The mayor says the owner of Memorial Park Cemetery is working to address the complaints

Sioux City Mayor Bob Scott said the company that owns Memorial Park Cemetery has heard citizens' concerns and is working to address them.

"I'm not going to promise our residents that this is going to change overnight," said Scott, who along with City Manager Bob Padmore recently met with Sioux City-based Everstory Partners.

At the May 22 council meeting, Scott said the condition of the cemetery is the "biggest complaint" he has received in the past three months.

Many citizens have contacted city officials to complain about the deteriorating condition of the cemetery on the east side of Sioux City. They also called The Journal and signed a petition called "Save Memorial Park Cemetery" on change.org . The petition, which was created on May 23, cites broken roads, neglected lawns, inoperable water spigots, and rotting signs, trees and the Tower of Legends monument as ongoing problems at the cemetery. As of Monday evening, the petition had collected more than 2,500 signatures.

"It's not an excuse, but part of their problem is that most of their cemeteries are in Indiana and out east. If you look at their map, they don't have anybody they can lean on," Scott said of Everstory Partners during the council comment portion of Monday's City Council meeting. The Bensalem, Pennsylvania-based company serves more than 50,000 families annually in the U.S. and Puerto Rico through its 389 cemeteries, funeral homes and crematoriums.

Scott said he felt the representative understood the residents' concerns and promised that Everstory Partners would work to control weeds and other problems at the cemetery.

"They're patching some of the holes. Some of them have already washed out. They're going to keep working on it," Scott said. "I was driving by today because I happened to be there. They were doing some repair work there."

Memorial Park was established in 1936. A corporation headed by F.C. Lytle and J.M. Gunnell purchased 40 acres of land on Old Highway 141 for the cemetery, according to an article published in The Journal on September 28, 1947.

StoneMor Inc. which rebranded as Everstory Partners in April, acquired the cemetery from Service Corporation International in 2007.