By Timothy Bradfield
Correspondent
LaFayette, Ga., has received three bids on a two-year maintenance contract for the city’s cemetery.
The cemetery ignited controversy in November when city workers stripped graves of all their flowers when only dead and faded ones should have been removed.
City officials have said that was because of “a miscommunication” within the Public Works Department, which oversees cemetery maintenance.
After that, the city posted signs at both of the cemetery’s entrances that include instructions on where flowers can be placed and times of cleanups.
“It’s very sensitive. And it needs to be handled properly,” LaFayette Mayor Neal Florence said. “We learned our lesson.”
The bid submission deadline was Monday at 2 p.m. at LaFayette City Hall, at which time City Manager Johnnie Arnold read the bids aloud. The bids ranged from $49,920 to $74,000.
The list now goes to the LaFayette City Council, which is expected to take up the contract at its next meeting on May 10.
City officials said their search for someone new to maintain the cemetery’s grounds has nothing to do with the cleanup controversy.
“We’ve been bidding this out for eight years,” Mr. Arnold said. “It’ll be the fifth two-year term.”
And, in fact, city officials said the contracted groundskeepers don’t remove flowers from graves. That’s an assignment of city workers, officials said, because they must be at the cemetery anyway to haul away the dead flowers.
Officials said contracting the cemetery maintenance saves money. “We’ve cut the cemetery maintenance (budget) almost in half,” Mr. Arnold said.
Timothy Bradfield is based in LaFayette. Contact him at timothyb2010@gmail.com.