Mourning commute: Council asks if police fee takes fun from funerals
Write a letter to the editor
Until recently, Charlottesville Police (not shown here) conducted four to five daily escorts.FLICKR/MARC.BENTON
The Charlottesville Police Department sent an emissary to City Council Monday to explain something that’s been festering since May, when the CPD decided to stop routinely providing free funeral processions and begin charging $150 when officers are asked to corral mourning traffic.
“It was time-consuming,” Lt. Ronnie Roberts told the Council. “Resources were being pretty much depleted to meet this objective.”
This objective is the time-honored practice of getting a body-filled hearse from church to graveyard. But in recent years, such trends as secular services, graveside funerals, cremations with exotic ash scatterings, and even motorist ennui have crashed these end-of-life parties.
“Society changed,” Roberts said. “Most people don’t pull over.”
Councilor Kristin Szakos told the Council audience that she was the person who asked for the explanation from the Police Department after getting some feedback from constituents while walking her dog.
“I think it’s really too bad,” Szakos said. “It does seem to be a generational thing.”
Mayor-Councilor Dave Norris seconded that emotion.
“I share Ms. Szakos’ sadness because we don’t honor the dead as we used to,” said Norris. “It’s part of the culture, and we’re losing that.”
One interesting sidelight to the October 4 discussion was a revelation about the productivity of parking ticket-writing. The officers pulled for an hour or two from their tire-chalking and ticket-writing duties when a funeral calls give up writing “approximately fifteen parking tickets per hour.” In all, according to a report by the police chief, funeral escorts were costing the city $100,000 to $150,000 in lost parking fines.
From now on, according to the policy, procession requests that come from funeral homes with 24-hour notice would still be conducted for $150.
Before the policy change, Roberts said, the CPD would typically provide four to five escorts per day, but in the last two weeks, only one funeral opted to pay for the service. The Department began advising funeral homes of the policy change in May.
Lt. Roberts also shared with Council a tale of a colleague in another jurisdiction who was seriously injured when a car invaded a funeral procession. And Roberts noted that Charlottesville would join other localities who avoid legal liability for mishaps by limiting its offers of free processions.
“I defer to your professional judgment,” Mayor Norris told Roberts who concluded of free funeral processions: “I think it’s a policy that has outlived its time.”
And we all know the purpose of the PD is revenue generation. Recent events prove it is certainly not crime prevention.
“In all, according to a report by the police chief, funeral escorts were costing the city $100,000 to $150,000 in lost parking fines.”
Will the free service resume after the traffic light camera(s) are installed? The camera(s) will generate *much* more revenue per hour than parking tickets…
I think it is rediculous! I think there will be more accidents with the new policy in place because due to traffic delays (stop lights, other drivers cutting in the middle of funeral processions because they know there is no police escort anymore, etc.) there are people who don’t get to the funeral by time the graveside service starts. OR, they rush and drive recklessly to try to get to the grave site on time. As for the $150 fee, believe it or not there are many families who simply can’t afford it. Frankly, I don’t care if drivers pull over or not, but I do care that they recklessly cut in line.
the next time an active or former police officer dies, i guarantee there will be a police escort for that procession…and i also guarantee the family will not have to pay $150 for it.
What about those Albemarle cops who direct traffic every Sunday (and sometimes other days) in front of the Covenant Church on Rio Road? I sure hope the church is being charged a fee for taking up those resources (and I hope the cops are getting overtime).
The cop shoppes charge for alarm activations now too. I wonder how much this has generated in revenue for the city and county?
Let’s see…. they encourage people to file incident reports online, alarm activation fees, funeral escort fees, charges for traffic control at John Paul Jones arena, charge business owners for protection by off duty cops, etc… What services do they perform on the tax dollar that we and business owners are already paying?
They went from a low estimate of 56 processions to 1 in the first two weeks. While some people cannot afford $150, I highly doubt that was the reason the majority decided against it. To me that seems to point to the fact that people don’t really value the service much, but will certainly take it if it is free. If you do the math, this is saving them ~44 hours a week. The way i see it, the citizens are no longer paying for a dedicated person to do processions for private religious services.
deleted by moderator
If we can give crack whores welfare then we can certainly give a policemans time for a funeral escort.
