Ville Platte residents concerned over poorly maintained cemetery

VILLE PLATTE, La. (KLFY)- People in the city of Ville Platte are speaking out saying that this cemetery is not being well kept up.

News 10 headed to Ville Platte’s City Hall to figure out who is responsible for cleaning it up. There, they said the city is in charge of keeping the cemetery clean.

News 10 spoke to a city worker– who wished to remain anonymous– he says the city is currently understaffed, so he has a solution for those bothered by the appearance of the cemetery.

“I understand what they’re feeling and everything, but me, I say you know hey, be proactive in your community,” the employee said. “You got a family member that is buried there and stuff like that, take the initiative and go clean around your family’s plot. You know, hey, the city can only do so much, you know what I’m saying. So just do your part.”

But a woman who says she has several family members buried there tells News 10 she has done that.
In fact, she says one time after driving 30 minutes from outside of town to visit her relatives, she was so heartbroken to see the cemetery like it was that she drove right back home to get the tools to fix it.

“I got my weed eater and me my personal self, went back and I weed-eated. Not just my dad’s, not just my little sister’s, not just my grandparents’, but other people’s graves. I actually weed-eated myself.”

But she says it takes more than that. She tells me the city should step up and take care of it because no matter how often she goes to clean it up, she says she always finds it in this condition.

“The grass was tall, there was trash everywhere, again the trashcans were dumped over, they had old flowers all over the place.”