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Chapter 8-7: Cemeteries25
(a) Columbia Cemetery is located between College and Pleasant Avenues immediately west of Ninth Street, and has also at times been called the Pioneer Cemetery or the Pioneer Gateway. It was established through the purchase by the Columbia Lodge No. 14, A.F. and A.M. (the Masons), in 1870, of ten acres for cemetery purposes on what was then the edge of town. In 1870 the Boulder Lodge No. 9, I.O.O.F. (the Odd Fellows) purchased an interest in the cemetery. In 1912 the Park Cemetery Association acquired title to the cemetery from the Masons and the Odd Fellows. The city took title to the Columbia Cemetery from the Association in 1966, when the Association could no longer financially support the site. The city accepted an administrators deed (the Association being in receivership at the time) with several reservations, including a requirement that only those persons possessing a deed to a plot were to be buried there in the future, and that sale of lots would cease. In 1977 the cemetery was designated as a landmark site by ordinance 4252, and in 1997 was listed on the National Register of Historic Places. This chapter is intended to supplement laws applicable to conduct on public property generally by establishing rules for conduct of persons while within or otherwise affecting the Columbia Cemetery. The cemetery is operated by the city principally for its traditional private purposes as a resting place for the dead, for those who are visiting these graves, for burials and grave side services, and for maintenance of the grounds. Because it was established in 1870, it is also a repository of the city's history, and its management is secondarily guided by preservation of its historic character for the public good.
(b) While the public is generally permitted on the cemetery subject to the law and the restrictions of this chapter where not inconsistent with its private and public purposes, the cemetery is not a public park and is not a public forum. It has no chapel or other building for gatherings of people, no significant area not already occupied by graves, and no place for parking vehicles.
(c) Unlike some cemeteries operated by other cities since their inception or nearly so, it is only recently as time is measured in the cemetery business that the city became the owner of this old cemetery. While burials in the cemetery are now infrequent, there are persons claiming rights in cemetery lots or grave spaces based on purchase long before the city owned the cemetery. Proof of such rights is often difficult, because some records believed to have existed have disappeared, the Masonic Lodge #14's deed book does not begin until 1887, it was not necessary by law to record purchases of cemetery lots or grave spaces, and some mortuaries did not specify exact locations of burials, sometimes simply saying "Potter's Field" or "Columbia Cemetery" for burial locations. Even where the records seem clear as to ownership of apparently unused grave spaces, there can still be uncertainty as to whether they are indeed empty. The council recognizes that some persons who may possess such rights, especially by inheritance, may have little if any proof of such rights, and it is intended that the city manager be vested with wide discretion to deal with these situations as the manager sees fit, considering such records as the city possesses, giving such weight to private records as is appropriate considering the source,26 and with appropriate consideration of the importance of the place of burial to the individuals involved while alive, and to their survivors balanced against the rights of other potential claimants for the space and the need for fair and businesslike operation of the cemetery.
(d) While it is often not immediately obvious to the casual visitor, many of the grave markers in the cemetery are fragile (despite being, in many cases, made of stone, metal, or other usually durable materials), and are subject to being overturned with little force. Significant restrictions on the use of the cemetery are necessary to prevent damage to these historic and venerated objects, and to guard against injury to persons from toppling grave markers.
As used in this chapter, the following words have the meanings given unless the context otherwise requires:
"Burial" means the permanent disposition of human remains by burial, including earth interment, under the ground, entombment, interment, or dispersal of cremated remains.
"Cemetery" means the Columbia Cemetery located between College and Pleasant Avenues immediately west of Ninth Street.
"Cremated remains" means the ashes of a body which has been cremated.
"Earth interment" means burial of a body, or portions of a body, which has not been cremated.
"Flat marker" means a flat marker made of metal, stone, or other durable material signifying that a person is buried there and set in the ground so it is flush with the ground or protrudes but slightly, and whose visible inscription is entirely upon the top. Flat markers are distinguished from upright markers because they have little tendency to be overturned due to their geometry and low center of gravity.
"Flower receptacle" means an urn or other container made of metal, stone, or other durable material not subject to shattering which is part of or is attached to a grave marker.
"Grave goods" means token objects temporarily placed on a grave as a token of remembrance or respect.
"Grave marker" means a flat or upright marker over a grave space, and includes, without limitation, headstones, tombstones, grave stones, memorials, monuments, monoliths, nameplates, rocks, urns, inscriptions, or any other physical object used to identify a grave or graves.
"Grave space" means a space or grave room intended to be used for the burial of the remains of one person. Grave spaces are the smallest subdivision of a lot. Grave space is synonymous with grave, grave room, grave site, or plot where those terms are used in documents. The fact that in some instances the remains of more than one person have been buried in a single grave room, or that this chapter makes provision under some circumstances for burial of more than one person, does not affect this definition except in those contexts.
"Lot" means a platted lot within the cemetery containing five, six, twelve, sixteen, eighteen, or twenty-four grave spaces as specified for the particular lot. Lots are subdivisions of a section.
"Mortuary" means a funeral home or funeral establishment operated in conformance with the laws of the state.
