Where Have All the Documents Gone?

I have previously posted about the desecration of my family's gravesites and the utter destruction of there long-established memorial gardens sometime between July 28 and August 9, 2023. In that posting, I stated, "I still want to know who authorized the destruction of the gardens, when, and why. I worked with the Texas Senate for almost 23 years and accordingly have some idea how bureaucracies work. Pretty much nothing gets done without some sort of order or paperwork. I doubt some PARD employee was simply handed a weed-eater and told to wander around the cemetery in triple-digit temperatures until he found something green and then massacre it. Accordingly, I will be filing a public information request regarding all documentation regarding the destruction of these long-established memorial gardens."

Turns out I gave PARD too much credit--or they are lying. . . .  On August 14, 2023,  I submitted a public information request to the City of Austin for “Any and all records, including, but not limited, to memorandum, work orders, phone messages, or notes, regarding any and all landscaping work orders and requests, including, but not limited, to general maintenance, mowing, planting, plant removal, and use of string trimmers (aka weed eaters or whackers), at Austin Memorial Park from July 27, 2023, through August 10, 2023. Include: the location(s) affected in any way by said order or request; the name(s) and title(s) of the person(s) making, seeking, or authorizing said order or request; the date(s) of said orders or requests; the name(s) and title(s) of person(s) carrying out said order or request; and, the date(s) said order or request was completed.”

On August 18, 2023, I received the following response. . . 

The City of Austin has no responsive documents to your request. The City of Austin has no responsive information for the time frame requested.

In other words, according to PARD, there is absolutely no documentation regarding any maintenance or landscaping work in AMP (or by extrapolation, any of the public cemeteries). No work orders, schedules, memorandum, nothing. . . . Not a single piece of paper showing who is ordering or overseeing the maintenance or landscaping, who is doing the work, or when or where the work is being done. Apparently PARD wants the public to believe that in the historic city cemeteries employees are just randomly handed landscaping equipment and told to go find something to use it on. This either indicates a complete and irresponsible dereliction of the duty of a city agency to document just what the taxpayers are funding or a deceptive way for PARD to cover its tracks. After all, how can anyone can be held responsible if there is no documentation regarding who ordered what and when? Without documentation, the City of Austin has no meaningful oversight over PARD and the citizens of Austin have no way to research just what is happening to the final resting places of their friends and family. There can be no reasonable checks or balances on PARD continuing to treat the public cemeteries as its private fiefdom.