The Paper Trail to Nowhere

PARD has made a number of claims over the years regarding why there is such an urgent need to update the cemetery rules and regulations (but not so urgent that PARD has managed to drag this issue out for over nine years).  Two claims made repeatedly, and as recently as an October 10, 2022, presentation by PARD (the picture below is a slide from that presentation), are that: mowers running over objects left on gravesites can cause injury to employees or citizens; and potential buyers have expressed distaste for the "unsightly look" of city cemeteries and purchased lots elsewhere, resulting in lost revenue.

Regarding the claim that  families are refusing to purchase plots at cemeteries such as Austin Memorial Park (AMP) because of "unsightly" gravesite gardens and memorials, apparently PARD wants the public to believe that potential purchasers of plots are willing to overlook the blatant neglect and poor maintenance at AMP, such as the sagging rusted chain link fence, the tilted and fallen tombstones, and sunken graves, but balk at the mere sight of an errant rosebush or a unauthorized limestone border. Seeking some documentation of this oft-related claim by PARD, I made a public information request on October 11, 2022, requesting, "Any and all documents, including but not limited to, memos, phone records, letters or notes, regarding persons who have declined to purchase or retracted a purchase of grave plots in Austin public cemeteries because of conditions at the cemeteries, including, but not limited to, poor maintenance, unsightly gravesite decorations, or trash. Include, when possible, documentation of the specific conditions that caused the person to decline or retract that purchase." On October 22, 2022, I received the following response from the City of Austin:

So what was the city's answer?: THE CITY OF AUSTIN HAS NO RESPONSIVE DOCUMENTS TO YOUR REQUEST. In other words, PARD could not produce a single document backing up its claim. I guess we could just take PARD's word for it, but anyone perusing this website should be able to conclude just how "trustworthy" PARD's words are. Also, as my brother Steven Weintraub notes, there may well be families who in fact decided to purchase plots at AMP because they are drawn to the unique individual and personal nature of the many gravesite memorials and gardens, making AMP stand out from the often sterile and characterless nature of many commercial cemeteries. 

Regarding the second claim by PARD that mowers running over objects left on gravesites can cause injury to employees or citizens, on October 11, 2022, I made a public information request for any and all records, including, but not limited to, accident reports, investigations, memos, or worker compensation claims, regarding work-related injuries sustained by city employees or contractors at AMP, from September 1, 2013, to October 10, 2022.

I received a response on October 18, 2022, an electronic document dump of 262 pages. This included a table containing information regarding employee injuries, including "Record, ID," "Incident Number," Involved Employe Name," as well as information such as the employee's position, status, date, and injury. The problem was that the table used such oversized cells, often no more than two columns were included on a single page. The table ran for 132 pages before being interrupted by several pages of copies of internal PARD memorandum regarding specific incidents. The table then continued on page 137 through page 151, with the remaining some 100 pages being more copies of memorandum, some duplicative. The table was effectively useless. I would have to print off almost 150 pages to have a complete table and then try to lay out the pages in order and side by side in order to try to follow any single row, and it was clear even this might not work, because it appeared that the size of cells and rows varied from page to page. I decided to take a charitable view and apply Hanlon's Razor, assuming that the convoluted format of the table was inadvertent and not insidious. I contacted the Austin Public Records Center (Center) on the same day, stating that the chart provided was absolutely confusing and that there was no way to line up the cells. Because the information was all but useless, I asserted that I did not consider this compliance with my request, asking that the table be either reformatted in a more comprehensible manner (such as by reducing cell size) or be rendered in text so that each incident was reported in a single line or sentence.

On October 21, 2022, I received a response from the Center stating that they had reached out to the PARD regarding my request, that the Public Information Request would be reopened, and that the Center would continue to work on providing me responsive information. On October 24, 2022, I received a response with more readable table, but discovered that PARD had redacted the description of each incident. This information had been included in the first response. Without the incident descriptions, I had no way to test PARD's claim that employees have suffered injuries while mowing Austin Memorial Park because of objects on some gravesites. This redaction was especially bewildering as I had been provided other significant personal information, such as the employees' names and positions. However, because I did have brief descriptions of each reported incident from the first response, I printed parts of the table from the first and second responses and then spent several hours trying to match the dates and incident numbers with the incident descriptions (note that despite the fact I had requested information starting from from September 1, 2013, the earliest incident information I received was for May 25, 2016; either there had been no employee injuries at AMP in the intervening three years or PARD had failed, in violation of both state and city law, to fully comply with my request). I then created the following chart, with the date of each injury, the incident number, and a brief description of the injury.

From May 25, 2016, through September 29, 2022, there were a total of 42 injury reports. There were a total of three accidents reported using mowing equipment: September 21, 2017, an employee suffered neck and back pain after a car struck the riding mower; April 24, 2018, an employee cut his hand while changing the blades on a riding mower; and May 2, 2022, an employee suffered a facial bruise when the mower ran over a golf ball, which then ricocheted off a headstone. striking the employee in the face.

According to a memo recording the incident (see blow), the employe was operating a riding mower in an isle (sic) between graves when something struck his face on the right side between his nose and ear. When the employee stopped to investigate, he found a damaged golf ball on the ground next to the mower and subsequently noticed a scuff on a nearby headstone. The employee stated that he believed that the mower kicked up the ball and ejected it out of the chute at the right side of the mower, resulting in it ricocheting off the headstone.  The employee applied an ice pack to his face for thirty minutes and while there were signs of bruising on his right cheek, the employee did not seek medical attention or miss work. The golf ball was not on a gravesite, but according to the memo was hidden in five-inch tall grass. Although the employee stated that he believed that the golf ball may have been left on a headstone and later ended up in the grass, this is all speculation. As my brother Steven pointed out, the ball could have been lost by someone practicing his golf swings in the open areas of the cemetery grounds. 

So out of 42 incidents over a six-year period, there is a single report of an employee on a riding mower being struck by an object hidden in the grass that may or may not have originally been placed on a headstone. Once again, PARD's own documentation fails to support PARD's allegations. More employees were injured by insect stings or bites than using a riding mower. There is nothing in PARD's own documentation that justifies PARD's claim that in the name of employee and public safety that it must destroy hundreds of long-established gravesite gardens and memorials. I also should note that there is only one other incident of an employee injury remotely linked to a gravesite memorial.

On July 21, 2022, an employee was helping unload "an out of compliance iron border that had been placed around a gravesite" from a pickup truck. The employee and co-workers had lifted the border from the truck bed and were carrying it to the storage area the the employee "caught his left leg on a metal rod that was sitting on a pallet that held other out of compliance items. The metal rod was designed to be staked into the ground and had a hook at the top to hold a hanging planter." The employee stated that the rod caused him to fall backwards to the ground and that afterwards he was unable to put his full weight on his ankle. The employee sought medical attention and treatment.

Ignoring the fact that technically there are no "out of compliance" items because PARD, through over three decades of inaction, has effectively waived the 1978 cemetery rules, if PARD had simply left the items at the gravesites where they had been placed, there would have been no such injury. The employee was not injured by a gravesite decoration in situ, but only after PARD illegally and arbitrarily  insisted that the decoration be removed and placed in storage. If you look closely at the picture included in the memo, among the items that apparently been removed are an attractive cement or stone bench, a large cat statue, and various large smooth river stones.  None of these substantial large objects could conceivably threaten imminent harm to public safety had they been left in place, but moving and storing the items certainly would have placed employees at risk of injury. If PARD is indeed planning on removing possibly hundreds of gravesite gardens and memorials throughout the Austin cemetery system, it is likely there will be an increase in similar reports of employee injuries.