"Section" means one of the fourteen main divisions of the cemetery, each of which contain varying numbers of lots, with each lot in turn containing varying numbers of individual grave spaces. The sections are labeled A through F, Avenue Reserve, Boulder Avenue Reserve, Central Avenue Reserve, Columbia Avenue Reserve, East Avenue Reserve, North Avenue Reserve, South Avenue Reserve, and West Avenue Reserve.
"Upright marker" means a grave marker which protrudes significantly above the ground and has space for visible inscriptions on a side or sides.
"Vehicle" has the meaning given in chapter 7-1, "Definitions," B.R.C. 1981.
(a) No person shall enter or remain in the cemetery after sunset and before sunrise.
(b) "Sunset" and "sunrise" have the meaning defined in chapter 7-1, "Definitions," B.R.C. 1981.
(c) This prohibition does not cover city maintenance activities, mortuary employees or contractors if a burial permit allows their presence during those hours to dig or fill a grave, city sponsored events, or special events for which a permit has been issued by the city manager.
No person shall enter or leave the cemetery other than through the entrance gates at the corner of Ninth Street and Pleasant Avenue, on College Avenue just west of Ninth Street, at the western cemetery boundary just north of College Avenue, and on Pleasant Street approximately midway between Ninth Street and the western cemetery boundary.
(a) No person shall cast, throw, or propel any projectile on, into, or from the cemetery.
(b) Projectile includes, without limitation, balls, boomerangs, bottles, darts, food items, frisbees and other like devices, paint balls, model airplanes, and rocks.
(c) Snowballs and sticks are not projectiles within the meaning of this section.
8-7-6 Vehicles and Cemetery Drives.
(a) No person shall drive a vehicle within the cemetery except upon the cemetery driveways. It is a specific defense to this violation that the vehicle was a backhoe or other maintenance vehicle driven in accordance with a permit to do so from the city manager pursuant to chapter 4-26, "Cemetery Permits," B.R.C. 1981.
(b) No person shall drive a vehicle within the cemetery at a speed in excess of five miles per hour.
(c) No person shall drive a vehicle onto the cemetery except through the entrance gate at the corner of Ninth Street and Pleasant Avenue.
(d) The city manager may close any portion of the cemetery driveways to vehicular use as may be necessary for maintenance or the prevention of damage to the cemetery grounds, and upon the posting of a sign or other indication of closure, no person shall drive any vehicle upon an area so closed.
8-7-7 Pedestrian Uses Prohibited.
(a) No person shall ski within the cemetery except upon the cemetery driveways.
(b) The city manager may close all or any portion of the cemetery grounds to pedestrian or any other use as may be necessary for maintenance, the prevention of damage to the cemetery grounds, or to mitigate hazards to visitors, and upon the posting of a sign or other indication of closure, no person shall enter or remain in an area so closed.
8-7-8 Grave Marker Rubbings Prohibited.
No person shall make a rubbing from any grave marker in the cemetery.
8-7-9 Treatment of Grave Markers.
No person shall lean against, push, pull, shove, kick, climb on, or strike directly or with any object any grave marker.
(a) No person shall plant within the cemetery any perennial, shrub, tree, flower, or rose except pursuant to a permit issued under chapter 4-26, "Cemetery Permits," B.R.C. 1981.
(b) The city manager may remove any artificial or living floral decoration or other grave space decoration or grave goods if it becomes injurious to the turf on a grave space, unsightly, dilapidated, blown off the grave space, or hinders other care required in the cemetery or poses a maintenance problem. Persons desiring to retain any funeral designs or floral pieces must remove them within forty-eight hours after interment.
(a) Ownership of a grave space by the person named in the deed or other instrument by which the person obtained ownership shall consist of the right to inter one body in one grave space (however that is described in the instrument, and without affecting the validity of an instrument conveying such right for more than one grave space), or the right of one body already interred to remain there, subject to the restrictions on use of that space contained in this code. However, the city or its representatives may perform conservation work on grave markers and grave spaces, at no expense to the owners, that is deemed necessary to preserve and protect the historic integrity of the cemetery. This work includes, but is not limited to, restoration, cleaning, repair or resetting of grave markers, and trimming or removal of vegetation that may obscure, damage, or encroach upon grave markers.
(b) The city manager shall superintend the planting of trees and shrubs in accordance with the Columbia Cemetery Preservation Master Plan for the ornamentation of the grounds.
(c) The city manager may, to the end that the cemetery shall be reasonably cared for as a cemetery in the manager's discretion and subject to the appropriation of adequate funds, provide for the general care and maintenance of cemetery grounds, buildings, sprinkling systems, roadways, drives, walks or paths, drains, signs, fences, gates, plantings, or other cemetery property or facilities of a general nature, including, without limitation:
(1) Mowing and watering turf.
(2) Reseeding or resodding.
(3) Trimming around grave markers, with machine or by hand, as close as possible without risk of damage to the grave markers.
(4) Removal of detrimental plants, noxious weeds, encroaching seedlings and saplings from grounds and on and around grave markers.
(5) General preservation of the cemetery roads, walks, fences, buildings, plantings, signs, and the pruning of shrubs and trees that may have been placed by the cemetery.
