Demorest Adopts Cemetery Rules After Striking Provision Before Vote

Demorest City Council unanimously adopted a modified cemetery ordinance on June 4, 2024, approving it 4-0 after the mayor and council had requested that section 27.7(D) be removed during a work session earlier that day. In the regular session, Councilman Ferguson made the motion to accept the ordinance as modified and Councilman Allen seconded it, turning a measure still being revised into an approved city ordinance.

The decision establishes the city’s framework for cemetery matters, making the final wording consequential for city officials, cemetery users and residents who may rely on the rules in the future. Council did not simply approve the version presented for a second reading; it approved a version altered before the vote. That distinction matters because the signed meeting minutes confirm adoption but do not reproduce the complete ordinance that passed.

The June vote followed a series of revisions rather than a single up-or-down decision. At a May 7 work session, officials discussed a revised cemetery ordinance, and the mayor requested that the final sentence of section 27-11 and section 27-10(a) be struck. By the ordinance’s second reading on June 4, the mayor and council sought another deletion, this time section 27.7(D). The council then voted later that day to accept the ordinance as modified.

The meeting record identifies the mayor and council as the officials requesting the deletions during the ordinance’s review. Ferguson and Allen formally moved the modified measure forward in the regular session, and all four council members supported its adoption. The minutes do not record a separate public position from cemetery users, residents or other outside parties, nor do they explain why the identified provisions were targeted for removal. As a result, the record establishes the council’s action but not a broader debate over the changes.

Adoption is complete: the signed regular-session minutes record a unanimous 4-0 vote accepting the cemetery ordinance as modified. The removal of section 27.7(D) was a requested revision before that vote, not a proposal left pending. But the work-session and regular-session minutes do not state the full final text, and they do not restate the language of section 27.7(D). They therefore cannot show every rule in the adopted ordinance or how the deletion affected the measure’s remaining provisions.

The next public step for residents is publication or codification of the cemetery ordinance’s complete official text. That document could confirm the language adopted after section 27.7(D) was removed and provide a clear version of the rules to follow. No later record here establishes when the ordinance took effect, whether it was subsequently amended, or whether the council took further cemetery-related action. Those questions remain unresolved until a later official record addresses them.