WQXE News

The Elizabethtown City Council met for a work session Monday.

City Administrator Ed Poppe discussed an ordinance that will be introduced to restrict parking on Skyline Drive in the Glendale Hill neighborhood. Poppe said a citizen contacted the city with concerns and the city’s Planning and Development Department reviewed the request.

“They looked at that area, looked at pavement widths, looked at accidents, and the recommendation was that yeah, we need to restrict on-street parking along that roadway because of various factors,” said Poppe.

Poppe said looking at that request led to a review of other needs in the neighborhood including adding a crosswalk near the Wesley Hilltop House to accommodate its parking lots and widening Miller Street along property recently donated by the city to Habitat for Humanity.

The Elizabethtown City Council will next meet for a regular session on March 18. 

The Radcliff City Council also met for a work session Monday. The council discussed an ordinance concerning the certification and regulation of recovery residences that comes on the heels of similar ordinances passing in Elizabethtown and going up for approval from the Hardin County Fiscal Court. Radcliff Mayor J.J. Duvall said it is important for area entities to take a unified approach.

“We believe, in partnership with Vine Grove and Radcliff, that since Elizabethtown has passed this ordinance and they begin to work towards enforcement, we feel that it’s important that both of our communities have this put in place, same as Elizabethtown” Duvall said. “That way all of us are on the same page, and you don’t see them skipping from city to city trying to bypass these regulations.”

The ordinance will go up for its first reading at the next regular city council meeting, which will be held March 19.

A Radcliff man is dead following a Sunday crash in Breckinridge County that came after a police chase.

The Kentucky State Police says at approximately 5:30 p.m. on March 10 a trooper was conducting speed enforcement on KY-313 in Meade County when a vehicle traveling at a high rate of speed went by. The trooper initiated a traffic stop but the operator of the vehicle refused to stop.

The pursuit continued onto KY-333 before entering Breckinridge County. The pursuit ended when the fleeing vehicle crossed the centerline near the intersection of KY-333 and McDonald Lane and into the path of an oncoming vehicle.

The operator of the fleeing vehicle, identified as 51-year-old Rodney Richards of Radcliff, was pronounced dead at the scene by the Breckinridge County Coroner’s Office. The driver of the other vehicle was flown to the University of Louisville Hospital and a 14-year-old passenger in that vehicle was flown to Norton Children’s Hospital, both with life-threatening injuries.

The KSP Critical Incident Response Team’s investigation of the crash is ongoing.

The attorney for Crystal Rogers investigation suspect Steven Lawson is joining the change of venue motion filed in the case.

Attorney Ted Lavit on Friday filed a motion asking the Nelson Circuit Court to adopt the change of motion filed on behalf of Brooks Houck which asks the court to move the trial to either Boyd County or Daviess County to avoid pretrial publicity. The motion by Houck’s attorneys states that due to extensive media coverage since Rogers’s disappearance the defendants will not be able to get a fair trial in Nelson County, so Boyd and Daviess counties are ideal options as they are not in the Louisville or Lexington TV markets.

The motion will be discussed during a pre-trial conference scheduled for March 21. That is the same day that Lavit plans to also discuss his motion to dismiss the Conspiracy to Commit Murder and Tampering with Physical Evidence charges against Steven Lawson due to his claim that the prosecution offered him immunity in exchange for his cooperation.

Special Prosecutor Shane Young stated during a previous hearing that he intended to have a motion ready to file in time for the March 21 pre-trial conference in order to try Houck, Lawson, and third suspect Joseph Lawson in the same trial. Young also said he expected discovery in the case to be completed prior to the March 21 pre-trial conference.