CEMETERY FENCE IS PROPOSED; FUNDS SOLICITED FOR OLD LORIMIER

A steering committee has been formed to solicit $35,000 for a security fence around the vandalism-plagued Old Lorimier Cemetery in Cape Girardeau.

Earlier this summer, vandals twice damaged tombstones at the 150-year-old cemetery. The incidents elicited a grass-roots campaign to better secure the city landmark.

On June 10, 35 tombstones were overturned and at least 15 were broken, and in early July another 13 stones were knocked over or broken.

Terrell Weaver, the cemetery sexton, has said that many of the tombstones have been damaged so many times over the years that they are "hanging by a thread."

After the latest vandalism, the City Council imposed an 8 p.m. cemetery curfew, but now members of the city's Parks and Recreation Advisory Board hope to take security one step further and erect a fence around the property.

At Monday's advisory board meeting, board chairman Jim Grebing said a steering committee has been formed to help preserve the cemetery.

"The consensus of that committee is that the No. 1 priority before you can do anything out there to preserve the cemetery is you have to stop the vandalism," Grebing said. "Right now it's easy-in and easy-out, and that's part of the problem."

Grebing said the committee likely will suggest that a chain-link fence with barbed wire be erected along the north and east, or "back" sides of the cemetery, with a wrought iron fence around the "front" of the cemetery.

"That should cover the basis as far as security on the one hand, but you don't want it to look like a prison either," he said.

Advisory board member Mike Kohlfeld said the city might want to consider keeping a single entrance and exit to the cemetery that could be locked each evening.

"In my opinion, if you're going to fence it in and spend $35,000 and you don't lock it up, you're still going to have problems," Kohlfeld said.

But Grebing said just limiting cemetery access to a single gate likely would reduce the instances of vandalism considerably.

He said the fund-raising foundation called "Friends of Old Lorimier Cemetery" will accept donations for the fence immediately.

In other business, Terry Risko, director of Cape Girardeau's Public Library, asked the board to support the library's effort to raise $100,000 for a "bookmobile" that could be used to provide library service to areas of the city that generally don't use the library now.

He said that due to the library's location and a lack of public transportation, a bookmobile would be the most efficient way to serve residents in southeast and northeast Cape Girardeau. The park board took no action on the matter.

"The best way to serve a community of this size is through branches, but that's expensive," Risko said. "But for $100,000 you can have a 5,000-volume bookmobile going to the different areas of the city."

He said several people already have pledged donations for the book mobile that could be taken to city parks and shopping centers.

"I think there are a lot of areas in the southeast part of town that need people hitting them in the literacy area," he said. "Something has to be done to serve these people. We seem to have ignored them in the past."