers removed items and
memorabilia from the graves and how there seemed to be no pattern as to what was removed and
from what grave sites.
Some citizens at the meeting said they only found out through word of mouth at the production
of Tarzan the Musical, including Alderman Dan Sutton.
It should have been advertised; thats inexcusable, Sutton said. How it was piled up; thats
inexcusable. That fact of the matter is we have to figure out a way to go forward. We have to
figure out how we can make this not happen again.
He said he hopes the city and community members can come up with a fitting policy, especially
after a similar incident recently occurred at the Catholic church cemetery.
This is just for me personally, but I dont care what other communities do, Sutton said. If our
community decides that we want to have some mementos or a policy that allows that, then thats
what we do because thats whats best for our community.
Sutton proposed, and the council approved, a motion that the city appoints a seven-member
committee with a council liaison to look into the matter and, until that committee has been
formed or made a recommendation to the council, that the city halt any further activity or the
removing anything from the cemetery.
They added to the motion that community members can return whatever items or mementos they
want to their gravesites until the committee has come forward with a policy.
Before ending the discussion, Johnson again urged the city to take action on removing Whitman
from his position as city administrator.
He as the city administrator should have control over his employees, Johnson said. Obviously
he is not communicating with the city employees, he should not be in that position and he needs
to resign immediately.
However, Sutton said before making any decisions, the council has to take the time to look
further into what happened and take the proper course of action from there.
This is a very passionate, emotional issue because youre dealing with your loved ones, Sutton
said. But tonight is not the time or the place for me to make a recommendation to make any
changes in our leadership.
Those interested in serving on the community cemetery committee can contact Bonrud or
Whitman.
The city council will hold a special meeting on Thursday Nov. 17 at 5 p.m. before going into
executive session to address personnel, the cemetery procedures and further discuss what
happened and why items were removed from the graves.