By J.B. Smith

Tribune-Herald staff writer

A public hearing Thursday in Waco about state rules on cemetery visitation threatened to become a forum about the city of Waco’s handling of graves found at the Texas Ranger Museum grounds.

The Texas Funeral Services Commission is holding a series of hearings around the state to clarify laws that grant public access to cemeteries, even if they are on private land.

The commission is proposing that landowners be required to grant access to cemeteries during “reasonable hours,” meaning 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., for purposes of burying bodies or paying respect to the deceased. Also, under the proposal, landowners can’t impose burdens on visitors, such as requiring them to have liability insurance.

The meeting at McLennan Community College drew 23 people, including representatives of historical societies from Bell and Hill counties.

Joe Button of the Bell County Historical Society said he and other historians often desire to visit remote graveyards to maintain and record graves. He urged the commission to specify that such visits are covered under the rules.

But more of Thursday’s comments revolved around the graves the city of Waco has been exhuming from Fort Fisher Park as it attempts to run utility lines to the new Company F headquarters at the Texas Ranger Museum.

John Griggs, an archaeologist who worked on the exhumation project until the firm who hired him was fired, blasted the city for denying him access to part of the graveyard.

He accused the city of trying to arrest him when he was showing the fenced-off archaeological site to a county commissioner. Griggs said the law contains no exceptions for areas of a cemetery that are under construction, and he argued that other laws prohibit construction in cemeteries altogether.

The Texas Ranger Museum and Fort Fisher Park were built in the late 1960s on an old city burial site that had come to be known as First Street Cemetery. The city at the time got a court order to move graves, but evidence has emerged that mainly headstones were removed, not bones.

Griggs said the Funeral Services Commission should request an attorney general’s opinion about whether the site should be treated as a cemetery.

Several other speakers expressed dismay at the city’s continued exhumations at the site, including Waco historian T. Bradford Willis, who suggested tearing down the new Ranger annex or turning it into a First Street Cemetery interpretive center or a black history museum.

City Attorney Leah Hayes objected that the intent of Thursday’s meeting was not to be a debate about Waco’s handling of the museum expansion.

“Waco was not informed of the nature of the meeting,” Hayes said. “We have not received any complaints from persons who said they have been denied access to visit gravesites.”

She went on to argue that the expansion area at the Ranger complex was a public park, not a dedicated cemetery, and was not subject to the access laws.

Griggs ridiculed that statement.

“I guarantee it’s a cemetery,” he said. “You can call it a park, you can call it a restaurant, but there are thousands of people buried out there. You can play games with words, but it’s a cemetery.”

Chet Robbins, executive director of the commission, agreed that the public hearing was not intended to sort out legal issues at the Texas Ranger Museum but to get input on proposed rule changes. He said the public comments from the meeting will be compiled and studied before the final rules are drafted.

jbsmith@wacotrib.com

757-5752