(6) Filling in of holes as necessary.
(d) General maintenance shall not be construed as meaning the maintenance, cleaning, repair or resetting of any grave marker placed upon any individually owned lot or grave space.
(e) The city is not responsible for misplaced or broken flower receptacles or grave goods, or for damage by the elements, thieves, vandals, or by causes beyond its control on any grave space.
(f) Nothing in this chapter is intended to waive any immunity the city has.
The ownership of grave spaces is not transferable without the approval of the city manager. No transfer or assignment of any grave space, however described, or interest therein, shall be valid without the consent in writing of the city endorsed upon such transfer or assignment before it is to be effective, and after the document of transfer has been presented to the city manager to be filed in the cemetery records of the city. The city manager may withhold approval of a transfer if proof satisfactory to the city manager of ownership by the transferor is not presented, or if the evidence establishes that the grave space is already occupied. Approval of a transfer does not obligate the city to defend any challenge nor create any rights against the city in any person. Transference of burial space ownership grants only a right of use of this space for burial purposes.
8-7-13 Abandoned Burial Spaces.
(a) Reverts to the City: The ownership or right in or to any unoccupied cemetery grave space shall upon abandonment revert to the city.
(b) Presumption: Failure to inter in any burial space after one hundred years from purchase, transfer or interment in an adjacent grave space commonly owned, whichever is later in time, shall create a presumption that the unoccupied grave space has been abandoned; except that this presumption shall not apply when a letter of intent is filed by the owner or heir in title with the city before the end of the one hundred year period stating the intention to keep specified spaces vacant.
(c) Notice Required: Abandonment shall not be complete unless the registered owners or their heirs or assigns are notified in writing, mailed by first class or certified mail to the last known or registered address, by the city manager. In the event that the address of the owner or owner's heirs cannot be ascertained, then notice of such abandonment shall be sufficient if published in a newspaper of general circulation in Boulder County at least once a week for three weeks.
(d) Failure to Reply: If the registered owner or the owner's heirs or assigns fail to inform the city within sixty days after receipt of notice of abandonment or after final publication of such notice of an intention to retain the grave spaces remaining, then abandonment shall become final and the city may thereafter sell, transfer and convey title thereto. The funds derived from any sale of an abandoned space shall be deposited in the general fund.
(a) No person shall bury any remains, cremated or not, nor disinter any remains, nor do any digging in the cemetery related to any burial without first obtaining a permit for the purpose from the city manager pursuant to chapter 4-26, "Cemetery Permits," B.R.C. 1981. Any burial of a casket or container containing the cremated remains of any person shall adhere to all requirements of a regular earth burial, except that it need not be buried deeper than twelve inches.
(b) The opening and closing of the grave will be the sole responsibility of the mortuary conducting the burial, and shall be at no expense to the city.
(c) All burials shall comply with the following requirements in addition to those which are requirements or conditions of the burial permit:
(1) All the excavation for a grave must be at least six inches from the boundary of the grave space, unless circumstances do not permit. But in no instance shall a grave excavation extend into a grave space which is not under common ownership.
(2) Not more than one body, or the remains of more than one body, shall be interred in one grave space. However, the remains of an infant may be buried in the grave space with a parent, and one cremated remains may be placed in the same grave space with one adult or infant burial or one other cremated remains.
(3) No person engaged in grave opening and closing operations or in erecting a grave marker or other structure shall attach a rope or other device to any grave marker, tree, or shrub. No such person shall scatter materials or tools over adjoining lots or block roadways or walks, or leave material or tools unattended on the grounds, or fail promptly to remove all debris and restore the ground to its original condition.
(4) Any expense to the city for cleaning up to make the grave space reasonably neat, removal of excess soil, repairing damages to adjacent grave spaces or the cemetery generally which is required shall be billed by the city to the mortuary which contracted for the opening and closing.
(5) Any costs incurred for repairs required for damage done to lots, walks, trees, shrubs, drives or other property by the mortuaries or monument dealers or contractors or their agents shall be charged to the mortuary or monument dealer or the contractor or to their principal.
(a) No grave marker shall be installed, removed, moved, altered, or repaired except pursuant to a permit from the city manager pursuant to chapter 4-26, "Cemetery Permits," B.R.C. 1981.
(b) If any grave marker becomes unsightly, dilapidated, is in imminent danger of being stolen or vandalized, has fallen or is in imminent danger of falling, or is a menace to the safety of visitors, the city manager may either correct the condition or remove the marker for protective storage at no expense to the lot owner.
All other applicable city code provisions are in force in the cemetery unless specifically contradicted or altered by some provision of this chapter. Without limitation these include the prohibition on alcoholic beverages, the prohibition against unreasonable noise and against noise exceeding the prescribed decibel limits, the prohibition against damaging city property, the city and state prohibitions against vandalism, the requirement that dogs be on a leash and their excrement be picked up by the dog's guardian or keeper, and the prohibition against littering.
25 Adopted by Ordinance No. 7268.
26 The council particularly recognizes the dedicated work of Mary McRoberts in collecting information on the cemetery.