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Houston company fined for neglecting cemeteries |
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Written by DeadGirl
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Friday, 17 June 2005 |
Associated Press
LITTLE ROCK — A Texas company that owns four cemeteries in Arkansas has been ordered to pay almost $38,000 in fines and other costs stemming from complaints about the upkeep of its property.
Conditions at all four cemeteries owned by Cemetery Holdings LLC are "deplorable," said Judy Roberts, a senior examiner with the Arkansas Securities Department, which reports to the Arkansas Cemetery Board on cemetery operations.
Roberts said at a board hearing Friday that each of the cemeteries had overgrown grass and weeds; broken, chipped or destroyed markers; holes in the ground and roads; and ant beds. Relatives of those buried in the cemeteries had similar accounts and complained of paying for markers they never received.
The board ordered the company to pay $37,826.25 and directed company owner Mike Graham Jr. of Houston to appear before the panel within 20 days.
Cemetery Holdings manages Edgewood Memorial Park in North Little Rock, Memorial Park Cemetery in Pine Bluff, and Rest Haven Memorial Gardens and Arlington Memorial Cemetery, both in El Dorado.
At Memorial Park in Pine Bluff, Roberts said, she saw piles of trash and mausoleum plaques held on with duct tape. Mary Campbell of El Dorado told board members that, more than a year ago, she found her husband's headstone at Rest Haven Memorial Gardens chipped, and deep ruts, made by a backhoe, running across his grave. She said she reported the problem, but nothing was done.
Brenda Bratton of Pine Bluff said she wanted to be reimbursed for the $1,642 she paid for an angel footstone she ordered in 1998 for her 12-year-old daughter's grave. She said she paid for it in installments, until she paid it off last year, but has yet to see the footstone.
Others complained of relatives being buried in the wrong plots and of purchasing plots they later learned were sold to other customers.
Of the four cemeteries, Edgewood was the only one that made deposits to a perpetual care fund, as required by the board.
Wayne Fuquay, a Houston-based consultant for Graham, testified that the deposits weren't made because the money wasn't available.
"I find these conditions terrible and deplorable, but ... the cash flow for these properties does not cover the payroll," Fuquay said.
But Fuquay also testified that Graham owns at least two houses and pays $15,000 a month in rent for his Houston office, and Mike Spades, an attorney for the Securities Department, said Graham should be able to cover the costs of maintaining the cemeteries and making the perpetual care payments.
Spades recommended that each of the cemeteries be fined the maximum $3,000 for improper maintenance, that the three cemeteries owing money to the perpetual care fund pay the maximum $5,000 fine for failure to pay, and that the three cemeteries pay the money they owe.
http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/business/3221356 |
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