People seek answers about cemetery at council meeting

With a trembling voice and tears in her eyes, Terra Andrews stood before the Comanche City Council addressing the issue that several of the 50-plus people packed into the city council chambers of the impact of flowers and other items missing from Fairlawn Cemetery had said before her.   

“My thing is a little different than everybody else’s,” Andrews said. “It took me 21…years to go buy flowers and put them on my son’s grave. Everybody else did it for me (in the past). I did it. We will celebrate the 21st year of his death tomorrow with nothing I put out there…I heard one apology for the first time today.”

The statement was a microcosm of the contentious meeting on Tuesday.

What exactly happened at the cemetery had been the source of a social media frenzy for several days with people saying they had received different answers on what had occurred. Several pointed the finger at city manager Chuck Ralls saying that he had told cemetery employees to do a large-scale cleanup and they had video evidence of employees saying so. 

In his opening statement, Ralls denied giving the order.

“Most of you probably won’t believe me, and that’s between me and God, but I will tell you under no direction of myself or leadership of this city was an employee directed to go out and do a blanket clean-up of the cemetery” Ralls said. “Back in 2018 we did this. We sent out notices, we publicized it and we went out and removed trinkets and items and solar panels and flowers. We did a blanket cleanup and it was hell for a period of time and I swore that I would never do it again. So, I was just as shocked as you when these things came up missing.”

Ralls said the complaints started coming in slowly and then began to quickly pick up.

“Initially, it was just one or two complaints and we always have complainers, so we disregarded some of those,” Ralls said. “As they started escalating, I immediately went to my staff and asked my staff if they had done this and I was told no, we did not do this. And without any evidence to the contrary, I did not question. I took them at their word and had to assume someone from outside would come in because there’s no reason why we would take trinkets, crosses, bowls and things like that.”

Ralls said the employees had followed standard procedure and removed faded flowers if the petals had fallen off.

“They just take the things off that have deteriorated and they stood by that,” Ralls said. “The narrative out there has not changed. I have not changed and what I have said to people regardless of what happened, whether it was outside or city staff or who knows what, I apologize. I do sympathize with everyone here because I’ve got family out there as well.”

Having the removal of flowers and trinkets was a low priority when it came to the cemetery, according to Ralls.

“We’ve had teenagers going out there and having sex; we’ve had people going out there and drinking,” Ralls said. “It is a security concern and something we’ve tried to deal with. Unfortunately, we do not have enough police force to deal with it adequately, so the suggestion that has been made is that we need to replace the gates which are all damaged and dilapidated. So, I have proposals to replace all five gates and also a camera system.”

The opening statement did not sit well with many in attendance. Mayor Smokey Dobbins called on different people in the audience wishing to speak.

Among complaints at the meeting were lying about not ordering the clean-up, saying vandalism was responsible, the cost of the items taken, the cost of replacing them and no apology from the city about what happened.

“I talked to one (employee) and he personally told me in a matter of minutes, that it was under the direction (of the city) and at no point did y’all ever think there was vandalism,” one woman said.

“I never said vandalism. I never once said vandalism,” Ralls said.

People pointed out there was a screenshot of a Facebook post where Ralls said vandalism was a possibility.

“We’re not stupid, we’re piecing it together and y’all would change your story,” said Jacobi Harper. “First, it was vandalism. People saw the city truck out there, so then they’re saying, ‘Oh, well, the city trucks were picking up all the flowers that were thrown out.’ To me, you’re not taking accountability that you did this and you would be a lot better off, I’m telling you, to say ‘I did that. It was a screw up. My city employee did that. But you want to open a police investigation for no reason. That’s a waste of resources. And you want to go out there and publicly say it was vandalism.”

Ralls disagreed.

“If I had given that direction, I would own up to it,” Ralls said. “If my employees did it, then they had to lie.”

Former city council member Sharon Cain, who now lives in Duncan, but has loved ones in the cemetery countered Ralls.

“(I was told it was) done two weeks before I called last Tuesday,” Cain said. “They had been cleaning up the back for two weeks. Those are the exact words he told me. He told me he started, directed from you, to do a cleanup and I said a cleanup does not mean you can remove my mom and daddy’s flowers from my vase that is my private property that’s all on the stone. My flowers were brand new. Your employee told me that you instructed him to do it.”

Ralls responded by saying if the employees were willing to lie to him than what would have kept them from lying to her to cover themselves?

Later on, Dobbins asked what exactly the people wanted the council to do.

“I want you to terminate the employee that lied to you,” one woman said. “If you don’t terminate him, than he will be right back out there again.”

Ralls said both cemetery employees had resigned from their positions. He said the city will now have a new policy.

“Our policy going forward is we will never touch another flower or trinket,” Ralls said. “I don’t care if it’s just wires sticking out of the vase. We will never touch another trinket or another flower and that will be policy going forward at the cemetery.”

Council member Wanda Moore also addressed the crowd.

“I think the biggest problem is this is very emotional,” Moore said. “I agree with you totally, but there are statements being made that you can’t document and prove it.”

Several of those in attendance disagreed, citing the screen shot and video.

One person suggested those impacted should fill out police reports on the missing items and that the city should reimburse them.

Dobbins said the council could take no action on some things because they weren’t on the agenda. What was on the agenda was to purchase new aluminum gates and security cameras, which the council did unanimously at a cost of just over $22,000.

WEDNESDAY FOLLOW UP

In an interview with The Comanche Times on Wednesday, Ralls said he wanted to address the two main accusations levied toward him - directing employees to remove the personal items and him saying it was vandalism.

He provided a printout of the screenshot of the post he made on the Comanche Chamber of Commerce page that was mentioned the day before.

“No where does it talk about vandalism or vandals,” Ralls said. “There were a lot a lot of flowers missing, suspected theft. At that point I didn’t know if it was internal or external. I was trying to investigate. I did not get the adequate time to address it before I had to start making comments.”

He also played a video of a conversation that he had with the cemetery employees where he asked all three if he had told them directly to go and cemetery-wide cleanup. All three said he did not.

“You heard all three of them admit that I never gave them a directive in their own words,” Ralls said.

Ralls addressed the talk that the employees were re-assigned rather than resigning from the city.

“They had given notice and I was going to let them work out their notice,” Ralls said. “I accepted Eric’s resignation and he is no longer employed as of today. Brady is autistic and he was placed here through a counseling service. He had turned in his resignation, but then he recanted and said he was doing that emotionally. He said he did not want to leave that this was a job he enjoyed, so he has been relocated to the golf course. He’s a good young man and I don’t know if he would get another opportunity.”

Ralls said he still does not know why it was done.

“I don’t know to the extent of what was done because they are still claiming to me that they did not take anything that they’re not supposed to,” Ralls said. “The ordinance has a provision for us to go through and remove dry, dead wilted flowers and stuff that has blown off. And that’s what they are sticking to is that it is all they ever did. Based on the amount of complaints and other testimony, I believe it was more than that, but I have no evidence to back it up.”

As far as people filling out police reports and hopes of getting reimbursements, Ralls said that was up to the city council.

“That’s outside my authority, that’s up to them, so that would be at the discretion of the council,” Ralls said. “I’d still encourage anyone that had loss to fill out a report and let us know.”