The fee should be waived for the poor if they are citizens of the city or any residnent who has lived here either their entire life or more than 50 years or is a veteran. The law should also state that Funeral homes cannot charge a seperate handling fee for collecting or setting it up.
Calling a funeral a “private religous service” is a stretch. Even atheists have funerals.
If people in the funeral procession are obeying traffic laws, then there is really no reason that traffic lights, or people cutting in line should be a problem at all. Obviously the police don’t think so or they wouldn’t have asked for that change in policy.
I have made it from the corner of First and Markets streets, the site of one funeral home, to the cemetery by the river in 5 to 10 minutes quite easily any number of times. No police escort needed. I have even encountered lights, stop signs, and other motorists along the way without incident.
Good to know Kristin Szakos can take a tough stance on a really pressing issue like this though.
It seems that only Charlottesville has slipped through the wrinkle in decency, and citizens know not what the proper respect means. Drive just 70 miles south, and attend a funeral in Lynchburg. One officer is all that is required. On two lane roads, people will pull over and wait. If you have your headlights on, no one tries to butt into line. So, it seems to be a geographical issue.
It seems to be true that they are charging for alarm activation as well. I guess we need to revert back to the old tried and true. Save your money and your life, buy a Smith and Wesson, and protect yourself. I think that the constitution still allows for that, at least for the moment.
So let me get this straight. We pay real estate taxes, personal property taxes, income taxes, and sales taxes. There are more people than ever which translates to more taxpayers than ever.
And now it’s gotten to the point that you have to pay for trash pickup, ambulance transport, fire protection (see news article about event in TN), and now funeral escorts?
They should contract this duty out to private security ‘officers’.
Dan, have you ever sat down and figured out –EVERY– tax you pay in a month’s time? Do it one day, you would be quite surprised at the bottom line. And I’m talking about adding in even the taxes on all your utility bills each month. Gas, water, electric, home phone, cell phones, etc… for example. And when I say gas, I also mean gas coming into your home and the per gallon you pay on road fuel. All of this on top of the taxes you mentioned and income taxes.
At the end of the month you should consider yourself lucky if you have 45% to 50% of your net income left for your mortgage, food, automobile and clothing.
The Charlottesville Utility Tax on the electricity coming into my home was $15.00 this month. Dominion Power collects it from every customer and pays it into the city.
“we don’t honor the dead as we used to,” said Norris. I don’t think the City treats/spends as much time/money on Maplewood Cemetery and Oakwood Cemetery as the the City did in the past either. So I’d be carefull of the City getting on a high horse.
In 1963 the old burial record book for Maplewood & Oakwood were sent to UVa for microfilming. Good thing since the City has lost/destroyed the Maplewood burial book since then and the only copy is the one made in 1963. It looks like the indigent burial book for Oakwood copied in 1963 has also been lost or destroyed since then. J.N. Bailey’s grave in Maplewood was so covered up with boxwood I got them to cut it back. Now the stone is being weed wacked so it probably would have been better off hidden in the box wood. etc etc. So the City’s record is not great with me concerning the deceased.
Sam, I think if we were all to put our heads together and try to come up with a list of things the city does manage well that it would be a pretty short list in the end.
Unlike in the world of private employment, mismanaging city owned assets doesn’t get you replaced. Look at how badly the Downtown Mall was neglected for years and how poorly the extension projects on 3rd and 1st streets were managed.
The Mall is much more visible than a city owned cemetery and countless people watched and were negatively affected by what happened there right in the middle of things. Do you think Jim Tolbert or anyone else fears in any way for the loss of his job though?
The response to the snow removal problem this past year by the Department of Public Works was equally visible and equally badly managed with again no consequences being suffered by those in charge. That lack of accountability at the top is not lost on the guys lower on the totem pole.
If the city were to hire a tough city manager things might change, but they will most likely give a rubber stamp to the current acting city manager citing a need for “diversity” or some such and the good old boy network of mutual back-scratchers will stay put.
We can all expect the price we pay in taxes and new fees to keep going up and the quality of the service we get for it to keep going down until we fix the real problem here, which is a city council composed of members who at best seem barely qualified to hold public office. Szakos herself is a prime example of that.
A free clue for this person they call Norris… the city needs to put a tall fence around Maplewood and Oakwood. And lock them both at dark. Tombstones are being vandalized and/or totally destroyed in both cemteries at an alarming rate!!!!