Relatives of people buried at Richards Cemetery in North Little Rock pleaded Monday for the North Little Rock City Council to intercede in a dispute over part of an apartment complex they say blocks a former road to the cemetery.
Access to the small, fenced cemetery near 46th Street and Smokey Lane is blocked by a portion of sodded grass that now covers what used to be a city street adjacent the Fountaine Bleau North apartments, 4401 E. 46th St., those who addressed council members said Monday.
"The road we have to drive on to get to the cemetery, they grassed that over and taken our road completely out," said Ida Nuss of Maumelle, the first of eight people who spoke to the City Council. "All we want is our road back. Something needs to be done."
John D. Richards VI of Little Rock said that the apartment complex developer laid sod and put in a sprinkler system on the street that went to the cemetery, causing the onetime roadway to be impassable to vehicles.
"Our biggest complaint is the accessibility of it," Richards said. "The people buried there are very, very important to us."
Aldermen didn't address the issue during the meeting. Mayor Joe Smith was absent to attend a Solid Waste Association of North America meeting out-of-state. Alderman Beth White was acting mayor.
City spokesman Nathan Hamilton said after the meeting that the roadway was a dedicated city street. The apartment complex was completed last fall.
"That cemetery has been up there forever and ever," Freda Richards Graham Williams of Quitman told aldermen. "We cannot get up there. We would like y'all to intervene. We want put back what we had in the beginning."
"It's just a real important place to a lot of people," Norman Earle of Greers Ferry said of the cemetery.
Metro on 08/25/2015