A pedestrian safety ordinance that was tabled two weeks ago is back on the agenda for tonight’s Hopkinsville City Council meeting.
At the council’s Oct. 1 meeting, Mayor Carter Hendricks said city staff needed more time to work on the ordinance before it came up for a vote, so he asked that it be delayed.
The ordinance would prohibit jaywalking on busy streets downtown, and elsewhere, and would make it illegal for sidewalk panhandlers to step into a street to take anything from a motorist who isn’t legally parked at the side of the street.
The first ordinance would have applied to several streets downtown — Seventh, Ninth, Walnut, South Virginia and South Main — and to Fort Campbell Boulevard from 21st Street to Pennyrile Parkway.
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The ordinance that will be considered tonight adds sections of several more streets, including Canton, Cox Mill Road, Country Club Lane, East 21st, Glass Avenue, LaFayette Road, McLean Avenue, North Drive, North Main, North Virginia, Skyline Drive and West 14th.
The council meeting begins at 6 p.m. at the Hopkinsville Municipal Center, 715 S. Virginia St.
Jennifer P. Brown is co-founder, publisher and editor of Hoptown Chronicle. You can reach her at editor@hoptownchronicle.org. Brown was a reporter and editor at the Kentucky New Era, where she worked for 30 years. She is a co-chair of the national advisory board to the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues, governing board past president for the Kentucky Historical Society, and co-founder of the Kentucky Open Government Coalition. She serves on the Hopkinsville History Foundation's board.
