The Eureka Springs Cemetery Commission has approved spending up to $11,000 for a project for new signs for the various blocks and streets to help visitors find gravesites.
At its regular monthly meeting held Monday, Oct. 7, the commission voted 4-0 to work with Ozark CNC and Design of Eureka Springs on the project researched by commissioner Matthew Pankrez.
The agreement is for block signs, and also adding street signs if costs allow.
“I’d like to make a motion to accept a design from Ozark CNC and determine the additional cost for street and blocks, and determine the project is not to exceed $11,000, without the commission readdressing the project,” commissioner LB Wilson said. “If you can get this done for under $11,000.”
Commissioners had already approved and budgeted a sign project, they discussed.
“I believe every cemetery I’ve ever been to, and I’ve been to a bunch of them,” Pankrez said. “Ours is a little bit unique in that we have signs for the blocks and signs with street names on them.
“I think in the grand scheme of things, anybody that’s looking for a particular grave site, if they came to that office and you looked it up, you would say that it’s in block 5. You’re not going to say it’s on Smith Street. You’re going to tell them what block it’s in.”
Pankrez said Ozark CNC has done a lot of work for the city and the block sign project would call for a six-foot cedar post, finished with an oil, two feet into the ground with an aluminum sign.
The signs would be approximately $125 each, Pankrez said.
“Doing it in treated pine would be considerably less, but the cedar is going to last four times as long as the pine will.”
Street signs proposed will be powder-coated black and could include a pine cone design on them, commissioners discussed.
Pankrez said he recommended reducing the number of street signs to cut costs on posts, which cost the most money.
“You could reduce the number that you have by strategically putting them on the intersections, and instead of just doing one sign at the intersection, maybe you do two signs,” he said. “This is the street this way, this is the street this way, this is the street this way. So you do one post with two signs on it.
Wilson reminded his fellow commissioners that the cemetery had another bid recently that would install posts for $25 a post.
“Installing them is actually pretty easy, but $25 is not bad,” Pankrez said.
The project proposed is under budget, Wilson told commissioners.
“We have the money for it,” commission chair David Danvers said. “…I’d really like to resolve this and get this done this year.”
Wilson agreed. “This is the best thing I’ve seen,” he said.
In another expenditure approved, the commission approved a motion to purchase flags to be displayed year-round on all veterans’ graves, at a cost not to exceed $500.
