COLUMBUS, Kan. —
Vernon Hill on Monday let the Cherokee County Commission know of his concern that township boards may soon have to buy liability insurance for rural cemeteries.
Hill, a resident of the Melrose community in western Cherokee County, is on the board of the Neosho Township. He said he cares for Fairview Cemetery, near Melrose, and Fly Creek Cemetery, near Faulkner.
Hill said he had received a letter indicating that the townships may need to buy liability insurance. He didn’t initially say who the letter was from, but outside the meeting he said it was from Cherokee County Clerk Crystal Gatewood.
“A lot of us township people are upset,” Hill said, noting that township boards have only enough money to take care of the cemeteries. He said families own individual plots in the cemeteries, and the townships don’t own the cemeteries.
“We don’t own that, so what do we insure?” Hill said. “How do you insure stuff you don’t own?”
He said that after receiving the letter, he contacted members of two or three other township boards.
“We got a little shook,” Hill said of the letter.
Commission Chairman Richard Hilderbrand, an insurance agent, said funeral homes and grave-digging crews usually must carry insurance, but requiring township boards to carry insurance doesn’t make sense.
“Normally, it’s the people who do the work who have to cover the liability,” Hilderbrand said.
The commissioners said they would refer the question to County Counselor Kevin Cure.
Gatewood said after Hill left the meeting that the letter was prompted by a phone call from a company that provides services to area funeral homes. She said the caller told her that the funeral homes wouldn’t work in cemeteries that didn’t carry liability insurance.
Gatewood said the letter also was meant to clarify the mistaken assumption by some on township boards that the cemeteries are covered through the county’s insurance carrier. She said they’re not.
She said she had contacted the Kansas attorney general’s office and determined that there are no legal requirements for rural cemeteries to have liability insurance.
“I just wanted to give them the option to consider insurance,” Gatewood said. “It wasn’t set in stone, and there’s no mandate from the state. It’s not anything mandatory that they have to do.”
Rural cemeteries
According to the Cherokee County clerk’s office, there are 60 cemeteries in the county. Most of them are rural cemeteries that are cared for by township boards.
N.E. Okla. & S.E. Kan.
Liability concerns expressed over cemetery issue
- N.E. Okla. & S.E. Kan.
-
-
Business owners divided on plan to raise sales tax
At Beitzinger Hardware, 722 N. Broadway, the tax increase that some legislators want for Kansas is a hard sell right now.
“This country is still in a recession. Even though some people think it is out, it’s not,” said John Beitzinger, owner. -
Two teens die from shooting in Delaware County
Two teenagers died from wounds sustained in a shooting Thursday afternoon east of Afton.
-
Pittsburg troupe presents ‘The Glass Menagerie’
It’s performed by one of the smallest casts in recent Pittsburg Community Theatre history, but “The Glass Menagerie” will be no less impactful, says Director Linden Little.
-
Masonite to add 65 new jobs in Pittsburg
The company moved its glass insert line from Toronto, Canada in 2008. In 2011, the company completed purchase of the 310,000-square-foot property at 603 E. Jefferson St. from the city. Masonite currently employs 135 in Pittsburg.
-
Ortho Four States provides plans for medical office building in Galena
Representatives with Orthopaedic Specialists of the Four States today presented plans for a $5 million, 30,000-square-foot medical office building to piggyback on its $13.5 million specialty hospital, already under construction.
-
200 jobs to be lost with salad plant's closing
The Orval Kent Food Co. food processing plant will close at the end of January, leaving 200 permanent and temporary employees without a job, said Kent Kring, an Orval Kent Vice President.
-
Fireworks business interested in Superior’s vacated plant
The Pittsburg City Commission and the Economic Development Advisory Committee will hold special meetings Wednesday to consider a forgivable loan application by Jake’s Fireworks, a locally-owned pyrotechnics distribution company, for $300,000.
-
Columbus factory dismisses employees, with more to come
Around 70 of RSI Home Products Manufacturing Inc.’s 110 employees were dismissed Friday, with the remaining 40 to be let go by the end of September.
-
Tip leads to arrest of bank robbery suspects
A Webb City Parks Department employee is credited with reporting suspicious activity that eventually led to the arrest of two men suspected of robbing a Weir bank.
-
Announcement to be made about unsolved murder
The Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation and Delaware County district attorney’s office are reporting the pending arrest of a suspect in the disappearance and presumed murder 15 years ago of Barbara Ann Willard.
- More N.E. Okla. & S.E. Kan. Headlines
-
Recording Superstar Whitney Houston Dead at 48
Maine GOP Chairman Says Romney Wins Caucuses
Palin Brings Anti-Washington Message to CPAC
Obama Scraps Birth Control Mandate
US Airmen's Killer Sentenced to Life in Germany
Navy Names Ship for Gabrielle Giffords
Raw Video: Deadly Blasts in Syria
Romney Slams President Obama at CPAC
Gingrich: Pres. Obama 'waging War on Religion'
5 Killed in Wrong-way Crash on I-10 in La.
Uzbek Man Pleads Guilty in Plot to Kill Obama
Denver's Largest-Ever Drug Bust Nets Dozens
Marines: No Punishment for Nazi-like Flag
Vets Look to Translate Military Skills Into Jobs
Raw Video: School Bus Burst Into Flames
LA School Reopens Amid Sex Abuse Scandal
$25B Settlement Reached Over Foreclosure Abuses
Pentagon: Allow Women Closer to Front Lines
LA School in Sex Abuse Scandal Reopens
Raw Video: Italy's Mount Etna Bursts Into Life
