After last week’s city council meeting, Mayor Carlton Stevens advised LSP Senior Force Leader Castonoble Hooks that a proposal for spending money allotted for Vick Cemetery would be available Monday. I immediately requested a copy.
On Tuesday, Mayor Stevens emailed me the city’s plan. For transparency, I am sharing the City’s plan. The Mayor’s words are in blue bold below. My thoughts, which largely track my emailed response to mayor and council but include extra editorializing), are in red.
The following is the plan that we have for the $50,000 that was given by Rep. [Ken] Fontenot during his tenure as State Representative.
As previously stated, the City of Wilson received an allocation of $50,000 from the State of North Carolina for capital improvements to Vick Cemetery. The City’s intended use of these funds is shown below.
This plan addresses the recommendations made by New South Associates in August 2023. New South Associates provided the recommendations below following its ground-penetrating radar survey. The full report is available for review at the link below. There was no link included in the email. However, if you’d like to read New South’s report, it is here. Please note that the City’s plan does not address, or even mention, all of New South’s recommendations.
Vick Cemetery was deeded to the Cemetery Commission in 2022. At that time the Cemetery Commission assumed responsibility for the maintenance of the cemetery. Notwithstanding this ownership transfer, the City will implement the recommendations from New South Associates. The City has made this curious assertion more than once, which seems to imply that it no longer bears responsibility for Vick. It’s true that it deeded Vick to the Cemetery Commission in 1922, which has since maintained the cemetery. However, the Commission is not a private or independent entity. It is a creature of the City of Wilson, with commissioners appointed by the City, and is ultimately controlled by the City. Here’s a passage from the City’s Fiscal Year 2026 Proposed Budget:
Rep. Fontenot’s $50,000 was allocated to the City of Wilson, not the Cemetery Commission, and the City commissioned the ground-penetrating radar survey in 2022 (prior to transfer, to be clear.) Finally, the City’s action and inaction over more than 100 years harmed Vick, so who better to remediate it?
All work will be done in coordination with and at the direction of New South Associates. The city will further communicate specific timelines to the cemetery commission as the work plan progresses.
Add monument signage to the corners of the cemetery. A survey of Vick Cemetery will be completed and used in conjunction with the maps prepared by New South to determine the location of the signage. The monument signage will be consistent with cemetery signage and would have minimal ground disturbance. The survey will be tied to grid and filed with the Wilson County Register of Deeds. The City’s authorization of a detailed survey to be filed with the Register of Deeds is good news indeed. We’ve been asking for one since the City unaccountably failed to obtain a survey map two years ago. See here and here and here and here. Adding signage with minimal ground disturbance to the corners of the cemetery, under the guidance of New South Associates, is also an appreciated step toward raising the visibility of, and thereby the respect for, Vick Cemetery.
Reappoint bricks at the central monument. Some of the bricks at the monument and walkway are damaged and will be repaired or replaced by hand with minimal ground disturbance. Many of the bricks in the monument pad were inexpertly set and have shifted with soil subsidence and upheaval and root growth. Though their placement over graves was grievously lamentable, repairing and repointing them signals respect for Vick’s dead.
Replace the existing stakes with appropriate grave markers. The stakes placed by New South to mark the edges of the cemetery have been sprayed to control vegetation. Replacing them with at-grade markers will allow for more efficient maintenance. I am not clear about this one. New South placed two types of markers at the modern-day edges of the cemetery. The first were ordinary wooden survey stakes marking the edge of the public right-of-way. The second were small wooden numbered blocks or pegs spray-painted orange and placed at the head and foot of graves that straddle or lie just outside the modern boundary (in what we now regard as right-of-way.) Will the “at-grade markers” distinguish between the two? What type of “at-grade marker” is contemplated?
Stormwater and erosion mitigation. The City of Wilson’s Stormwater Department will lightly hand rake the ditch and slopes and place seed, straw and matting on the slopes as needed to control any further erosion. The city will also research diverting drainage at the east end of the cemetery and filling the ditch to create a more-manageable slope. I appreciate the minimally invasive option of seeding the ditch bank versus installation of riprap or erecting a retention wall for erosion control. I assume the potential diversion mentioned would be aimed at alleviating the problem area shown below. Per New South’s survey and community knowledge, though this area is in the right-of-way, graves lie here. Thus, guidance from cemetery preservation experts is warranted.
In addition, the council has allocated $5,000 for the development and erection of a sign for Vick Cemetery. That is something that we should sit down and discuss in the near future to get that ball rolling. Council actually approved this circa 2021, and it’s fantastic news that they will finally move to effectuate it. Interpretive signage will tell Vick Cemetery’s story and explain its significance in Wilson’s history.
While I am thrilled that Vick Cemetery will be receiving this attention, I reiterate those suggestions (not hereby addressed) set forth in my September 2 letter. I am grateful for this beginning and look forward to continuing dialogue.
I want to reiterate this last paragraph. The City’s plan does not address a number of critical demands. Among other things, there is still no proactive engagement with the descendant community. There’s no mention of investigations into the handling of Vick’s headstones or the placement of electric utility poles in the cemetery. And, most glaringly, there is no commitment to additional GPR-surveying of the public right-of-way (and other unsurveyed strips of land) to identify the location of graves, which was among New South’s recommendations. The demands, arguably, lie outside the scope of a spend plan for capital improvements. Nevertheless, they remain on the table for the continued care of this sacred space.
What are your thoughts on the City’s plans for spending the $50,000 allocated for improvements to Vick?
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how do they know not to simply give this to the LSP ???
You’ll never get me caught up in a misappropriation trap!!!
At the very least, I would hope that after the repairs are done that.are outlined in this report that the city would then publish an expenditure report of the same.