COUNCIL CONSIDERS RESTRICTIONS ON PARADES

The Cape Girardeau City Council tonight will address some of the concerns expressed earlier this month by the local NAACP and consider changes to the city law that regulates parades.

In a letter to the city council, Police Chief Howard Boyd said the proposed changes would give the police department "wider latitude" to regulate parades in the city.

"The present ordinance, as written, requires a permit only for those parades containing 200 or more persons, or 50 or more vehicles," Boyd wrote. "The police department requests authority to require a permit for any parade, march, ceremony, show, exhibition, pageant, or procession of any kind" on city streets.

Earlier this month, representatives of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People proposed that the council pass such march-permit measures.

They also asked for a law that would prohibit participants in public marches and gatherings from wearing masks or hoods to hide their faces.

The requests were made in light of fears that the Ku Klux Klan was planning a June rally in Cape Girardeau.

But Boyd told the NAACP that leaflets circulated earlier in the year advertising the event were distributed by a single man who no longer lives in the area.

The police chief has said such a rally is unlikely, but that the police department would consider some of the suggestions made by the NAACP and others concerned about the potential for Klan rallies here.

The council also will consider a law to prohibit parking on the west side of the 200 block of Clark Street in front of Central Junior High and Senior High schools.

In March, the council considered a petition signed by residents living and working in the area that requested the action. The council took no action, though, because the police department recommended that no change be made due to occurence of traffic accidents.

But at the council's last meeting, May 4, Boyd said that upon further evaluation, the department wouldn't oppose the parking ban. The council tonight will consider first reading of the ordinance.

In other business, the council will consider:

Acceptance of improvements and authorization of tax bills for the final streets in last year's three-inch asphalt overlay program. Tax bills for the streets, Hazel, south of Themis, and Dumais Drive, will total $10 and $5.96 per front foot, respectively.

An ordinance authorizing a contract with Kelley Transportation Co. to operate the city's subsidized taxi-coupon service, and an ordinance authorizing a state grant to fund the program.