TUCSON, Arizona (13 News) – Families are picking up the broken pieces left on their loved ones’ gravestones after the city of Willcox removed them.

What was planned as landscaping surprised relatives after their family had been buried there for years.

Respect for the dead also includes preserving the place where they found their final resting place. But the way the city of Willcox handled this issue at Sunset Cemetery has angered the relatives.

“It’s a sacred place,” said David Noland as he stood next to his daughter’s grave.

Noland visits his daughter at the cemetery where she was buried three years ago.

“It’s still difficult today,” he said.

But on Sunday he heard something new from others at the cemetery: the graves were being cleared of personal items. The next day he found a whole pile of them.

“Yeah, I feel sorry for them, well, you can see everything over there, the people who didn’t know,” Noland said, pointing to where the things were.

“Someone else has no right to touch the things that belong to my father,” said Jennifer Norris-Furgason as she stood next to her father’s grave.

Norris-Furguson has been visiting her father here for over a decade and says she has never dealt with grave clearance in this way before.

“And it’s tough. And you know, some people say, ‘Oh my God, the city told you, the city told you, the city told you, it’s your own fault, it’s your own fault,’ and that just shows what kind of character they have when they put the blame on the person who has a loved one here,” Norris-Furgason said.

“This all started about two years ago when the town council was looking at ways to fix the headstones because if you look at the stones there, they’re pretty uneven. They’re not, they haven’t been level for some time and we’re trying to find a way to change that,” said Michael Resare, Willcox’s deputy town manager.

Resare said the city has posted a notice online and signs indicate what is allowed.

“In fact, a lot of the information is on Facebook and the Internet. It’s been available there for some time,” Resare said.

“The city can mail you a bill for gas, sewer and water, but they don’t even bother to include a note,” Norris-Furgason said.

She and Noland believe more could have been done to prevent an unwanted surprise in a place where they wanted to visit their loved ones in peace.

“There were two solar lights right on the edge, the cross was in the middle and this vase, and they mowed around it with no problem, and now all of a sudden it’s a problem,” Noland said.

Relatives said they would raise the issue at the next city council meeting in September.

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